Lindy's Latte - Week Five

      Thursdays are quickly becoming my favorite day. In case you haven’t been paying attention, last week ended in a tie between Probation Probation and the Cobra Commanders. It was disappointing, a letdown, yet I refused to accept defeat. Several hours after the game was called, I checked back to see if any adjustments had been made, the next morning I checked again, and then again the following morning. Nothing. The stench of defeat, thick and gray, wafted through the sliding glass doors, up the stairs. I opened the windows to the fall air, breathed in the crisp pine scent spilling over the brick wall, thankful for the cool October air. This morning broke with a winter’s darkness. Sipping my latte, I decided to check the stats one last time. . . Cobra Commanders 3-1. Oh my! I clicked on last week’s scoreboard, sure Probation Probation must’ve had a point taken away (similar to the infamous Week 3 adjustment suffered by RANK THIS), but no—instead the adjustment added 3 points to CC. Sorry, Curt. I couldn’t help testing you the good/bad news.

      Failure is not an option. Some of you might be familiar with Tom Clancy’s story. It was a fluke that an assistant at some literary agency pulled his manuscript out of a slush pile and read it, fell in love with it, and begged a senior executive to give it a read. In honor of Tom, who died this week, I’d like to look at some of his comments on writing and how they might apply to the Captain’s League:

“The only way to write is to write. You can dream about writing, make notes, make outlines, or sketch out your characters all you want, but the book will not get written until you write it.” OR “The only way to win is to play. You can dream about winning, make notes, make outlines, or sketch out depth charts, but the team cannot win until the game is played.”

“Whenever somebody comes up with a good idea, there’s somebody else who has never had a good idea in his life who stands up and says, ‘Oh, you can’t do that’” or “Whenever somebody take a risk on a sleeper player, there’s somebody else who has never taken a risk in his life who stands up says, ‘Oh, you can’t do that.”

“What success really means, I think, is looking failure in the face and tossing the dice away. You may be the only person who ever knows how the dice come up, but in that knowledge you have something that millions of people will never have—because they were afraid to try.”

      I can’t find the quote, but he also claimed not to be a writer, but a storyteller. He imagined his characters and knew them as if they were his best friends and put them in unbelievable situations. Yet his knowledge and belief in his characters allowed him to sit down and the typewriter and weave the perfect yarn.

      So this week Cobra Commanders are up against Kaep Happy. I admit I’d like to win this matchup, but Cheryl has a stronger team—okay, with all the cross-training she’s much stronger than me and frankly I’m a little scared of her. Sure she’s one of those women who never says anything mean about anyone, sure she’s a God-fearing example of femininity, but I know deep down she knows her player like Clancy knew his characters. She sees them on field, knows their strengths, their weaknesses, has studied their opponents and crafted her starting line-up accordingly. Yes, I’m frightened, but then I have to listen to Tom again:

“What happened to me was pure dumb luck—I’m not the new Hemingway. Of course, fortune does favor the brave. In battle, you forgive a man anything except an unwillingness to take risks. Sometimes you have to put it on the line.” 

So I will put my measly team on the line once again and pray for a win.

This week we will be serving Tom’s Special recipe:

1 oz Jameson Irish whiskey

1 oz Kahlua coffee liqueur

4 oz coffee

Whipped cream

Pour the Jameson and Kahlua into a coffee mug, top off with fresh hot brewed coffee, top with a cone of whipped cream.

Cheers,

Lindy