Friday
My twin and I for our birthday got tickets for The Boston Pops (symphony orchestra). It was not just any Boston pops though. My parents wouldn’t torture us that badly. It would be all baseball songs. The night had finally came. I was excited. Unsure what to really expect but knowing they would be playing baseball songs, I was looking forward to it.
My parents and I met Justin (my twin) and his wife Lindsay at PF Chang’s. An up scale Chinese restaurant. It was only my third time being there and first time in over 5 years. We were seated pretty quickly but we did call ahead as well. They had sat us in the middle of the large dining room. I could not hear a thing and they knew it would be difficult for me to hear so they asked if we could move. They had moved us to a side room, off the main dining room. This room had about 4 large tables. It was quieter plus we had some arm room. It was nice. My twin had ordered us a family size soup that we all enjoyed. For appetizers, we got eggrolls and dumplings and something else. For the main course they made me up a vegetable dish with hot sauce that was yummy. They also got garlic noodles, house rice and some chicken dish. Every thing I ate was good. It was a bit pricey, but it was good.
When we finished dinner we headed over to the opera house to see Boston pop’s with Keith Lockhart presents baseball at the pops.
We sat in the first row of the left balcony. They were good seats. The first half was not what I expected. It was a tribute to some famous person in the field who was born 200 years ago, Felix Mendelssohn. They played The wedding march from a midsummer night dream and violin concerto with concertmaster Tamara Smirnova. The Wedding March was just the orchestra. No one sang. I was like umm ok, this is boring. I just sat there felt like I was being tortured. It finally ended after about 10 minutes. The next thing was more than torture. It was 25 minutes of just instruments playing. At one point my twin leans over to me and says “this reminds me of Tom and Gerry”. I tried to visualize something that would go with the sounds I was hearing, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know where the sounds were going so I couldn’t visualize anything. It was very boring and if this was what the rest would be like, I am going to cry. It was half time and when they came back it was cool. The rest of the time was tolerable. They did Casey at the bat, with someone reciting the great poem. Other things they played was “the national game”, “The Natural”, and my favorite, “take me out to the ball game” the original. They also had members from the Boston conservatory backed up by the pops, did a segment called “baseball on Broadway” where they performed some known baseball theme songs. I had recognized some from a fe years ago when my sister took me to see a high performance of “damn Yankee”. They also did some from a peanut baseball play. It was pretty funny. I get a kick out of when every Charley brown mentions “the girl with the red hair”. I don’t know. Its like the shy me can so be Charley Brown at that point. My mom had bought a few copies of the cd that has them doing more RedSox-related songs like “shipping up to Boston” and “sweet Caroline”. If you are not from the Boston area, you wont understand the relationship.
Over all, I give it a C. If it was not for the baseball songs, I would have cried. Orchestra music is just not my type of music. But eh, I went, I listened, I tried to enjoy.
Saturday
My father and I signed up for a trip to a casino with a club my dad belongs with. My mom had a Bar Mitzvah to help out with at our temple, so she couldn’t go. We went on one of those luxury buses that has a bathroom and a tv-DVD. I put on my radio and my dad brought the Sunday news paper to read. At some point we both took a short nap. It was a two hour long trip.
We got to Mohegan sun casino about 11;30. When we got off the bus we were given a coupon for 15 dollars off a meal and 3 free plays on the big wheel. We had not been to this particular casino in over a year so we had to get new player’s cards to accumulate points. After we did that, we went to check out the big wheel, but there was a lot of people in line so my dad said we will come back. I had no idea what this big wheel consisted of but we got 3 free plays so it wasn’t costing us and we could win money.
We sat down at a penny machine that I never played before. It was ok, it made noises and I got a few small hits but nothing overly exciting. I cashed out on the plus side by a few dollars. My dad wanted to play the quarter machines, so we went over and played those. I got a few good hits on that. I had put in 10 dollars and cashed out 30. My dad was noticeable frustrated all day and it made me a bit on edge but I didn’t show it because it was somewhat understandable and it was for my behalf anyways. Almost every other machine we sat down at didn’t make any noise. The volume was either very low or there was no volume. So instead of looking on that row or the next row over, he had us walking to different sections of the casino to find machines each time. So I did more walking around than actually playing. He also was looking for machines that were side by side so he could tell me what I won each time I got a hit. Apparently he couldn’t find many that were opened side by side. And one other thing that annoyed me. So he plays the quarter machines that you put in 75 cents per a turn but if the pennies had 40 or more lines, (a penny a line) well that was too expensive. So 75 is ok, but 40 cents is too expensive. I know my logic is off at times, but I am pretty sure 40 is less than 75?
We had played 10 machines in 2 hours. I was up 23 dollars altogether. We were both hungry so we headed for lunch. We walked around a bit to check out some of the different restaurants. They had everything from up scale stake houses all the way down to a food court. My dad knew I was good with a burger so he asked if I would want Johnny rockets. I guess it is a national burger chain, but this is the only one I know of in New England and I never actually ate in side because it was always too busy. It was a little busy, but we waited about 7 minutes and we were seated. The food was small in portions but it was tasty. I got a classic without cheese and split a bucket of half fries half rings. When I got my burger and felt how small the thing was, I ordered a salad too. My dad got a stake and cheese sub. He said it was good. After eating the last of the fries and onion rings we were off to find machines that made noises.
The after lunch was the same as the before lunch. He had a hard time finding machines that were opened side by side and when he did, they weren’t making noises. I was playing one machine and heard one right behind me that I like to play. My mom and I played it at a different casino. It was called genie of the lamp. When you get certain things they had different side games. One was you had 3 lamps and you got to pick one of them. Each had a different amount of money in them. So which ever you touched, it showed the value and that was what you got. Another game was that there was a bunch of lamps on the screen. Under them they had different values and there was a few items as well. However, there was also the genie. You didn’t want to pick that one or he would wake and the side game was over. There was other side games too. After playing for a while I could figure out what game was in front of me and knew where to touch the screen but if no one was there to tell me what the values I am getting is, its not fun at all. So my dad was behind me playing another game. When he heard I got a bonus, he could come over and tell me what I got. However. He got bored of the machine he was playing and wandered to find a different machine. When I got a bonus game, I knew how to play but I didn’t know if I got 15 cents, or 15000 cents. No one was there to tell me. So I left that machine and found my dad. He was playing a machine we know but I was ok with not playing it but he wanted to play and he was looking for it all day, I played for a bit. We wandered more and I started to not do well and my knees were killing me from walking around so much but I didn’t want to say anything cause by this time, my dad was very frustrated and aggravated. At the end of the 6 hours, I had only lost 30 dollars. Not bad for 6 hours of entertainment.
We met up with the other members of the club we came down with and got on the bus. They put on a movie for us. “uncle buck”. Which was an ok movie. However they had put the volume up so loud that even with my radio up all the way on my ears, I could barely hear the radio. Some people complained but I don’t think the people in the front of the bus could hear them. I was wondering during the movie how much better the movie would be if uncle buck was played by Adam Sandler.
We got back to the club about 8. They had ordered Chinese food for everyone. It was mostly American Chinese food so I ate enough. They also had the RedSox game on. They had the hockey and other games on too. The club has about 6 different televisions around. They were winning when we left in 7th, when we got home and watched the 9th inning, the good luck ran out of the RedSox. Our closer, Papelbon who had been perfect in save chances for the year blew one as he gave up a 2 run home run and the mets won 3-2. I went to sleep soon after the game.
Sunday
I had tickets to the RedSox vs Mets game that was slated to begin at 1;35. I originally woke up about 3 but went back to sleep about 7. I woke up the second time about 11;30. John my best friend, was going to pick me up in an hour. I quickly got up, took a shower and got ready. I got a call, figuring it was John telling me that he was just leaving his house or that he hit a bit of traffic. I was definitely not prepared when it was him but he said that he could not go to the game. Holden (7 month old baby) tried to clime out of his crib and fell. They were taking him to the hospital to get him checked out. I told him, that ok, go, I will find someone. (not sure who I was going to be able to call who could go at the last minute) He said that if he gets in and out quickly, he’ll call me and find out where I am. I said, ok, but you go take care of the baby. I ran up stairs and said to my dad, after catch my breath from the thought of my nephew falling out of his crib, told my dad that John could not go to the game. He said, ok, I will go. I was shocked. He said that he hasn’t been to a game this year. (um, you have only been to a handful of games in the last 20 years) Are you sure? He said that he will enjoy it. He just had to take a shower and quickly get dressed. And that he did. We were out of the house within 20 minutes and in the car heading to the game.
We parked about two blocks from the park and headed over. I had thought that the tickets were in the right field grand stands which face the score board and in order to see home plate, you have to turn 90 degrees to see it. The tickets said obstructed view so I knew were under the hang over which was a good thing because there was a passing thunder shower in the forecast. However, we had some pretty good seats. We were under a hangover and there was a pole in front of us about 10 rows down, but we were right between home plate and first base but much closer to home plate.
The RedSox had old man Wakefield pitching for us and the Mets had redding pitching for them. My dad gave me very good play by play. Especially considering he only started to get into baseball about 3 or so years ago. It sounded like there was a lot of Mets fans including the people next to me. It sounded like a 60-40 ratio. It’s sad that that many Mets fans were able to get tickets. Anywho, it was a battle, drawn out game.
There was a rain delay in the bottom of the first inning. We had a man on and our 3rd batter, DH David Ortiz was up when there was a rumble of thunder that sounded like it was right next to the park. (After the game, when I was listening to an interview with the catcher, he said that it was a bit dangerous because there was hail falling too.) The ground crew quickly sprinted into action to cover up the home plate area and the pitching mound before covering the entire infield over with a very large tarp and securing it down. My dad said there was about 20 people working on this project. I am visualizing ants trying to steal a picnic basket from Yogi bear. This tarp that was 100 by 100 or so being laid out by 20 people. The rain lasted about 20 minutes. Then the ground crew had to take the water off the tarp flattening the tarp back out and rolling it up with this huge cylinder thing that was about 20 feet wide and 4 feet tall. My dad was amazed by this process as he tells me what is going on. Eventually it was all cleaned up and they were ready to play ball after an hour rain delay.
So Pedroia was at first and Ortiz was up. Ortiz got out and Kevin Youkalus was up. He hit a touring shot down the line and originally it was called a foul ball, another ump thought it was fare so for only the second time in Fenway park history, and the second time in two days, they used an instant replay to tell if it was fare or foul. It turned out, after a 8 minute delay, to be a foul ball unfortunately.
Both pitchers battled through giving up hits and walks, a few runs but for the most part, getting out of jams and minimizing the damage. Wakefield did give up 5 runs in 6 innings, but it could have been much worse.
However, the Met’s starting pitcher, or any of their pitchers for that matter, didn’t do so well. Mike Lowell got a 3 run home run and Youk came calling again with a two run home run that was a no doubter.
And when the dust of the evening fell and the last out was recorded, the Boston RedSox had blasted the New York Mets out of Fenway park 12 to 5 and old man Wakefield picked up his 6th win. We were both hungry and my dad felt like fajitas from a specific restaurant and I didn’t mind. I could get chicken wings and a salad. Plus we could play keno.
We got a ditz of a waiter. (is that possible? A guy be a ditz?) I got my salad but he didn’t give us any silverware and he was no where to be seen so my dad asked a passing waitress who brought them over. T guy only came over to took our order and bring us our food and drink. He never came over to ask how things were or ask if we needed a refill. On the keno, I played 2 28 34 42 78. My number (34) my twin’s number (42) and our birthday (2-28-78) and on one of the games I hit 4 out of 5 which won me 20 dollars. My dad didn’t keep up with all the numbers but I thought that was the only winning game but when we went to check our tickets, I had won 24 dollars all together. Not bad with a 10 dollar investment.
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it sounds like you had a lot of fun!
Yay for good weekends.