ichiro and mt. st. helens

yeah, he did it!...last night ichiro surpassed george sisler to become the major league baseball season hit leader with 259...he has two more games and is likely to set a record that may never be broken or he will break his own record...it was very exciting in this dismal mariner season to see the guys run and mob ichiro with hugs and high-fives...we are so used to winning and celebrating division and/or wild card wins and being in the playoffs, so this was very nice, but to be honest, no substitute for winning...ichiro, i'm sure, is not satisfied with what happened to the team, and i think, even in the midst of this record, he considers this season a failure because his "team" did not achieve their potential...as he said in his press conference last night, he is a professional and he seems to me like he "works" the game, rather than playing it...he is the most exciting player in baseball and has been since he came over from japan...he has made this season bearable...tonight we say goodbye to edgar martinez...who will i say, "you da man" to now?...edgar will always be "da man"...so tuesday night the playoffs start, and since i don't have cable i have missed most of the games except mariners on the local fox station occasionally and the saturday fox national games with announcers that drive me nuts, so i get to watch all of the playoff games, so i am very excited...

okay, now back to reality...i will leave shortly to pick up k. and go to the dmv for her written test...then i guess we shop for homecoming dresses...this will be the first weekend since the choir retreat that i have left the apartment on a weekend...so this is good...

mt. st. helens has been coming back to life...for anyone out there reading this, i'll give you some information about me...i live in southeastern washington state, about 2 hours east of mt. st. helens...i lived in the same tri-city area in 1980, when the volcano exploded so violently...it was 3 weeks before my high school graduation, on a sunday morning, and i stayed home from church because of illness...one of my cousins was at our house...watching the mariner game on tv...there was a short, sonic-boom-like sound...then we heard that the mountain had blown up...the baseball game went to a split screen...the m's on one side, and the smoking mountain on the other...announcing the game came to an end, as dave neihaus and probably ken wilson became volcano commentators instead of baseball announcers...we were warned not to go outside due to ash and its effects on eyes and throat...so what does my 15-year-old-ish cousin do but run outside, only to run back in complaining of "eye and throat discomfort"...imagine that...yeah, we got ash around here and the sky changed for a long time...it was an eerie day, like a solar eclipse that wouldn't end...when i went to europe after graduating i took little vials of ash and the huge mt. st. helen's edition of the tri-city herald newspaper to the "homestay" families in france, austria, and spain...the dad of my french family was totally obsessed with the mountain blowing up...he was fascinated by all of the details and my personal experience of it...that brings back some memories..more on that later...