the end

Tomorrow is my last day of work at Ye Ole Foode Place where I have been working for nearly a year. I have rushed up to it so fast that I am hardly excited, though definitely not sad at the prospect.

For those of you who didn't know, I am removing my person (if not all my belongings) to the South. I have no idea how long I will be down there, nor when I will return, if ever. :-) Just Kidding. And anyway, I'm not changing things like license plates or bank accounts so I guess I have to come back sometime.

As usual:
"Thou'rt come to lead me into paths I do not know;"

So:
"like dear Rebekah, with Thee I will go."

fenway

Thanks to the impetus of other people and Rachel's willingness to take over for me at the old people's home I took my first trip to Fenway a few weeks ago.

We were too late to see opening ceremonies (if they have any) or the first pitch, we had standing room tickets over the White Sox dugout, it was hot and I had dressed for cold, damp weather, I missed the one Red Sox score of the game because I was in the bathroom, I missed almost every other significant play because I was distracted, when we finally did get seats, the guy a few seats down had a repetitive and offensive vocabulary, we lost 8-1, and yet.... I had a wonderful time!

I saw somebody with a רד סוקס t-shirt! Very cool.

Did you know that Fenway was so small? I think the best moment was when we first walked through the door and up into the stands. The crowds were so loud but so small- everything was close to me and there they were- right there! I mean that guy a few feet away was Ortiz! Doesn't get much better.

Did you know that a broken bat can spin off large chunks all the way past first base? How do the infielders manage stay focused?

And the Green Monster was such an odd structure. It made it really hard to tell if a ball was going to be a home run or an out.

I really know nothing about baseball game traditions- I mean, I know about the seventh inning stretch, but what was that song everybody started singing at some other point in the game? Never heard it before. And why do so many guys feel it necessary to propose to their girlfriends on the billboard? Wait... how come the White Sox lined up to high five each other, but they didn't do it with the Red Sox?

The guys selling peanuts and hot dogs were so loud! I wonder if they have to do a voice tryout before they are hired? They were also pretty clever about getting food to people down the line. Some guy ordered a hot dog and the vedor threw it to him- someone caught the outer wrap, the next person got the bun, and the third person got the hot dog. Okay, maybe it was just two people- one with the wrap and one with the hot dog, but it sounded better with three.

I think I'm glad we lost the game. If it had been a particularly exciting one, I still would have been to completely distracted by the people, the place, the noises, the wave and the people batting beach balls around to have gotten much out of it.

fascinating.

Anybody want to go with me again?

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I went to Fenway.

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Going Back III- More Firsts

Okay, so reallllllly quick because this was so far back I have almost lost interest:

We went to Six Flags!!! 14 of us all together! What fun we had. Well, fun in a manner of speaking. It was my first encounter with roller coasters and not really a case of love at first sight.

I went on some wooden thing called the Thunderbolt. It wasn't very big but it was pretty much the scariest thing I have done in a LONG TIME. It jerked around and shook and lifted off the tracks and seemed on the verge of sailing into the wild blue yonder around every corner. I nearly cried when I got off. Really.

But being a masochist I tried another. I also decided I was either going to follow everybody else around all day watching them have fun, or I was going to keep on trying. Maybe continued exposure would make me inured to the terror?

I tried Flashback next. It had the advantage of being all metal and not prone to scary creakings and groanings and gnashing of teeth. I hated that one too. In fact, I don't think I had my eyes open for more than a split second.

After that we tried a water ride or two, relaxed, ate food, etc. The fun thing was that we actually managed to stay together for most of the time. 14 can be an unwieldy number but everybody was relaxed and had similar interests.

Third time is the charm, right? So I decided to try the second biggest ride in the park- Batman. I think I might adopt him as my new favorite superhero or something. I loved it! Sitting in the seat before the ride started I came very close to climbing out the other side. But I procrastinated and then it was tooooo late. :-)
I rode Batman twice. The first time I had my eyes closed most of the time- in the pictures they took I looked pretty funny- all scrunched up with my eyes screwed shut and a death grip on the bars. The second time I had my eyes open most of the time and smiled at the camera!

I think I might actually like rollercosters.

But not Superman. Kimberly and I stood on the deck, waving soggy hankerchiefs at our departing troops as they ascended the slope of Superman. We even prayed. And one sight of Davy stepping onto dry land shaking like he'd drunk three cases of Red Bull was enough to convince me that shunning Superman was the best decision of my life.


So that was all good. Then I went to Georgia with Andrea the next day. We bounced from traffic jam to traffic jam all down the east coast, eating yummy food, reading out loud, and taking boring and random footage of the journey on her sister's video camera.

2nd first.... wait, this deserves a new blog with a title all its own.