It Was a Perfect Day for Football!
Too bad I was going to a Red Sox game…
All day, I kept looking out of windows muttering, “Damn, it better not rain.” When four o’clock rolled around, I stood up and started my long trek out the door at work. I packed up my crap, stopped to talk to Matt about… well nothing really, and sauntered out to my car. I knew it wasn’t going to take me an hour and a half to get to Riverside (no, not the old amusement park that is now technically Six Flags New England but which I prefer to refer to as Riverflags – the T stop at the end of the D line of the green line).
I actually got out to my car at 4:30 or thereabouts. The clouds were threatening, but no actual precipitation had started. I began to regret not bringing a long sleeved shirt. I even thought of heading over to Shoppers’ World to pick up a long sleeved red shirt to wear under my Trot Nixon #7 jersey (home jersey, no name, the real thing). But the traffic on Route 9 did not look favorable, and as I drove up the ramp to the Pike, I was rewarded with the announcement that, in addition to the normal afternoon traffic report, Route 9 was backed up by Shoppers’ World.
The Pike wasn’t particularly backed up, but it wasn’t moving at full speed. I stopped at the rest stop for a muffin and some cash, and drove the rest of the way to Riverside without incident. I waited for about 5 minutes to pay for my parking, and then sat in the car for a while, waiting for Mike to arrive from work. I was more than a little early.
When I called Mike, he said he had no cash and needed to stop for an ATM. Not wanting to wait much longer (I’m an impatient person), I told him I was looking straight at an ATM (because I was). Then he reminded me that without cash, he could not park, so we made a deal by which he would call as he approached the station, and I would run out to his car with some money. This happened flawlessly, and he asked if I wanted to just get in his car. I was not dressed in my full regalia yet, so I declined, and returned to my Jetta. While inside, I crammed various necessities into various pockets of my cargo pants, readjusted my pigtails, straightened my ball cap, and put on my #7 jersey.
Time passed. Cars slowly moved towards the ticket stand. More time passed. I got bored. So I locked up my car and started walking for the gate. I saw Mike’s car, waiting about where I had started when I arrived 20 minutes before he did. He’d been waiting in line for at least 15 minutes already with another 5 to go. So I ran over to his car and jumped in.
When he finally got to park, he asked if I thought he should wear his long sleeved shirt or his fleece. I grumbled and pouted, since he was the one who talked me out of bringing a long sleeved shirt in the first place! He offered me the long sleeved shirt and took the fleece. I changed shirts in the parking lot. Whatever.
We are rather familiar with the trip into Boston from Riverside. We’ve done it a lot. A lot, a lot. And every time, we laugh at the tourists and townies who haven’t got a clue. There’s always at least one person surprised by the $3 charge out this far, and one other confused by the fact that the train runs above ground. The trolley slowly moved towards the city, and we got off at Kenmore (after informing a good number of people that the Fenway station really isn’t the place to go).
Sprinkles were falling from the cool cloudy sky. But I’ve seen worse. I’ve been to games where they played through worse!
We got to the park, bought our regular food (sausage for Mike, chicken fingers for me), and ate it under the cover of the stadium. Our seats were in the bleachers, and we didn’t really feel like eating rain for dinner. We then went up to our seats. And up. And up. Turns out that row 50 is the last row in section 42…
We wiped off our seats as best we could and settled in. At 7:00, the sent the singer out into the rain to perform the national anthems (both, since Toronto was the visiting team – yes, Toronto, as if we haven’t seen enough of them this year :-D), but the infield tarp was still carefully laid across the field. After a too fast rendition of the Canadian anthem and a too slow rendition of the American, we sat back in our seats, and waited for the game to begin.
And waited…
And waited…
The tarp was still out on the field, we were saturated in rainwater, and Mike was cold, so we went back down to get out from the rain. I got a beer. We watched a silent NESN broadcast rain delay filler. And then I heard some muffled announcement sounds from the stands, but couldn’t decipher it. And people started pouring out. Not wanting to accidentally leave a game that was going to happen, Mike went out to check the scoreboard. It did in fact say the game was postponed until 1:05 the next afternoon (today).
*sigh*
Back to Kenmore. Wait in line. Pay the man $1.25. Wait for a train. Three go by without stopping. Get on the fourth train. Get off the train. Drive home. Dump clothes into washing machine. Put on pajamas. TV. Ice cream. Sleep.
So, today, I leave work at 11:45. My boss is on vacation, my group lead is away, and I have no looming deadlines. (Plus my group lead did answer his email and said it was fine – I’m an honest girl.)
Let’s go Red Sox!