Showing the Sox Pride Worldwide

I love the Red Sox. Being from Boston, it's in the blood. As I watch the ALDS game tonight vs. Anaheim, I've reminiscing of the times I've shared explaining the obsession....
Since they won it all in 2004, it's been a lot easier to spot the fans. I went to Williamsburg, VA in Spring 2005, just months after they won it all, and was overwhelmed with how much Sox gear I saw. Granted it was school vacation week for Mass. students and the Red Sox were slated to play in Baltimore a few days later...the Boston fans were everywhere...
While changing planes in Melbourne, Australia later in 2005, I was wearing Red Sox sweatshirt. The sales clerk stopped flirting with my friend (wearing the Red Sox hat), and said, "is that a Red Sox jumper...they won a championship recently..." Yes, I replied, thankful I knew sweaters/sweatshirts are called jumpers in other parts of the world. I was stunned he knew them. Earlier in that trip, Louisa, Elizabeth, and I posed in our Sox garb with our Improper Bostonian (never ran our picture!) demonstrating our Sox pride in Circular Quay.
Tickets are so hard to find at Fenway, that seeing the Red Sox on the road is much easier (and cheaper) than securing tickets for a home game. I've only seen the Red Sox on the road once, in Cleveland in 1991....before all of the madness started. My Dad and brother have followed them to California. They're the biggest road draw in baseball...and a lot of that is due to the scarcity of tickets in Boston.
Spring training is my favorite time to see the Red Sox. There's something about wearing shorts in March while watching batting practice. And then calling home and finding out your Mom is stuck shoveling out the driveway since your Dad has taken the kids to Florida. I love being able to be so close to the players. I love riding bikes on Sanibel Island, and then going to a game that night. I haven't been since the Sox won in 2004. It was getting harder to buy tickets then, and spring training tickets are almost close to impossible to score now. That's why my Dad now schedules his spring training trips for when the Red Sox play the Twins across Fort Myers at their facility.

I only get sick when I'm away from home....

I'm recovering from a cold. A firm believer in exercise makes sickness go away, I was on the treadmill in Chicago twice trying to remedy my cold symptoms.

As this picture illustrates, being sick on the road is the worst. Rule #1: Don't have your picture taken when you're sick...This was taken in August 2005 at Darling Harbour in Sydney, and proves it to no end. The drink is a Serengeti Sunrise...the most divine drink ever, and I was having a great time with my friends Louisa and Elizabeth...but you can't hide the fact you can't breathe, speak, or are so not functioning normally, even when your friends are all smiles! Elizabeth was heading back to the US, and we were toasting our vacation, and I look as green as my shirt!

I seem to get sick when I'm away...wicked cold in London, terrible seasickness, cold, and a loss of voice in Australia. Stomach virus on the plane home from LA. Same when coming back from Israel. Is it me, or is it the planes?!?!

The meds I bought from Boots in London just expired. I needed to show proof of identity to buy cold medicine in Tasmania. I wish there were black currant throat lozenges here. Don't even get me started on why we need national health care here...

But the cold is much better today, probably because I'm home. I'm down to just vitamin C.