Knock on wood and keep your fingers crossed, I'm going to the dance

Not to enumerate poultry before it emerges from the shell, but it looks my woebegone, scrappy little fantasy football team will advance to the championship game next week. You'll recall my drunken, borderline suicidal ramblings just after the draft. And a pessimistic approach to a semifinal matchup with the Brady Juggernaut. Well, it turns out I have a somewhat sizeable lead heading into the two final games of the weekend. Right now, I'm up 33.56 to 17.06 (don't ask about the points. Most fantasy leagues score in the 100 - 200 points per week range. We started this league eons ago -- when scores were kept on legal pads with USA today stats -- and wanted the final team scores to compare to those of actual NFL games. So we set the point earning tallies accordingly and have kept them that way ever since). My opponent has the Giants D left, and I have Plaxico Burress left. Unless the G-men rack up 10 sacks and 5 defensive TDs, I'm liking my chances to play for all the marbles.

Could this, and the arrival of DirecTV, Tivo and other similar positive tea leave readings, signal an end to the dark, sinister clouds that have been hovering over my head for the past two years? Will I summon up my best Scarlett O'Hara and Little Orphan Annie, and say "fiddle de dee, tomorrow is another day, and the sun will come out tomorrow! Tomorrow!"?? Or, more likely, will it just be another pricktease of good fortune before the half-empty glass shatters in my hand, severing tendons.

Sigh. I'll enjoy the moment. How about that?