Baseball in Many Forms

It was a very baseball themed week last week.  On Tuesday, Kevin and I got to go to our first game of the season where we watched the Mariner's begin to turn around their slow start by beating the A's.  It is such a geeky, happy thing to be going to games again. 

Friday night was a performance at The Seattle Rep of August Wilson's "Fences" which has a loose baseball association.  The protagonist was a former Negro League player who is one bitter guy about the segregation of his youth and not getting to play in the majors.  Of course, there was a lot more going on then just baseball in this play as it was more about race and interpersonal relations then baseball.  It was an extremely well-acted and well-written play.  I found out after the fact that it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama the year it was first performed.  You think that would be something they would tout in the production notes. 

We have another game to go to tomorrow night and I am busily clawing my way out of 8th place in my fantasy baseball league. 

Ah, the sweetness of spring.

Four Days of Fun

What do you get when you cross cute cat pictures, silly captions and America's pastime? You get "I Can Has Cheezburger" Night with the Seattle Mariners. Over 1000 cheez fans showed up for the game last Thursday night and cheered on the Mariners to a victory over the Texas Rangers. Being fans of both LOLcats and baseball, Todd and I knew this was a "must attend" event for us.

Here I am embracing the theme by wearing my Cheezburger t-shirt while eating a cheeseburger on Cheezburger Night.
Here is Todd willfully ignoring the theme by wearing a University of Minnesota shirt while eating chili-cheese fries on Cheezburger Night.


On Saturday, Kevin and I attended the second of our Adopt-A-Vine events at Chateau Fair le Pont winery. This session was all about blending and was educational, fun and, using proper wine lingo, yummy. Each table got three bottles of wine made from pure varietals: cabernet sauvignon, nebbiolo and merlot. We also got beakers, pipette and Erlenmeyer flasks to play wine scientists. The whole point of this was to play around with percentages of wine and make a tasty blend.

We were all amazed at how adding 2% more of one varietal and dropping another varietal 2% could change the flavor of the wine so dramatically. I think we tried probably eight different combinations before we came up with the blend our group liked the best.

While we were at the winery we visited the vines we "adopted" and pruned in April to see how they were doing. Here is Kevin with Sarah (pronounced like Syrah .. she is a pretentious vine, you know)

Here I am with Matilda. Who do you think is winning the "my vine will totally kick your vine's ass" competition?

Later that night Kevin surprised me with tickets to see Leavenworth Summer Theater's outdoor production of "The Sound of Music". He had no idea I had been wanting to see this for years now. He just thought it sounded like something we would both really enjoy. What a wonderful boyfriend I have.

This is the view from the seats.
You couldn't ask for a more perfect location for this play than in the hills in Leavenworth. Maria even came down from the woods on the hill next to the stage singing the theme song. I didn't grow up with the movie; in fact I didn't even see it until about five years ago, but the music is something that has become such a huge part of our cultural landscape that I could almost sing along with every song. A wonderful end to a beautiful summer day.

Sweet, Sweet Schadenfreude

Watching the player that had been on your fantasy baseball team for the last five years and was ruthlessly stolen from you by your own brother during the draft not only get tagged for the loss against your home team but lose the game because of his throwing error in a league that tracks fielding percentage is indeed a glorious thing. And a run-on sentence.

Put Me In Coach

Happy Opening Day everybody!!

You can keep your calendars, flowers and groundhogs. The first true sign that spring has arrived is the first full day of baseball season.

Let's play ball!