Good dinners

About once a month, we go to dinner with our next door neighbors and gossip about all the other neighbors in the 'hood. Last night was that night.

We went to a place we'd never been before and I'm going to tell you, it was a damned good dinner.

We went to the Villa Napoletana in East Longmeadow and if you want some good Italian food, you should go there. I had veal & shrimp with red peppers in a excellent gorgonzola sauce.

Now, this is not to say it was the best Italian food. I'm just saying that we are adding it to the rotation. For the record, the rotation currently consists of:

• La Cucina (The Hampden House) in Hampden.
• Casa Bella in Hampden.
• Villa Napoletana in East Longmeadow.
• Center Square Grill in East Longmeadow.

As you can see, we are big fans of Italian food. The Center Square is last on the list for a reason. It's a nice place but it's not Italian...

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The Red Sox have been slowly, but surely, making their way up the standings and with last nights win, they are now only 3½ games behind the Aaron Judges and only 6 games behind the Rays in the ALEast.

What is even more impressive is the fact that they have moved from last place into a tie for 3^rd place in the American league.

They won their series against the Athletics, taking 3 of the 4 games and they won the 1^st game of the 3-game series against the best team in all of MLB, the Dodgers.

My hope-o-meter is pegged so hard against the top of the scale that it's starting to bend the needle but there is one fly in the ointment...

Contreras got hit in the head with a 95mph fast ball last night and is now under concussion protocol. That means the medical staff will evaluate him through out the day today and if they detect any issues (dizziness, nausea, poor eye/hand coordination, etc..), they will put him on the DL for however long it takes.

This is bad because Contreras is one of their better hitters and they kinda need him if they want to continue their roll to the top.

Hopefully he is in tonight's lineup and all is well but as of right now (6:00 pm), the lineup has not been posted and the team has had nothing to say about his status other than, "He is being evaluated."

Update:

Contreras is not in tonight's lineup and, according to the Boston Globe, the manager says "He is doing well"

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Here are some links:

• It's the famous "McDonalds Coffee Burned Her Coochie" story but more upscale.



• 650 seems like a lot to me. Does it seem like a lot to you?



• Looks like Dementia Donny got handed yet another loss. Don't worry, she'll get fired soon.



• Well, if The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization says it's true, it must be true.