Christmas, the Cubs, Mick and Taylor

Starting sometime before 4:00 AM, all throughout the day, and from what I can tell, raging all night, the storms have been threatening. They’ve threatened. I find its bluster oddly romantic, as I spend the day just me and my dog Taylor. It’s loud, the winds having its way with the trees before me, just a step outside my balcony high enough so I can look down on them. The skies are a mixture of steel grey and muddy blue, dark and foreboding, yet strangely inviting.

“Oh, a storm is threat’ning
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away”
— the Rolling Stones, “Gimme Shelter”

I have no fear of fading away, or at least I don’t at this very moment. 12/22/08 changed my perspective on that. Maybe another time on another day, I may feel differently.

Taylor, on the other hand, I’ve a feeling, feels differently. He’s taking Mick’s words to heart. He vacillates between sitting or sleeping by my side to pacing back & forth clearly agitated. For much of the day, he watched the 2016 championship run by the Chicago Cubs culminating in the World Series win. He was just as ecstatic as I was when the Cubbies broke the curse. Taylor especially smiled, right when Kris Bryant did, when he scooped up the grounder, almost falling as he flung the ball to Rizzo’s glove on first. I smiled at Taylor smiling at Bryant. Many weekends since, including this one, we replay it on repeat, over and over again. It never gets old. I suspect, it never will. Much like Christmas should be lived every day, the Cubs’ championship should be celebrated every day.