Tia Sonja y los chilenos

Warning...if you are not interested in tennis this post may not be the one for you...except, of course, especially great things did happen in this new lucky Millyennium.
Let me first of all deal with Mr.Luck the Harbinger of Doom. True the hurricane caught the edge of New York and Tuesday was rained off but I got a free ticket for Friday. It rained all day Saturday as well, so I went to the Museum of the Native American, ate great food in SoHo and drank cocktails in Brendan's on 35th...so no hardship or mishap there at all. I know you look forward to the next installment of 'Milly - what happened next?' but I'm in Pollyanna world now...what could possibly go wrong? So, to the US Open...
In the queue on Monday (Day 1) the american woman next to us started chatting. It was all very pleasant, eager tennis chat. I got to tell my Athens story all over again ( Sally and I have a pact that we will try to bore at least one person a week with the entire narrative of our 8 days watching Olympic tennis in Athens). I got to recount the tale of breakfast with Martina Navaratilova in Wimbledon last year. And all of this to a huge tennis fan. You will be asking, " How could this POSSIBLY get any better?"
Well for a start we saw some great matches: Rafa, Mark Philippoussis (Flip, Scud, Pinhead), Carlos Moya (Lord Carlos as they call him this side of the pond), Gaston Gaudio (the most unhappy player in the world), Juan Carlos (the maestro), Fernando Gonzalez (Fena, Gonzo). Really all good. You all know my penchant for the tennis golden boy of the Olympics, Nicolas Massu (el Nico, el vampiro). The new chum from the queue turns out not only to be a Nico fan, in fact the No.1 Nico fan, but also the writer of the Nico webpage on the men's tennis forum! We watched every match, dissected and analysed, sat with all the chileans and cheered until we were red, white and blue in the face (Chi, le, chi, chi, le, viva chile! Vamos Nicola!) and one day sat directly in front of the Massu family with his mum, Sonja, resplendant in hotpants, leatherette vest top and sequin studded cowboy hat with a flashing sign saying 'golden boy'. It was too much to bear!
So endeth that section of the trip. Mary went home and I took the bus to Washington DC.