Chicago Style

Old Style and Wrigley. I'm in heaven.

Take me out.

so, how did you spend your tuesday afternoon? I'm getting my baseball on. And my sunburn. And a bellyfull of Summit. Ah, the summer life is good.

life, death, and professional baseball

2007's Major League Baseball Opening Day draws ever-nearer.

I just received word I have tickets for the July 18th game vs. the Tigers and the September 21st game against the White Sox, both in amazing seats at the Dome. And while I'd rather be drinking sub-standard beer and eating too many hot dogs, sitting on hard bleacher seats and letting the summer sun beat down on my freckled shoulders, I'll take my baseball any way I can get it.

Tickets for the Home Opener in 2 weeks (Really! Just 2 short weeks!), as well as a mid-season battle and tickets for the last home-stand of the season (we close in Boston at the end of September... wish I had unlimited time, energy and money for baseball roadtrips...) have got me thinking about everything I love about baseball.

• Aforementioned junk food: giant all-beef hot dogs smothered in mustard and sauerkraut and relish and ketchup and onions, sub-standard and overpriced (but somehow still delicious) ice-cold beer, sucking the salt off peanut shells til my lips chap, warm kettlecorn in a giant bag you buy as you walk inside the ballpark.
• Wandering around the plaza before the game. Soaking up sun, my city, my neighbors. Listening to street music. Buying overpriced snacks.
• Getting my hands on a program in order to keep score. I used to do stats for our baseball team in high school. I love the art of keeping score, inexplicably.
• The ebb and flow of the game. I love the lull of a long at-bat; the mix of ennui and anticipation, knowing that the next swing of the bat could mean a riveting homerun or a deflating strikeout.
• Trying my very best to out-ump the umpire calling pitches at home plate. I don't know how many times I have screamed: Are you blind? That was obviously low and inside! He doesn't tuck his knees inside his cleats, you incompetent old fart!
• The jumbo-tron. Yup, I'm a geek, but I love peoplewatching (everywhere, not just the baseball game), and the jumbo-tron at the Dome is a kitchy, yet effective, method. I love the strange deformo-thing they do. And the kissing cam. And when they catch a baby sleeping, or a little kid tweaking, or an old lady knitting.
• Speaking of the jumbo-tron, I love the baseball game announcements. You know, the "thanks to Acme corp for having their summer picnic here" thing. And the birthdays, and anniversaries... always so embarrassing (and by embarrassing, I mean hilarious). Oooh, and then there's the classic (insert my best girly-swoon here) baseball-game-proposal. Yah, yah, I know there's the risk of "Ohmigod I'm going to propose on the Jumbotron what if she says no", thing, but that's why I love it. I LOVE IT. I think it's absurd and wonderful, and potentially (at the risk of being accused of using hyperbole), my all-time favorite proposal methodology. (I realize this makes me sound like I've propsed to several people in my life. Which would be both strange and entirely false. Ah well.)
• Dodging crap for 9 innings: foul balls, spilled beer, renegade nachos.
• Singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. There's nothing I don't love about the 7th inning stretch.
• The insta-communities that pop up over the course of a game. Inherently, you strike up a conversation with the people around you - and especially if it's a close or fast-moving game, by the 9th inning you have a new best friend and you are screaming incoherent chants together with your baseball cap turned inside out and backwards. You will in all likelihood never see these people again (unless you all are season ticketholders), but for those few innings, you are a family.

Take me out to the ballgame, baby. I can hardly wait.

6 more inches. But what do they say about in like a lion?

Spring antsiness ensues at the Green House (and Green cubicle. and Greenmobile.)

Why, praytell, aside from the foot of snow 9and developing winter storm) which reminds me it's still gonna be a while til I can play in the dirt, swim in the lake, or roll down grassy hillsides again?

* Spring training games start tomorrow. Joy!
* A beautiful epistle about how to clean. Makes me want to purge junk, organize closets, and scrub my fridge out top to bottom.
* Burpee sent me a lovely brown package full of seeds yesterday. They felt marvelous... small and round and full of potential.
* I'm sick of wearing winter pants. And now that I work downtown, I see loveliness all the time in the form of spring clothing. Drat.
* I'm sewing a wedding dress which just oozes spring.

you give me fever

*note to readers* - my apologies for being a bad blogger. Getting up to speed at a new job will do this to a girl. I resolve to post more regularly now that things are settling down. Promise.

Yesterday, Minneapolis topped out in the low 40s. We went from ice box to defrost in less than 24 hours, and I was totally digging it. I walked across downtown -- outside -- for lunch yesterday. It was gorgeous, even if I had to trample through crusty, dirty mounds of icy snow pack to get there. The air smelled warm. If you are a native Northerner, you'll understand what I mean. If not, take my word for it: spring air smells different. There's something biting and stale in winter air, cold, clinical, sterile. As the air warms up, life starts to seep into it, and trickles into my lungs again: it's like the world around me collectively exhales.

We ran around Lake Harriet after work yesterday. It was gorgeous; the wind was mild, the path was (relatively) clear, and everyone we passed smiled as we went by. Maybe it was the nonstop 3-year-old motormouth in the stroller, but I would like to think it was a shared bond of being a hearty Minnesotan who braves 35-degree sunsets in order to get the first outdoor run of the year in on February 19th. I imagine being able to see through people on days like yesterday, into their lungs, which are pink with blood and inflated with cool air, and almost radiant with the joy of being outside once again. I was reminded last night why I love my big little town, why Minneapolis renews her siren-call to me every spring, why I stay. It's so beautiful, and I get the people here. I know I could live anywhere, but Minneapolis is just... home.

Oh yah. Spring fever, in the worst kind of way. Thankfully, it's meant to be in the 40s for much of this week. I'm ignoring the snowstorm they mentioned on the news last night. If I didn't pay attention, it won't happen. Right?
Wait. Minneapolis, in March. A whole month's worth of snow yet. Hrm.

Additional signs of spring:

• I ordered all the seeds for the garden Sunday. They should be here in a week or so. The planting begins March 19th!
• Pitchers and catchers reported yesterday. Randy Shaver reported in shorts from Florida last night. He always sounds so damned exhausted when he reports on-site; he makes me feel like I should go to spring training and report for him; I'd be all kinds of enthusiastic, no matter how hard I worked during the day. It's warm! It's baseball!
• Paige and I had a rousing conversation yesterday about going to the Twins home opener (squee -- I cannot wait!). She's stoked about getting to eat hot dogs, snack on popcorn, and scream her little lungs out. Now, I need to help her memorize the line up...
• It's light when I get to work. It's light when I get home. (side note: I'm a little concerned about how this new daylight-savings-time thing is going to work. Not for all the computer problems it will cause -- I lived through Y2K using technology -- but simply for the circadian rhythm adjustment. The spring forward is always difficult for me; I am a little anxious about extending it for almost 2 months.)