Hope and Doubt in New Orleans

What I love about this time of year is the tradition, and it all begins with the Thanksgiving holiday.

My family's got a whole host of traditions for Thanksgiving Day itself and then, later, Christmas. But these past two years I've added two new traditions that really dress up the Thanksgiving weekend.

First is a big group outing with my high school friends the night before Thanksgiving. Started in 2008, this year we went to this all you can eat/drink sushi joint on the lower west.

After dinner was through, two of my friends rock, paper, scissored it to decide the next spot, which ended up being Sway. Normally I'm as anti-Sway as they come, but I was feeling up for anything so I didn't protest.

When we got there the music was loud, the conversation nearly impossible, and the drinks incredibly overpriced, but we were among friends. Sip and Nails came by. The Fat Jew was in attendance. The Sham Wow guy, too... random.

It was a good night. After another great Thanksgiving my second new tradition began Friday afternoon with a trip down to New Orleans, home of Little Miss Citi. It was another great trip to the Big Easy, filled with good people, good food (the beignets... my god, the beignets), and good times.

But amid all the tradition there was a complete and total first for the Glass Man. Monday night I went to my first pro football game, Saints-Patriots at the Superdome.

To say the atmosphere in the dome was electric is a complete understatement. For those who don't follow football, the Saints were 10-0 for the first time in team history going into Monday night. This isn't like the Colts or some other perennial powerhouse going 10-0, this is like the Jets going 10-0.

It's the kind of dream season we all hope the Mets will have someday; the kind of season where the team just finds ways to win each time out. The Saints are having it right now, and the town hardly knows what do with itself.

The noise in the Superdome was loud from the outset, but any time the Pats had a 3rd down or the Saints found themselves in the end zone (which they did repeatedly in a thorough dismantling of New England), the place erupted. By the end of the night the Saints were 11-0. I'm not sure New Orleans believes it.

Seated in front of us, an older fan turned to the man seated next to him and said in complete disbelief, "11-0? I know 0-11. I know 1-10, 2-9. But 11-0? Incredible."

On the way back to Little Miss Citi's parents' place, I found myself thinking back to 2006, the first time a Mets team I'd watched looked as dominant and full of promise as the Saints do right now.

All the talk now in New Orleans is about the playoffs and who they'll play and what if they make the Superbowl and forget that what if they win the Superbowl but wait a second is that even possible this is the Saints we're talking about?

They're the types of questions, as a fan, you dream of asking yourself. They're the questions that come up when you walk that line between hope and doubt. The hope is the sudden success all around you. The doubt is all the seasons that have come before, your entire lifetime of watching the team.

Mets fans get reacquainted with that feeling every so often when they field a team like they did in '06. Right now we'd all kill for that feeling again, though it feels a long way off.

For now I'll just have to be happy for the Saints, for the city of New Orleans, and for Little Miss Citi. Seasons like this, they and we know all too well, aren't as routine as holiday traditions.

- A.F.O.M.G.