dead-battery blues

As I was leaving work my car wouldn't start and I'm pretty sure the battery is dead... Árni helped me hill-start it. At first I thought I had just left the lights on, so drove it around for 40 min (halfway to Keflavík) and then went to Þorgeir and Magga's just in case it wouldn't start again, I figured Þorgeir might be able to drive me to get a battery.

Both of their cars were there, but turned out they weren't. And then my car wouldn't start...! So Zofi (of Veska's husband fame) helped me out... did another hill start (this is really fun, using the hill to start the car) this time by myself and got the car back home here. Parked facing downhill on the next street over so that tomorrow I can get the car over to the battery place and drop a load of gold on a battery.

Pedro

"Tomorrow it'll be Pedro Martinez making his first career World Series start with a chance to put the Red Sox ahead, 3-0. Only one team in baseball history has recovered from a 3-0 deficit: the 2004 Boston Red Sox." - Dan Shaughnessy

Immigrant Song

Guess where Zeppelin had just played a show when they wrote this song?

***

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
How soft your fields so green, can whisper tales of gore,
Of how we calmed the tides of war. We are your overlords.

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing.

I'm the reason the Sox won

Sitting in my living room in Iceland by myself last night, listening to WEEI on the net, 4:15 am local time, streets dark and quiet outside my window, feeling elated and amazed by this sudden reversal of the expected order of things, and yet sad that I was stuck here when my old neighborhood was the place to be. "Why do I have to be up here when the Sox are winning down there?" was racing through my head.

And then it occurred to me...

Maybe I'm the reason the Sox won.

See, in 2003, I moved into an apartment at 61 Brookline Ave, directly across from Fenway Park. I thought, "wouldn't it be great if this was the yeeah and I was heeah". And I *was* there, yelling "Cowboy Up!" out of my windows, watching the hordes ride a moving taxi and tip over a Jetta after Oakland Game 5, yelling down at unsupecting Yankee fans in line at Beer Works, and of course, I was there to feel the empty heartache after Aaron Boone's homer, and walk out onto a deserted Yawkey Way after that game.

Then I got to see a sight every day that few in the Nation think about: Fenway Park, frozen over, hibernating through an endless Boston winter, grey light towers standing sentry against a grey sky. It's cold and forgotten at Fenway in the winter, in the wasteland between another crushing defeat and the distant promise of spring training.

Then the new season started, I cheered and got excited and yelled out my window again. I was getting ready to move to Iceland for a new job. On July 21 the movers came and crated away all my things, desks, tables, the bed, the couch, my Sox hat, my Red Sox Century book, the team jacket, and even my Derek Lowe No-No ticket stub... it all went into 2 big crates, into a shipping container, to a warehouse, and then onto an old rusty ship headed north.

So what I think maybe happened was, during the cold cold winter those old ghosts and apparitions at Fenway need somewhere warm to hang out. And they took a liking to my apartment (who wouldn't? the place was great... and you can't beat the couch... and all the Sox stuff made 'em comfortable) and kept coming by, made a habit of it, hanging around in the comfy chairs ... so comfy they hardly noticed when they got wrapped up in brown paper and cellophane, and boxed, and crated...

And then they were in a steel box on a ship steaming into the North Atlantic, no escaping. After two weeks found themselves outside in a the cold and brightness of an unfamiliar (and many say haunted) place...

Meanwhile back in Boston, without the weight of the past the Sox went on a tear... and by the time they got to the ALCS the Yanks couldn't figure out the difference, cause those old superstitious friends they always rely on just weren't there anymore.

Cause I brought 'em all here. And now there's no getting back...

On to the Series! Go Sox!

no-no Lowe

Just found my ticket stub from Derek Lowe's no-hitter against Tampa Bay on April 27, 2002. Got it propped up here. I figure he could use the reminder.

game 7 preview

Well I am gonna stay up tonight and listen to the game. I bought a subscription to Internet radio from mlb.com ($15) and I can hear WEEI in its entirety - local ads for Woburn Toyota included! Makes me feel like I'm at home. Listening to Terry Francona now.

So I'm here in my cozy living room, geothermal radiators on full blast, and the streets quiet outside. I was just peeking outside for the aurora, but the streetlights make it tough to tell. The forecast makes it look like it's right overhead.

It's cold out there, maybe freezing. I spent some time studying at the library tonight. It'll be tough to go to work tomorrow but worth it to hear this game. I guess people in Iceland do this quite a bit for the NBA finals but nobody here seems to care about baseball. :-( I checked around and couldn't find anywhere (hotel or sports bar) to watch the game. Even if I knew someone on the base, it's an hour from here...

Sox talk

Even if the Sox make it to Game 7 and lose, it's still better, cause you know this series is equally tough on the Yanks. Bruise 'em up a little, just like last year.

But maybe that's just my defeatist Boston attitude, combined with my new Icelandic inferiority complex.

windstorm

It's a very gusty windstorm out there. Just now the wind was rocking the car at stoplights and the sea spray was blowing over the seawall and right onto the far lane of Sæbraut - that's the harborside road that looks across at Mt Esja. It's cozy to be at home now, listening to the wind batter the house. It might be tough to be a horse, though.

I just got back from the newest swimming pool sensation - Laugardalur, near the big soccer stadium. It's the biggest and may become my new fave. I'm thinking about joining it. Has some great heitur pottur technology and the swimming part is really nice. It's also on the way home from work.

prophetic words (Sox drop 3 games to Yanks)

This morning I'm pretty happy to be far away from Boston. Although I still feel the pain. It's burning in my chest, a sinking feeling, a gut-wrenching unhappiness. But I know I'll be psyched again by next April, and some tiny irrational sliver inside me is saying, maybe they can do the impossible and win 4-in-a-row... :-)