The World is So Full of a Number of Things

Today El Jefe and I went to the Astros game along with our neighbors. We all bought a season ticket package this year so our seats would be together. If you told me a few years ago that I would become an Astros fan and actually learn something about the game, I wouldn't have believed you.

For years El Jefe (who has an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball and baseball trivia) followed the Astros and major league baseball in general. His mother was one of the few sainted moms who did NOT throw out his baseball card collection from the 50's and 60's. On the few occasions when I accompanied him to a game I usually took a book with me to read. "Watching baseball is like watching paint dry," my sister-in-law opined, and I agreed with her.

I grew up in a household that was not sports-minded. My father loved music and opera and scorned athletics. My mother did follow the Dallas Cowboys and liked football, but that was all. But over the years of being married to a great sports fan, I began to get some appreciation for the games. But not baseball, which seemed to be full of statistical arcania that I couldn't and didn't want to follow.

Then Portia became fascinated with baseball -- she even has her own fantasy baseball team every year. Go Portia! She converted Babs to the cause and I concluded that I needed to make an effort to appreciate it as well or I was going to be left at home by my own self and I hate when that happens. It helped that Houston now has a beautiful baseball park that is fun to visit and has a nice crowd of fans. Now that I understand the game better, I find it enjoyable to follow. Because I can anticipate what may happen and understand why, it is no longer "like watching paint dry."

I've learned that an old gal can change her mind about something she really didn't know that much about. Isn't that true of a lot of things in life? "The world is so full of a number of things, that I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. We can always find something new and interesting in the world God created for us, if we take the time to learn more.