Little League World Series Diary VERY LAST POST EVER probably

So.... after this

we went back to the hotel for the night. I was driving Angus home, plus Coach Brian and his son Clay. They were one of the families that had a kid that won both Major and Junior Nationals, so Brian's wife Sarah had been in Alberta with their older son for Nationals, then home for two days and then off to Williamsport for the LLWS. When Brian asked if she was coming down to Toronto to pick up him and Clay, she said "No." Well, there might have been a few other colourful verbs and adjectives surrounding that, but the general thrust of the answer was negative, on many levels. 

We had to have the boys downtown in Ottawa the next day for interviews with CTV and CBC. We figured we'd be home for a couple hours, then carpool downtown in a few cars. I asked Brian what time he wanted to leave. He said not first thing, otherwise we'd just end up sitting in traffic.

There was an accident. We ended up sitting in traffic. 

Well, what can you do? We sat. We talked. We took deep breaths. We took two hours to go twelve kilometres. 

Brian texted people to figure out who was ahead of us and who was behind us. Eventually he texted people and told them not to pick us up because we'd have to drive straight downtown. Then he texted other people and told them that we would drive straight downtown but we still might not make it. 

Meanwhile, Angus and Clay were involved in their new athletic endeavour.

I call it "Sleeping For Canada".

We made Angus and clay strip down in a rest stop parking lot and put on their jerseys and nicer shorts. We coasted into downtown on fumes. We were fourteen minutes late, but they waited for us. Ah, the perks of fame.

A blonde, perfectly coiffed, extremely photogenic woman tried to get them all to say "Hi! We're the East Nepean Eagles and we're on CTV!"

They were really, really bad at it. 

Then she asked a few of them some questions. Clearly, Angus was riveted. 

Then we had to get over to CBC.

Somehow, the Canada jerseys walking through the market was one of the most surreal moments of the entire experiences.

We got to CBC. They put us in a boardroom to wait for the live news report, when the team was going to be on surrounding the news anchor. There were televisions, so we turned one on to watch their CTV appearance. 

The news report started. There was a story about a stabbing. There was a story about a shooting. There was a story about a mugging. We thought maybe we'd be next.

There was a story about an explosion.

Finally, they were on. Right after, there was a story about a girl making friends with a gorilla. At least they didn't have to follow that one. 

Then it was over. We tried to get back to the parking lot. But it was after five, so doors were locked all over the place. We walked around a lot of buildings and then raced some cars across a busy street, and then a really nice janitor let us in and helped us find the right elevators. We got in one, and it wouldn't go to the parking garage. Then it wouldn't open. And all our cell phones were dead. And we were out of snacks and water. 

Then it went back up to the main floor and opened. We cheered and when we got out there were some official-type people waiting and they said whoa, party elevator, and we explained that we were just happy that we weren't found dead in an elevator two days from now.

We got home. We slept like the dead. The next night there was a party for the team at the Barrhaven Royal Oak. The mayor and a bunch of other political types made nice speeches. We brought back the banners that had been folded up on the piano bench for half the summer. The boys were given commendations by the city. I drank a lot of beer. 

Mike Carroccetto took this photo of Justin, David, Angus and Ken in the parking lot. I love this picture - Angus especially usually looks so serious in pictures, and he said David kept making them all laugh. They look so happy, don't they?

There have been a couple more events. The team was on the ice dropping the puck at an Ottawa 67s game last week. Last night we had a box at the last pre-season Ottawa Senators hockey game. Before we left, Angus said "do we have to do anything?" and I said "I think you're doing something with the coaches at intermission" and he groaned. I would have given him some speech about being grateful and dutiful, but I didn't have much of a leg to stand on - it was all very cool, this and this and this and this (possible my favourite - scroll down to ANGUS KNOWS BASEBALL) and this especially (above the fold - he was SO cranky when the photographer got here, and I explained that he'd been out til late playing baseball the night before and up at six for volleyball that morning AND had his braces tightened, and the photographer said 'isn't that a little late for braces? What is he, eighteen?' and I said HE WAS TWELVE FOUR MONTHS AGO and the photographer's jaw dropped), but one day I sat down, opened an email that said "Angus in Citizen today!" and said "Oh for fuck's sake, AGAIN?" 

All good things must come to an end. 

This is what Angus wrote on Facebook:

Well we've been waiting for this summer for about 6 years now. We've been hyping it up for so long. And now that it's finally over I'm kinda sad. We had all this talent and made it all the way to the show. We represented east nepean better then anyone has ever. And represented Canada well also. Here's to our summer and how good it's been. Wish you all the best luck in future baseball wishes. 

Sniff.

Thanks for reading, and watching, and emailing, and facebooking, and travelling with us and making us feel loved and happy. 

Now, back to our regularly scheduled fare of book reviews and whining about being fat and depressed.