Of Airplanes in Flight and Champagne at Night

When I left a lot of things made sense.

The winning bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka was expected to be somewhere in the $30-40 million range.

Jose Valentin wasn't being paid $3.8 million to be the understudy for the guy we really want to play second base (whoever that may be).

Tom Glavine looked certain to return to the Mets.

Zoom forward five days and... well, you already know, it's me who's catching up here. It reminds me of returning from my week at Martha's Vineyard over the 4th of July. When I left a lot of things made sense, then I returned and North Korea had launched a bunch of missiles, Ken Lay had died, and Pedro Feliciano had talked shit about Willie.

The world, it seems, goes on without me paying it any attention.

Well, that's just fine with me if it means a week off from the world in a place like San Miguel de Allende. Never heard of San Miguel? Yeah, neither had I. In short, it's a place somewhere between Mexico City and Guadalajara; you know, South Central Mexico? It's an hour-and-a-half's drive from Leon Airport.

A Friend of Mrs. Glass' and I stayed at the beautiful Casa Quetzal hotel, right there in the heart of the city. Over the course of five days we saw some of the most beautiful Catholic Churches you'll ever see; we went horseback riding around the Mexican countryside; we took a cooking class; we went to a massive art gallery located in a former textile mill (take that Mass MoCA!); we ate more guacamole than you could shake a stick at; we had sunny skies and 75 degrees all day long. And it was glorious.

About this time you may be wondering what gives with the title of this post. Well, great as the vacation was, there was one major downside for the Glass Man.

See, I have a massive fear of flying. I know it's nuts. I know how safe air travel is... and why do I know? Because in an anxious panic I searched the internets, intranets and everything in between looking for reassurance.

The two stats that most resonated with me were the following:

1. You have a 1-in-11 million chance of being in a plane crash.
2. You would have to fly every single day for 15,000 years in order to have a realistic shot at being in a plane crash.

Also encouraging was Lister's roommate's Phil sage counsel.

"A.F.O.M.G.," he told me, "I think you've got a better chance of getting fucked by a Nazi on top of a unicorn than you do of being in a plane crash."

Luckily, shit never went down with the be-unicorned Nazi, but nevertheless, after four BIG flights, here I am.

When I got home last night I was exhausted from a long day of travel, but my palms were no longer sweating, and my heart was no longer racing. I felt like celebrating just a little.

So in to my refrigerator I went, and pulled out my long-chilling half-drunk bottle of Korbel. You don't remember my half-drunk bottle of Korbel. It was the night something beautiful happened. The night the Mets clinched the NL East, September 18, I sat in front of my television set, choked up, and popped open a bottle of Korbel champagne. I got through half the bottle before I called it a night.

Rereading my post just now from the day after the celebrating, one paragraph sticks out in particular:

"I'll be the first to tell you that we have larger, more important goals left to accomplish this year, that this is a team that needs to make (win?) the World Series to be considered a success in every sense of the word."

You know, reading that sentiment again after what happened in the playoffs, I still think it's kind of true. I still think the Mets left money on the table.

But last night I didn't care. As I sat there at the kitchen table devouring some Brio I thought back on my trip to San Miguel de Allende, and as I sat there sipping the rest of that bottle of Korbel I thought back to the Mets clinching the NL East.

And I thought back on the massive anxiety that accompanied my four flights, and sitting there, good food and drink in front of me and good memories behind me, I thought Cot damn, sometimes it's just good to be alive.

- A.F.O.M.G.