Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

So, as some of you know, my roommate's birthday is today, and she asked me to go to a baseball game with her to celebrate. But not just any baseball game-- because we live in Boston, how could we go anywhere besides Fenway Park, to see the big boys play?

(Note: Let it be known I have no allegiance to one team over another)

So, after I worked for the day, I met Janna in the square and we went to CVS to buy water bottles. You can't bring anything into Fenway, except "one sealed 16 oz water bottle per person." Well, apparently you can't buy anything smaller than 20 oz., which is what we did, and then we stashed them in our bags and hoped our security guys wouldn't care.

We took the T down there, and let me tell you, I am glad I don't live on the Green Line-- it is HORRENDOUS on game days. We got off at Kenmore and walked down to the park, and seriously, it was like a whole different world down there! There were mobs and mobs of people in the streets-- street vendors, ticket scalpers, and all sorts of junk food.

We found our gate and went through security, which went like this:

Security guy: Alright, let's check your bags.
(I hold my bag open)
Security guy glances in: Alright, let's keep moving.

Ok... I probably could have smuggled in a pizza and a 2 liter bottle of soda if I wanted to. I mean, I'm not complaining, but it was just annoying that they put up such a stink about bringing in outside food and stuff and they were far less intrusive than the security guys at the Boston Pops concert.

As we climbed up the stairs to our section, I told Janna I felt like I was in that scene from A League of Their Own when the girls are walking out onto the ball field for the first time with Mr. Capadino and he tells them not to eat the grass. The hall is dark and the field is bright and there's probably music swelling in the background. I have to admit- it was cool to come to the top of the stairs and see the gigantic field out there.



Of course, this is what it looked like about an hour after the game started, when the sun finally went down behind the left bleachers. The first hour was pretty brutal without sunglasses.



So I knew food at the game was going to be ridiculously expensive, and I braced myself to spend 4.50 on a hot dog. But when the guys came up and down the aisles with little bags of Cracker Jack and wanted $4.00 for it, I almost died. $4.00 for CRACKER JACK?

Well... about 30 minutes later, I had a craving for Cracker Jack. Obviously, this is what the ball park is hoping for. I had to take a potty break anyway, so I figured it would be my birthday gift to Janna since we were both moping about how expensive it was. So I got two bags and went back to my seat to eat it.

As I happily munched my popcorn, I started realizing there was a serious lack of peanuts in my bag. I asked Janna and she insisted that they were just at the bottom. I ate that whole bag and only had 9 peanuts. NINE! Lesson learned: next time smuggle in cracker jack from Market Basket for $.99 a box. At least if I only paid a dollar for it, I won't be disappointed in the lack of peanuts.

The game was fun to watch. But... I didn't expect the ball park to be loud. It was weird. When you watch baseball on TV, it's like golf. There's NO ONE talking. And when you sit out there in the stadium, it's like being in a high school cafeteria. It was weird. And then somewhere in the 5th/6th inning, David Ortiz hit a grand slam, so that was cool. And somewhere in there, we decided we needed to take a picture of ourselves.



Shortly after the "7th inning stretch" I realized that I was going to need a cake recipe to make for Janna's birthday. So I called Megan. And then realized that the 7th/8th inning is probably not the best time to be making phone calls at a major league baseball game. The crowd starts getting a little rowdy. So for most of the bottom of the 8th/top of the 9th inning, we were standing and being loud.

Of course, leaving the game is a whole 'nother thing. You gotta walk back to the T station and shuffle along like cattle, pushed up against each other, and trying not to breathe. It was gross. Luckily the crowds died out once we got to the red line to transfer.

We got home around ... 11:30 or something like that and Janna had to be at work the next morning at 4:30, so she wasn't exactly happy, or energetic.

And yesterday I made the cake (picture coming soon), and tonight we ate it with a couple of the middle school girls she teaches sunday school to. Then we played pictionary. It was fun.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for bed!

Summer So Far.

Well, since I am sitting around doing nothing, and I haven't updated my blog in a while, and there's nothing but infomercials on tv, and my lack of blogging was recently questioned, I thought I'd write a little update.

Since the last time I wrote (or right before)...

1) I went home and had an eye exam.The doctor was very disapproving of the fact that I wear contacts for as long as I can until they hurt or dry my eyes out, and that I order contacts online. He gave me this whole speech about how this is bad for your eyes and can cause all sorts of problems. And then he looked at my eyes and said, "Well, they look just fine and healthy now, but if you continue doing these things, there might be problems later." Ok-- quack.

In all seriousness though, contacts from the office are almost 2x as expensive as getting them online.

2) We celebrated Father's Day-- happy father's day dad!

3) Mom and dad drove me back to Boston (on father's day) so I could go to my building rededication. For those of you who missed that story, the building I would have attended here burned two years ago, and was being rebuilt all last year. I'd walk to school/work and pass it-- watching the walls be built, then the plumbing underground, etc.

Its long journey to restoration was finally over on Father's Day, and I felt like I couldn't miss it. Also, I snagged a ticket for the chapel, and President Eyring and Elder Packer were going to be there.

It was cool to hear all the history about the building, and now, ladies and gentlemen, I can WALK to church in 15 minutes. WALK!!! It's even ON THE WAY to school, so I can walk to school in 3 minutes from the building... and between the building and school is the office I work in. EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE is within a 20 minute walk now, and I am happy. Of course, my internship school for next year might not prove to be completely pedestrian friendly-- we'll see.

4) Mom and Dad were waiting outside that meeting because they didn't have tickets. When President Eyring and Elder Packer left, apparently Elder Packer fainted, and then a fire truck and an ambulance showed up. I got the story from mom since they kept us quarantined in the building until the scene was cleared.

5) We ate at Friendly's and walked to the top of a tower in a cemetery.

6) I interviewed for (and got) another summer job at the main undergrad. library at Harvard. I am the oldest employee.

7) I went to the Fourth of July Boston Pops Concert (on July 3rd) on the Charles River and saw MARTINA MCBRIDE. Don't judge my secret affair with country music.

The counselor I worked with at MHS gave me a very adorable picnic set on my last day, so I was all excited to use it. We got down there and had to wait in a security line, which, when we got to the front of it, had a sign saying "NO METAL SILVERWARE." Well, wouldn't you know, my picnic silverware had plastic stems, but metal heads. So my roommate and I tried to inconspicuously scheme about how we could hide the silverware. It was buried in the bottom of my freezer bag with our food in it. We thought we were fine.

Then we saw the security guards making everyone take everything out of their coolers, etc. (No WONDER the line was moving so slow.) So then we quickly decided to take them out of the bag and drop them into one of the bags on our camp chairs. And THEN we saw the security guards were taking chairs OUT OF BAGS and patting down the bottoms to see if anything was stashed in them. So we thought we were pretty much screwed, but we had no options short of quickly trying to find them again and stuffing them down our pants.

So we went through the security checkpoint and sure enough, the guy emptied our freezer bag. (He almost made us get rid of our plastic ketchup bottle for the hotdogs we brought.) He pulled the bags down off the chairs and there, half revealed, were the stems of the silverware. He patted down the bag, and I started to sweat as I watched his hands move down the bag, until one of them rested on the silverware. He looked up at me and I said, "Oh yeah..." and before I even had to pretend to make an excuse, he said, "Alright, you're all set." and pulled the bag back up and sent us on our way.

It's still not clear whether or not he knew the silverware was there, since it was on my side of the chair and he was just feeling his way around.

Anyway- once my heart rate settled down, we waited around for two hours and enjoyed the concert a lot. Is it sad that that's probably the most illegal thing I've ever done? That and smuggling candy into movie theaters. And jaywalking. I know- I'm such a rebel.

8) I took that same picnic basket and my roommates to a pseudo-ward activity at a beach in NH last week. It was a good trip, but it took us 2 hours to get there instead of one because of traffic, and we were not happy. We stopped on the way and ate at a Sonic. My roommates and I had a good time by ourselves once we actually got to the beach though. But, to be honest, the friendliness of the ward members when we finally found them and I introduced them to my roommates was underwhelming. Thanks for the disappointment and embarrassment, guys.

9) I've been working 30ish hours a week, which includes two twelve hour days at two different jobs. EW.

10) I am going to a ward activity in a little bit. Canoeing and barbecuing.

11) I got new shoes last week. I've needed new sneakers and flats for a while, but I was too busy/lazy to shop for them, and buying shoes online sounded like a bad idea. I wanted sneakers that weren't too bulky. I searched online and found some I liked, and then went up to TJ Maxx (a 15 minute walk) to see what they had. What to my wondering eyes should appear but the very same shoes I saw online!

Well, they weren't comfortable. But they had others I liked, and they're listed online for $60 and I got them for $35, so I'm fine with that. I also got a pair of these (the white ones) which I think are cute. And did I pay $40 for them?? No. $15.

I might have to exchange them though. You see, since high school I've been a size 8.5. In the past six months, my feet have been quietly inching along until they are now a 9.5ish. I was in denial. I even called mom to ask her to do a little toe-squeeze through the phone, but apparently that's not possible. She told me it's better to buy bigger than smaller. So I did. But WHAT THE HECK, CLOWN FEET?!?! So I bought the flats in a 9, but now I'm thinking I might as well get the 9.5.

Also, the best time to go to TJ Maxx is apparently when they're having their district management visit. I've never seen the store so organized and clean. The problem was it was teeming with staff, and when I took a pair of shoes out and left them on the floor, some guy quickly came by, swiped them up, and walked away to reshelve them. When I moved a little bench to the aisle so I could put on a pair of shoes, my butt barely moved three inches off it when a woman came by and moved it back.

Seriously-- your district manager is not going to fire you for letting me sit down! I told mom I wanted to tell them, "Please stop! You are making my shopping experience worse, not better!"

12) Apparently someone I used to date is getting married. This is actually the first time this has happened to me except for some guy I dated for like two weeks in high school. Anyway- my family can all probably guess who it is (and the rest of you probably don't care, so it works out). I have tried very hard to have (almost) no hard feelings towards him, but all I can say is a) I hope he's changed and b) I hope she's not stupid/knows what she's doing. But I hear she's 19, so... I don't know.

13) In connection with one of my other items (can you guess which one??) I have no patience for poorly planned events, and people who don't care that things are poorly planned.

14) Yesterday I got out of work and was on my way home. I was trying to finish a book so I could start something more interesting this week, so I thought I'd sit outside since it was nice out. Luckily, on my way home, I pass my very dear church building (as previously mentioned) which has a little park next to it. So I sat down to read. About 20 minutes later, a man came by and asked me if it was unlocked. I said no. He asked me if I went to church there. I said yes. Without barely a second's silence, he says, "You should serve a mission." Uhh... ok crazy man. I made some non-committal whine, and he said, "No, I'm serious. why haven't you thought about it? The great thing now is that they let sister missionaries go. And you're probably, what, 20 years old? You should go."

This is when I started to wonder a) who this man is and b) whether or not he had all his marbles. Also... do I really look 20? Probably.

He then said, "Have you seen the church's mormon channel? They have a video about missionaries in Japan. They show them cleaning and moving things to help clean up. And there's sister's doing it too! I mean, the sisters are really just as good as the elders at things like that..." Ok... stranger. Now you're starting to move into patronizing territory, but thanks. Before he left, he insisted on showing me how to draw Japanese symbols so I would be able to find this video on youtube, and admonished me once again to go on a mission because, "What's 18 months?!"

Yeah, cuz that's a good reason to go. Thanks for the advice crazy man. The next time I re-evaluate my life based on the advice of strangers, I will certainly keep you in mind. It was bizarre.

15) I went on a date last night. We went downtown to eat and ended up near Faneuil Hall where there were street performers-- a bunch of black guys making jokes about how they're black and break-dancing. It was entertaining, until the guy asked for volunteers and when no one volunteered, he literally pulled me out of the crowd into the middle of the circle. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

They gathered about four of us and made us squat there in a line while they built up to their final act, which was a guy running and jumping over us. I assume he was successful, since people clapped and none of us got hurt, but I wouldn't know because I was crouched into half a ball with my head tucked to my chest, afraid I was going to get kicked in the face.

The date was fine.

16) I am going home this week. Hopefully I'll get new glasses while I'm there. And I need to order contacts at some point.

17) I have been reading books. First: "And The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth" and then "The Overachievers" both by Alexandra Robbins (or something like that). I did not like either one, but I will write a post about that later. For now, someone (I'm looking at you Megan, who also has an education degree) needs to read "And the Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth" and tell me what you think about the character "Regan."

And I think I'm done now. I'm sure this was thrilling. So Mom, Megan... now you know why I haven't posted anything lately.