baseball

Nerd / Baseball

While I do enjoy watching a good – me sing active and well-played – baseball game, I certainly am not into it like the average person who watches professional sports is. I do not have a strong association with this group of people who are not from my town or neighborhood, often, even, country, and who are here merely to play a sport. I find nothing wrong with their doing that. But I only would have immense interest in their games if they were people either who came from the same exact background as I did, or if they were people I knew personally.

For example, when the hockey team plays well at school, I am very proud of them. I go willingly to their games. Why? Not just because they are at my school, but because I know several of the players. Same for cross country. Yet it changes every year. I once cared a lot about the football games, because my students played in them. This year, not a single one plays football, and I haven’t made it to more than about twenty minutes or so of the first game of the season. I don’t know the players this year. But I do know members of the hockey and cross country and water polo teams, and so I watch their season with interest and enjoy attending their events when I can.

Anyway, all this is to say that, though I don’t exactly go wild for watching professional baseball, I really do enjoy the part where it often brings family and friends together just to sit around and be together for several hours at a time. It is truly a great pastime, and I appreciate and am grateful for it.

(And I still don’t support people being angry or mean in any way regarding sports rivalries. Not a chance. Grow up. Be a kind human being. Period. Support your team, and stop being nasty to others just because you support one team in particular and they don’t.)

Okay, and the nerd part is that I got an A on my Mandarin oral quiz! And I didn’t even have the full amount of time to prepare for it. So, extra-cool! Yay!

Thank you, God, for my success and for this opportunity. In your name, I pray in gratitude. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Fireworks

I didn’t see any fireworks for July Fourth, though I heard plenty from my bed.

It would have been such hassle even to consider how to go see fireworks, I didn’t even bother looking into it, and I just went to bed that night when I was ready.

Tonight, without having to go anywhere or figure out anything, we got to watch great fireworks to music from the 1980s after the baseball game ended. We didn’t even have to leave our seats, and they had a perfect and central view of the fireworks. It was awesome, and way better of a view than I’d have had for anything on the Fourth, anyway. Plus, it was hassle-free and after a baseball game we enjoyed attending. Great surprise at the end there. Great surprise.

Thank you, God, for the blessing of today, and for that fun turnout with my getting to see fireworks after all. Thank you. Keep my man safe, please. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Baseball coincidence and fun

I send a friend of mine a photo of the baseball game from our seats for the night. My man’s brother let us have his seats for the night, since he is out of town, and w w roughy my brother and sister-in-law with us. They are great seats. But it is also a professional baseball game, and this particular friend loves the Astros.

I snap the photo and send it.

Then I do a double take back to the message. On the message screen is two photos. Apparently the last messaging we had done on there (versus WhatsApp) was when I had been asking why he wasn’t at our gym social yet, and he had responded with a photo of the baseball game… a photo that looks almost identical to the one I have just sent him.

Hang on a tic…!

Are we in the same section as his tickets?!

I quickly show the photos to my man and start to look around. It seems his photo is slightly more to the right. My brother points out that it is also a touch higher up. I look to the implicated seats. I do not see him, though. As we pinpoint our exact guess – one row up, one section to the right, seat nine or ten – I notice that my phone is buzzing in my man’s hand while he swipes back and forth between the images.

After my man details for me why he thinks the photo was taken where he thinks it was taken, I open the new messages to see a photo of a television screen showing the game. The friend is watching at home. Ugh! I thought he had season tickets, though! I tell him as much. Only for the weekend games, he says. Ah, I see. I tell him how I was looking for him. He asks if we are on a certain same level. Uh, duh. Did you not see those two nearly identical photos?! I say that in a nicer way, and I tell him my man’s specific guess for where the friend’s weekend-only seats are located.

He is blown away. They are actually three rows higher than ours, not just one, but the section is the one right next to ours and the seats are nine, ten, and eleven. My man was almost spot-on.

But we’re not nerds. ;P

And we were all three very into this tiny game of comparison. Again, though, we’re not nerds or anything. Haha 😛

So, that was cool! Also, the Astros won, quite impressively. They had, I believe, four doubles in a row in one inning, giving three runs just from those. Then, the fourth run that inning was stolen, perhaps? I know one run was, but not sure if it was that inning or the first inning. If it was the first one, then, I believe, there was yet another double that inning. Nonetheless, it was a lot of doubles to have in a single game, let alone in one inning. And the pitcher wasn’t messing up. They just were somehow hitting them. It was really cool and bizarre.

Okay, I looked it up! I remembered correctly! It was four runs batted in from doubles, with a total of five doubles in a row in the inning!

It was totally cool to see. Each one was played very well by both teams, which helped to make it all so impressive. I’m really glad we got to attend and see this game.

Also, one player did the whole jumping into a wall thing to catch what was very nearly going to be a home run for the visiting team, and he caught the ball. He slammed backward into the wall a bit, and then pitched forward and fell to the ground, but he kept a good and clear hold on the ball, securing the out. It was absolutely impressive.

Thank you, God, for this lovely night out for us all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Credit goes to MLB’s website for photo and video, as shown on each.

Toads and Frogs

Tonight, leaving my man’s nephew’s baseball game, we crossed a small movement on the ground in the dark. After a minimal and short moment of panic, I realized it was a toad. It was right next to the dog, and the dog noticed its next move. So, I declared, “It’s a toad!”

The dog, of course, having seen the toad, goes right after it with a cute little hop to follow each of the toad’s. Seeing this, I encourage the dog, knowing she won’t hurt it, but more likely just sniff it as long as it’ll let her. “Get it, E—-! Get the toad,” I say.

There is only a moment of pause as my man and I both watch the dog hop once more after the toad, and then we hear a cute, high pitched voice declare, “I can!” It sounds like an offer, and an eager one.

We look up to see a boy from the baseball team already taking off his bag and heading straight for the toad. Instantly, of course, his mother firmly tells him, “No,” and he halts in his pursuit, only slightly dejected, but accepting of his fate.

The dog loses interest, fortunately, and the two of us snicker our way back to the car, where we can crack up at the little boy’s easy declaration of, “I can!” offering to help us capture a toad. 😛

It was a good and adorable interaction, to say the least. Thanks, little kid, for such hospitality and willingness. Haha 😀

Post-a-day 2023

Stepping out

Sometimes, it’s really hard for me to go out, to go to new places or just typical could-be-dirty-type places. Sometimes, it’s not very big of a deal. Tonight, I was excited about the idea of going to one place – a clean place in my mind. Then, the excitement transferred to a new idea of watching the baseball game somewhere nearby over drinks, instead of and after the meeting with drinks farther away. As we got into details of where this other place would be, I started to struggle a bit. It became something that I wanted to do for my man, much more so than for myself or for us to have fun. I found pleasure in the idea mostly out of his desire to go out and do something, to be somewhere that isn’t home, doing something relaxing and enjoyable.

So, I asked my brother if he and his wife were interested, and they almost immediately joined the plan. I made it clear that finding a place was on them, though without being rude or mean. My man recommended two spots, and my brother picked one. Once my man finished with his meeting across town, we headed to join my brother and sister-in-law at the selected patio bar place. I was only a little scared about it all, and it proved to be very reasonable a place, with clean amenities, even at night (I’d been there once during the day already). I enjoyed my time there with my family, and I’m glad we went. Hopefully, my man and my brother both got the relaxation and bit of fun and variation they likely both were needing tonight, my man especially.

God, grant them both blessed refreshing sleep tonight, please, that they be best prepared to pursue and fulfill your will in their lives tomorrow. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

World Series

Dear God,

I simply pray that all people be kind, loving, selfless, and forgiving throughout this World Series, especially those who call themselves “rivals” to others. Help us all to remember that we are all children of God, blessings to the world in all that we each are and in all that we are together, as one people.

In your name, I pray.

Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

I have never much wanted to be on a kiss cam. But, tonight, sitting at a baseball game for my first – I say that with hopes of more in the future, of course – date with the man who makes my heart grow more than I knew possible at someone else’s hands*, I wanted to be in that kiss cam (with him, of course. I mean, duh. Haha).

And so, it begins officially, this life with him.

God, may you ever be with us and work within and through us to share your love in the world. Help us to desire and to fulfill your will. Your will be done. Amen.

*The man who asked me, after seeing my awesome tennis shoes with my casual daytime outfit today, if I was going to be his wife. 😛

Post-a-day 2022

Halloween

Tomorrow is Halloween… I wonder if people will be coincidentally painting the town orange for the Astros and their being World Champions again, or if it merely will be casual black and orange and costumes for Halloween…

We shall see, I suppose… and I will know tomorrow, since I am already going to bed now…

Good luck, folks, and happy playing. 🙂

P.S. Halloween has become more of a reminder of Día de Muertos for me, the true holiday in my life, it seems… ;P

Post-a-day 2019

Family Time

I did dinner and a baseball game with my dad tonight. It was really good. Spending such a good chunk of time together, just the two of us, has been something that I have missed greatly in recent years. We do the occasional quick meal, or trip to the store, but it is never for very long at once, and it has become a rather rare occurrence this past year (and, naturally, nonexistent last year, when I didn’t live in the USA). Tonight was exactly the kind of thing we both enjoy doing, and especially together. I think this would be a good something to pursue, finding more circumstances that are similar to tonight’s events, so that my dad and I can hang out comfortably and casually (yet with a specific sort of activity at the source of our time, so that he’s permitted to be out for so long without hassle).

Tonight was good, and there was nothing specific that made it awesome. It was just good time, and good for our relationship, too.

Post-a-day 2018

La Traviata and the World Series

Tonight, I celebrated the Astros’ World Series win with a small group of people that included, but was not limited to, doctors, homosexuals, teachers, Romanians, and a temporary Houstonian, who is a godsend in the opera. I didn’t really know any of them – we all just love music, and opera specifically. At each intermission at the opera tonight, the screen typically reserved for the supertitles and announcements about Houston Grand Opera, displayed the score of the Astros-Dodgers game. During the curtain call, one of the leads showed the latest score on his hands, to relieve us all the worry. And, when a small group of us gathered for a ‘behind the music’ miniature interview with one of the performers, the game was discussed. The performer has only been in Houston a couple months, but he was as excited about the game as anyone else. And, when the official interview had ended, and we were all chatting, and the game ended, we all celebrated together like friends. And, in Houston, that is normal enough. And, I found the company to be so truly a representation of our town, that it made the win that much better. In Houston, just about anyone can talk to just about anyone. You look at groups of kids, and even people my age and up, and they’re often from all over the world, either directly so or by heritage. In Houston, we are diverse and we are loving. (This is person-to-person, not car-to-car, you see – people tend to forget that a car contains a person, so cars get treated way differently than people who are face-to-face.)

Anyway, I began to wonder if any of the players on the Astros team were actually from Houston. I’m not so sure any of them are from Houston. And, while that is a bit odd, seeing as Houston is celebrating their victory, it also is rather fitting. Houston is packed with people who are originally from it. People regularly come to Texas, and find themselves never wanting to leave (though, I know that this is my always the case). We are the most diverse city in the USA, and that can be observed not just walking the streets, but in looking at our baseball team. Those guys are from all over, just like the population of our city. I find it kind of cool, really.

Anyway, yay, Astros, and yay, for the fabulous operatic baritone that is George Petean!

Post-a-day 2017