I came back from an overnight trip to NYC to see my dad just in time to catch the last inning and a half of GEYA baseball. Colin's team, the Tigers, played the Red Sox. Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, the Red Sox were the better team-just underneath the first place Yankees. I'm not quite sure whether that was an accident, careful ranking pre-season...or the fix was in. Whatever the case, the Red Sox were, last night, better hitters and fielders. My Colin, who had not played last spring, has improved greatly. His two hits were very effectively fielded, though, and the Sox beat the Tigers...ouch, by a score of 10-4.

Across the street from Dad's house in Park Slope, the private school that has taken over one of the mansions on the Park is constructing a building where the playground had been for decades-the workmen have no shame about starting at 7:00 a.m. Sian managed to sleep through the racket. In this once genteel neighborhood of limestone and brownstone Victorians, the thin sheen of civilization fast disappears when it's time to jockey for a spot for the SUV or Mercedes sedan.

Survival of the fittest-it is the law of the jungle New Yorkers live by. There's something endearing about the insanity of the city, even in the swank Slope-but I was happy to return to the green ball fields, my frighteningly healthy squash plants-and the bliss of crickets in the spring grass.