Summer Reading

No, I'm not talking about the kind you dreaded in high school but never really cared about enough to pursue it any further than SparkNotes. I'm talking about a manual. A manual for an internship I have this coming fall in Washington DC. My congressman's office, Chris Shays (R-4), is taking me on in their office and I of course hope to do nothing but great things. Still, the reading they're having me do before hand is a tad intimidating. Here I am, wide-eyed and starstruck about brushing shoulders with the men and women who run our country. A la Mr. Smith.
I know I have a lot to learn, but 53 pages of how to get by is going to be a lot to take in before I head down there. They cover everything from the moment you walk through the door to the moment you leave. And I mean everything. Ever wonder how you get a flag flown in the Capitol? The interns handle it. All correspondences from constituents usual meet our eyes. And we're the front line on telephone connections. Which is to say, we're representing the office in a way that can potentially look really bad for our congressman, hence why we better do well. Boy, I hope I don't let them down. Lucky I have some office experience, otherwise I'm not sure how an outsider like myself could function with career pols. Still, I'm looking forward to it tremendously and I am anxious to see where it takes me down the road.


In other news, the Red Sox seem to be doing their best to give me a heart-attack in my 20's. Once holding a steady 14.5 game lead over the Yankees, it dwindled to as low as 4 this week before resting at 5 for now. The bad news is the momentum is certainly not going in favor of the Sox. The lineup hasn't produced enough runs to back a pitching staff that has been great, led by a bullpen at the head of the league. Well, it WAS at the top until Eric Gagne came aboard. Thats right, the same pitcher who I was hailing earlier. In his most recent outing he struck out the side, but before that he was atrocious giving up leads left and right.
It gets better, though. The schedule for the Sox is significantly easier the rest of the way and it looks like they should be in position to take a few of the games back. Looks like they really needed all those wins in that ginormous lead before to keep off the Yankees. Let's hope they can put together some more quality stretches and head into the fall with something positive on their side.