Day 268: The baseball game

Today is all about my mom.

She needed some help with her computer, and we needed to plan the party for my dad's 80th birthday in a few months.

We got ready and headed to her office to get to work. We did some quick tutorials on the computer and then got started on the party.

I'm not sure we got much accomplished for the party, but we talked about a lot of different scenarios which is good I guess.

Then it was off to a pre-game dinner at Steak N Shake... one of my favorite places.

It was actually Mr. Wonderful's favorite place to eat when we went back home and I adopted it as my own, because it's pretty dog gone tasty.

We enjoyed our steak burgers and split a shake and we were off to the game.

Any time I've been to the new stadium, I have ridden with someone else, or stayed at a nearby hotel and walked so I had no idea about parking.

We plugged the stadium into the GPS and let the little lady in the box tell us where to go, which was all fine and good until it came time to park.

For those of you who don't know, the GPS will take you directly to the location, not to a parking lot or garage near it.

We drove right past the stadium, and then started to look for parking. We had no iea where we were going. I kept saying to my mom I felt like a bunch of 'yoekels'.

We finally got into a parking lot and made our way into the stadium. Once again, I have no idea where we are going because we're sitting in an area I've never been to.

We get inside and start to walk around, my strategy was to move up a level and hopefuly figure out there.

It wa a great plan, as soon as we made it to the first level I asked an usher for directions and we were in luck we were right where we were supposed to be!

Whoo hoo! He directed us to elevators around the corner, when we got there a lady told us to keep walking.

So we walked until we found the next usher who gave us the next set of directions to take us on the next leg of our journey.

Once we saw our destination in sight we decided to stop off for a pit stop before we headed to our seats.

In the bathroom, once again I laughed as I called us yoekels again, because we had a hard time figuring out the paper towels in the bathroom.

We looked on the side, and eventually gave up and went to another one in the bathroom that had paper towels hanging out.

As I ripped the paper towel off I noticed a lever underneath to push for more towels. Wow, it's like we've never been in civilization before.

This experience is a far cry from one of my most famed game experiences which happened at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

It all started with a trip to visit my college roommate and see the Cardinals play the Cubs.

My brother's best friend worked with the Cardinals shorstops cousin. I know it sounds like 17 degrees of seperation, but evidently they had hung out with the team.

My mom suggested I see if the shortstop could get us tickets, so I didn't buy any hoping to hear from Edgar Renteria that we were in.

I hadn't heard from my mom by game time, so I headed to the 'will call' window hoping they were there.

When I gave them my name and told them where the tickets were coming from they directed me to a green door.

I walked in and was greeted by a gentleman behind a counter sitting at a desk. I immediately recogized we were not in the right place but decided to tell him my situation because what could it hurt?

He politely asked who Edgar Renteria was... quickly followed by the remark 'oh I fine Irishman I see'.

He told me to have a seat while he called the traveling secretary.

After listening to a few conversations about multi-million dollar business deals, watching one of the Cubs announcers walk through the area to the inner bowels of the stadium, and seeing an older gentleman wearing an NCAA championship ring I decided it was time to go.

I got up to let the gentleman know we were leaving and he sternly said 'sit down'.

Ok... so we sat down and waited a little while longer. When I'd had enough, I went up to the counter again and the guy said 'go outside to the ticket window, your tickets are there.'

Wow! Who knew?? So we get our tickets and head inside to the game and sit down.

About the time we got settled in our seats, I got a call from my mom who wanted to let me know she made some calls and got some answers... and Renteria thought we needed seats for the series in St. Louis not Chicago so he didn't leave any tickets for us.

What?! Then how the heck did we get into the game? It was a complete fluke! There is no way I could have done that if I tried. But to this day, it's a story for the for the record books.

During the game we managed to make our way down to seats close to the field, and afterward went out in Wrigleyville.

While we were at a bar, we ran into a few guys who were in town for a hardware convention of some sort.

They had tickets and a parking pass for the next days game but couldn't use them so they gave them to us.

When it was all said and done we managed to go to two games for free, got a free dinner, and had a parking pass. What an amazing weekend.

While this trip wouldn't rise to that level it was good in it's own right.

It was my first trip to the ballpark since Mr. Wonderfull passed away, and something I'm not sure I could have done a year ago.

It was a special place for us which makes it hard, but I think I'm finally rounding the corner and moving on.

I didn't even think about it more than once or twice, but being with my mom was comforting.