Ballz

Hooray for vacation! The weather's been lousy so far. But I always feel like I should be outside and active when it's nice out during the summer, so it's been really nice to be mostly lazy for a few days. I've been reading a lot, and it's making me feel really smart. I've also done a fair amount of shopping. I picked up new sneakers, which I think look fast. I'm going to test them out tomorrow morning. I'm hoping all of a sudden I can run a 19 minute 5k. They're magic shoes.

I've also done my share of drinking. I played Taboo in a bar, and Caitlin and I lost a beirut game to a pair of 22 year olds, making me feel very old and useless.

I went to what was perhaps my favorite Sox game so far last Friday. It started off great because it was a makeup game from the first weekend of the season, and it was a one o'clock game so I got to skip the last day of summer school. I told them it was a "family celebration." Which was sort of true, right? The whole afternoon was much sweeter knowing that I should have been working. The day was great. We had amazing seats on the third base line. The weather was perfect, sunny and not too hot. I got to see Manny up close:



And I got to see Papelbon pitch. He's southern, but cute:



During the 6th or 7th inning, I looked up, and the jumbotron even said "The Red Sox welcome the Gross family to Fenway Park." I know it wasn't us, but it was still neat.

But the best part was during the 8th inning. We were all hoping that we'd get some foul balls in the seats we had (my dad wanted to bring his glove, but I told him he'd look dumb. I had to have the same talk with my mom, who wanted to wear a fanny pack instead of bringing her purse). At the bottom of the 8th, David Ortiz hit a really high foul ball. It was up in the air, and seemed to be headed directly toward us. As it was racing back to Earth, I knew right then that was how I was going to die. So naturally, I ducked behind my dad and screamed "OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD." When I opened my eyes, it had landed on Caitlin's seat (she had also instinctively moved out of its path), so I grabbed it, along with two or three men. I yelled "I have it I have it!" and the other guys eventually let go, and I looked and realized I had David Ortiz's ball!

My mom took this picture right after I got it. You can't tell, but I shook for a solid 15 minutes after.



You can however see the big man in the red jersey behind me, who was pretty pissed that I got the ball. When the kids behind me wanted to hold the ball, he said that you could probably see his fingerprints on it.


And here it is!



I have a very exciting hump day planned for tomorrow. I think I might have a lunch date with Kate, and if so, I plan on stopping off at the Apple Store to touch an iPhone. I've also decided I miss having actual photo albums (that aren't online), so I'm going to get a lot of pictures printed out. I should get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be exhausting.