Father's Day

With father's day upon us I thought I'd share my favorite father's day memory:

A few years ago, maybe a decade or more, my father decided to take us to a Red Sox game at Fenway park. For years he got season tickets in the form of a "clergy pass." This pass allowed him, as a Rabbi, to enter the stadium with one guest and sit anywhere there were free seats. Back in the day the Red Sox were not the super team they are now and the games were rarely sold out, which meant they were more lenient and allowed my father to bring in more than one guest. So on this particular father's day we all got in the car, my sister, my step-mother, my father, and me, and drove down to Fenway to get into a Red Sox game for free.
My father used all of the clergy benefits to his advantage. It turns out clergy get these car decals for funeral processions and such, and my father would use his to park at various churches and synagogues for free. Of course Boston is one of those cities that has difficult parking so we used his clergy parking pass (not really what it is). We all get out of the car, dad pops the trunk to get his picnic basket or something silly like that, and we close the doors. Oops, the keys are still in the car. My father makes me climb through the trunk, push down the seats, and slither through them to the front to get the keys. Great start!
When we get to Fenway, the game is sold out - it is father's day after all. We try to get all 4 people in but they say only two are allowed. Oh, wasn't there a guy on the way who was selling 4 tickets? We go back to the scalper and my dad tries to cut a deal. The scalper wants too much for 4 - oh wait, we only need 2 and we know that if the other two tickets are sold, they'll be from this scalper and we can accuse the buyers of getting their tickets illegally! So we buy the two tickets, get in with those and the clergy pass and sit in the 4 empty seats - right behind the home team dugout. Not bad.
When we get to the seats we see another Rabbi and his family that we know from summer camp sitting in the row behind us. Awesome, we're not the only ones abusing the system - oh wait, they bought their tickets and took the T in.
A few innings in, a young couple accuses us of being in their seats - someone finally bought those other two scalped tickets. My dad tries the, you bought those illegally bit, for a minutes but maybe feels bad so he points out two seats a few rows in front of us that haven't been occupied yet for them to sit in. It worked out for all.
What do I remember about the actual baseball game? Johnny Damon on deck and little kids nagging him for his autograph. No clue who they played or who won. I wonder if I was ever actually a Red Sox fan.
BTW, the Red Sox don't give out clergy passes now that all their games sell out. The Padres would never turn their back on their devout fans like that, paying or not paying. Although we'll never really know because the Padres may not ever have sell out seasons - and that's why I'm such a big fan.
Happy father's day, everyone!

My Tourist Weekend in San Diego

I had a pretty busy weekend in my own town doing a few tourist things. What a great city it is!

At work on Friday we got free passes to Sea World for that same night. I purposefully did not tell my immediate coworkers about the passes so I wouldn't bump into them there. I invited a friend of mine but she was sick and I was going to spend time with most of my other friends the rest of the weekend so I decided to call a guy who sometimes calls to hang out with me but I'm not interested in. He got home from work late and told me to just meet him at his house so he'd have a little time to get ready. I walked over (about 15 min walk) and when I got there he needed a beer, so I waited for him to have a beer. Then his client called and he made me wait in the other room while he answered the call. Then he wanted a burrito before we went to Seaworld wo I waited for him to get a burrito. Then we got to Seaworld and he ate his burrito in the car while I sat there. When we finally got to Seaworld it was pretty cool. he was still a total douche but it was really nice going to a theme park where there are zero tourists. Everyone there was invited by their work so it was all San Diegans and their families. The weather was a nice 65 and the lines were short. It was late at night so the animals were pretty rowdy and the view from the rollercoaster was great. We alos got to see the fireworks that I've only ever heard from various apartments around San Diego. When the park closed we went back to his car where I sat and waited for him to finish off the rest of his burrito. Then he drove to his house without asking me if I wanted to go home. Then we got out of the car, he didn't invite me in, and I walked home. Needless to say, I will not be hanging out with that guy any more.

Saturday I decided to walk to the zoo because it's a good fitness walk and I wanted to tell the membership desk that I have not been receiving my ZooNooz magazine, which is very important to my bathroom experience. When I got there I decided I might as well walk in and see a few favorites. This was a very different experience from the previous night. Tourism season is in full affect as the summer has started. I'm not used to the zoo being to crowded because I rarely go on a weekend day after Memorial day. I did enjoy the people watching and I tried to walk slowly with the crowd. I went over to where the giraffes are, expecting to just watch them and the elephants for a few minutes then go home (and maybe get some softserve). Turns out the elephants are no longer there. So I looked at a map to see where they were moved to and find out there's a new section of the zoo that must've recently been opened called "Elephant Odyssey." So that's what all those hats and t-shirts are about! OK, I decide to check it out since it doesn't look too far. It's far. They opened up a whole new area of the zoo that I don't think existed before. it felt like they doubled the size of the zoo. It was pretty cool I guess but the elephants seemed a lot further away than they used to be. It does have more of a "paleolithic age" feel to it though. When I finally got through the odyssey I had to walk home. it was a bit tough, I have to admit, but it felt goot to go on such a long walk and I didn't even stop for softserve!

Saturday afternoon B called to hang out with him and our mutual friend who was in town. He suggested we go for an easy hike. I nixed that right away. I could barely stand. Instead, they each decided to play their new record in it's entirety. Nice and relaxing, except that the listening enhancers made it so I had to get up to dance a little. Finally we went to an Ethiopian restaurant - totally for tourists, but enjoyable. It was surprisingly crowded too.

After dinner I made it home just in time to throw on a fancy dress and some heels and head to a downtown hotel for a friend's ballroom dance competition. This involved lots of standing around and $10 drinks. The competition wasn't too bad - it's always fun to gawk at the outfits, this time it was the men's outfits that were all jazzed up with glitter and sheer material. It's impossible to tell the straight men frm teh gay men. My friend won some cash, which is great because he owes me money. It was alos a nice excuse to wear that New Year's eve dress that gets so little action (wearing action, not sexual action).

Aaah bed time!

Woke up early Sunday to meet B and friend to go to the farmer's market. Another packed place in town. Have I forgotten how many people are here over the summer? We got the usual breakfast gyros that are not at all meant for breakfast, and coconut Thai pancakes that are also not meant for breakfast, and some fruit samples then headed over to the used bookstore. I bought The Hitchiker's Guide to the Gallaxy partly because I've always wanted to read it, but mostly because the actor who just starred as Scotty is the main character in the modern movie adaptation. We then chilled in the grass at B's house for a bit. I forgot how great June gloom is. It's basically 65 all day and night with warm sunshine when you want it and cool shade when you want it. Perfect. Went home to esape the B and friend while they fought over mixing music.

Sunday night B and I went out for sushi so he could get his last non-Mexican food for two months. Then we went up north to see Nikka Costa. We ran into two friends of his/mine at the show, which was nice but scary on my music-listening enhancers. I never like concert goers, no matter who they are. I always find an excuse to hate them - they stand to close, they're too tall (where are all these 7 ft tall ppl coming from and why do they love live music?), or the touch me when dancing, or they're making out in front of me, or they're wearing baseball hats that prove they are out of town hicks. Anyway, this guy came through the crowd to stand next to his 7 foot tall friend, and I, out of habit gave him a derisive look. 30 minutes later, the guy is on stage playing a mean sax with his band-member sister, who is apparently from San Diego. Oops. He looked like such a nice guy on stage too. Whenever he took a breath from playing the sax he had a smile on his face. Oh well, he was still too tall to be standing in front of me and I was happy when he didn't come back out tot he audience after his song.

So I finally went home and got to sleep, promising myself that I'd rollerblade after work on Monday adn wouldn't need to shower until after that workout. Then the alarm goes off this morning and I remember the mandatory happy hour we have scheduled today. I've already surpassed my June budget for money and food! At least we might get our of work early today!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that B and I watched scenes from Hairspray to get us in the dancing mood for the show. It totes worked.

Through the Generations

I visited my gramma this past weekend in Florida, with my mom. The two of them act just like me and my mom. It's horrible to watch. They are both bossy and sarcastic and bad cooks with bad taste in food - and neither of them see it in the other one. Gramma kept complaining to me about how bossy my mom is and laughed at her inability to cook. My mom was very good at ignoring the mean remarks, and even better at not caring to the point of making it worse. I hate seeing my own flaws in other people because it makes me realize how other people see me - not pretty. I even have the added bonus of loving these obnoxious people. The people around me must be in hell.
But the fact the neither my mom nor gramma realized that they are the same as each other gave me hope. At least I can see now that I act this way, and maybe it will help me not be like that forever.
Other intersting things about my visit:
My mom got a Blackberry and is always on it. It's common for someone to be on there new PDA a lot but those people are usually doing lots of different things, like texting, surfing the web, using cool apps, etc. My mom just takes a long time to do the simple things. She wants to text someone back - there goes five minutes. She wants us to pose for a picture and then save it - there goes ten minutes. We were getting in the car, with her in the driver's seat, and people were waiting for our parking spot while she stood there and did who knows what with her phone. I had to keep gramma talking at dinner while mom played with her phone. V. annoying.
Shopping with gramma was a trip too. She wanted to buy me something for my birthday so she took me to the old lady version of Marshall's. She went through each isle picking out different muumuus and matching colored denim suits for me and then got hurt when I said they were my style. Meanwhile, my mom shopped in the juniors section for herself. I finally picked out some boat shoes for her to buy me while mom got some tacky silver flip flops with mirrored bangles. Gramma took one look at them and said, JEANNE NO! Mom just laughed and took them to the register.
My mother has picked up some awful habits living alone all these years. She coughs without covering her mouth, she chews with her mouth open, she lets rip some awful farts, and she is sarcastic and judgmental. I love living alone but don't want to end up chewing with my mouth open. How can I avoid this?