Making It Up As I Go Along #233

MONDAY…
--- Bike day. I pick up my bike that I bought yesterday. My first bike in 18 years… should be fun.
--- Work is fine with walks at each break and lunch outside with Laura, Louis and Sandra.
--- Hour walk at home after work.

TUESDAY…
--- Walks at breaks… a sandwich for supper… not a real heavy workload tonight.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Not a real good day. Lots of serious or conflict talk both at work and away. It was generally handled well all around but I’m not sure if it will be something that everyone will be satisfied with in the end… at least the work stuff. The out of work stuff doesn’t involve me. BLAH to all of it… today’s a day I should have stayed in bed and not answered the phone.

THURSDAY…
--- Work is normal. I head to Wendy’s with Mike and meet Bill and his son there for supper. After work, I do an hour long walk of the neighbourhood.

FRIDAY…
--- Nick, Louis and I on evening shift… busy evening but not too bad. Chip Wagon for supper… the driving range before work with Atlas and Laura… a few drinks after work with Nick, Louis, Sheila and Isaac.

SATURDAY…
--- Have my first game of catch in two years. I go to Shannon’s and we grab the baseball… it feels good and, even though I don’t try much that’s very strenuous or tricky, my shoulder feels great doing it.
--- Dick’s Diner is followed by picking up Shannon’s friend, Ian, and going to the Lynx baseball game. Good game that they win, 9-0. In the game, I see my first ever live Grand Slam home run.


Popping an Eye
There’s nothing more relaxing than a late summer evening at a minor league baseball stadium.

After a meal of burgers and onion rings, Shannon and I pick up his friend, Ian, and head out to see a Lynx game. Tonight, they’re playing Toronto’s AAA team (Syracuse). We park at my office. It beats the $3 fee of the lot and is much less hectic trying to get out of once the game is done.

So we do the five minute walk from my office to the stadium and come upon a horde of people trying to get baseball tickets at the last minute. The game has already started and we’re not in the mood for the back of this line… so we wander over to the sidewalk outside of left field, and we watch an inning and a half through the chain link fence. The grass of the outfield shines green with the low sun. The sound of pitched balls hitting the catcher’s glove echoes to us an instant after the strike. Pulses drop with the ease of summer.

After that inning and a half, we head back to the ticket booth and get our tickets without any line. We grab three beers and head to our section, ready to grab whatever seats are most deserted of surrounding fans. After all, in a stadium that’s one third full on the best of nights, why would you restrict yourself to the seats you purchased only to be crammed in next to some family of four throwing popcorn at each other.

So we walk through the tunnel from the concourse to the openness of the field. I always like going from inside a baseball stadium to the outside of the field and seats. It’s like opening a door to activity and it takes the senses a few moments to take it all in.

We pick our seats and I put my beer down to get my glasses case and exchange my sunglasses for the regular ones. However, upon opening, I see that a lens has popped out… a screw is missing.

I am not shocked by this, it has happened before, so I poke through the case to get the screw out and twist it back in place. It isn’t there. I stand up again and search my pockets… perhaps the screw got out of the case. Not there either. A search about the ground proves fruitless as well.

Not to panic, with Shannon’s longer fingernails (there’s an advantage to not picking your nails) he’s able to remove one of the screws from my sunglasses. We’ll just transplant the screw to my regular specs and it’s ball watching time… a small ‘tink’ of metal on concrete followed by a searching lean forward of Shannon tells me plan “B” is hitting a snag. Another screw is gone.

The woman in front of us hears our commotion and searches the dusty concrete at her feet… but the screw is gone. Another half inning goes by with me only glancing at blurry ball players on the field as I see a fuzzy white ball getting tossed around by faceless fielders.

It’s off to the emergency response people I go. They calmly treat my injured glasses with some medical tape… I can watch the game now in geeky serenity. I’m a pocket protector away from a high school beating.

Through the rest of the game, I sit as still as possible… not wanting to risk the tape job and have my lens drop to it’s concrete demise next to the two screws from two pairs of glasses.

But the tape holds… a grand slam is witnessed and the pulse rate finally does drop back to baseball viewing levels as I slump into my seat.

An eighth inning trip to the washrooms isn’t worth mention… but the return through the tunnel to the field is noteworthy. Where walking through the door to activity takes the senses a few moments during the daylight hours, it can take your breath away completely during the darkness of night.

It truly is the light at the end of the tunnel. You walk out of the darkness and into the light. People mill about the walkways… they’re chatting in seats on a calm summer night... and the field glows. Infield dirt is dark and rich and the grass looks like a field of ivy. Players are performers under spotlights. With two good lenses, I can see them playing with relaxed concentration on their faces. The crack of the bat shoots the ball towards the shortstop… a crisp two hopper that’s transferred from glove to hand in a flash and thrown to first for the out.

I return to my seat for one last inning of summer tranquillity.