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June 19, 2000 |
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Yep. It's my birthday today. I'm all of thirty-two years old today. I know… not particularly extraordinary. Except that 32 is a perfect fifth. What might you ask is a perfect fifth? Well, it is the product of a integer multiplied by itself five times. In other words…
25 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 32Yes, granted that's also true with one, but I don't really count it, since it is true for any power of one. The next perfect fifth is 243 and my living to that age is probably beyond the realm of reasonable optimism. Still, if I had the choice I would choose to live forever. With any luck, I'll reach the age of sixty-four, which is a perfect sixth.
Okay, sue me. I was a mathematics minor in college. Numbers amuse me.
I got a knock on the door this morning. It was from a FedEx guy, who needed my signature. It was a package that I've been expecting from Atlanta. It was the Braves' tickets with an attached note from the promotions person. I got Braves' tickets to a game at Turner Field. Woo Hoo!!
Actually, after exchanging some mail with her I managed to get tickets for the August 13 game vs. the L.A. Dodgers. She was a very nice lady. This is great!
Something I occasionally wonder about is what people think about when I answer my door. You see, I occasionally answer without wearing a shirt. I figure that's fairly normal for men, except that I have long hair. I wonder how many delivery people may, for a quick moment, think that a topless woman has just answered the door. And once they figure out that I am, indeed, a man, what they think about when they see that I wear a nipple ring. Not that I really care, mind you, but I'm just a bit curious.
I took a few moments to check my e-mail before I went to work. I got a Happy Birthday e-mail from my friend Iva, which was a sweet gesture. Well, the idea of remembering my birthday and sending me e-mail was a sweet gesture.
The contents of the e-mail were a little less pleasant. You see, Iva has fairly recently (within the last few years) become a devoted Christian. It, our discussion, really started a little over a year ago when she found out that I was agnostic. I won't go into the delicate differences between agnosticism and atheism. Although if you insist on sending me mail, I urge you to look it up and understand the subtle differences before telling me that I'm misguided. To her, it seemed to make little difference since neither agnosticism nor atheism seem to sit well with her and thus the whole thing started.
I won't go into the details of the mail, except that she quoted scripture. Not the precisely the way I wanted to start my birthday.
Today would a baseball birthday. Pam incidentally got free tickets to today's Tampa Bay Devil Rays' game versus the Mariners. The game is here in Safeco Field, of course. Naturally, I'm rooting against the Mariners. Why? You might think that living in Seattle I might (or should?) root for the local team. That's precisely why I don't root for the local team.
The game started at 7pm. We had talked about arriving a bit later than the start time of 7pm. Baseball games typically last about three hours. It wouldn't kill us if we missed the first couple of innings and the idea of dealing with the traffic to get there by 7pm is utterly paralyzing. Seattle traffic is no picnic and during Mariner's games it is even worse. Our plans were to meet at her place and take the bus down there.
Still, getting to her place in the proximity of 7pm is a task. I'm convinced that Seattle traffic is determined to smite me. I had to drive across the 520 bridge, one of two bridges across Lake Washington. As I was driving across the 520 bridge, there was one particular pickup truck that made it a point to cut me off. Now, I know that you are probably thinking that I have delusions of persecution, but really this guy cut me off on purpose. He literally slowed down on his lane and waited for me to near before darting in front of me. As I was planning my retaliation, I realized that this pickup truck looked very familiar. In fact, it looks just like Jim's truck… actually, it was Jim's truck. I saw Jim waving from the driver's seat and looking back. Then I hear my cell phone ringing. We says, "Hi." He saw me on the highway and simply had had to cut me off. See?! I'm not hallucinating.
I get to Pam's uneventfully… well, apart from the incident with Jim. We collect our things and wander out to the bus stop. Naturally, I was carrying my baseball mitt… in the off chance that I might catch a foul ball. As for riding the bus, I suppose I could drive out the ballpark, but the idea of paying ten dollars for parking for a free baseball ticket is utterly depressing. Particularly since I don't really like the Mariners, but I'd be more than happy to see them lose.
The bus ride was uneventful, we take one of the two buses that run by the ballpark. It was an entertaining ride, the way it always is. Not to say that there's anything wrong with bus riders, after all, I rode the bus, but it is just that it is an eclectic bunch. You know people that you might associate with individually, but folks that you would never see together… something like that. Oh, and we accidentally got off the bus a few blocks early, which meant that we had to walk the rest of the way. The whole thing wasn't really that bad, except that we didn't really know the general direction of the ballpark.
Once we got to the ballpark, everything was fine. We wondered around the promenade in the ballpark. She got a lemonade and hot dog. I wanted to get Dixie's Barbecue. It had become so popular that they put one of their restaurants in the ballpark, which is befitting, since I go out of my way to go there at the ballpark. Pam payed for my dinner, she insisted that I would not play for anything on my birthday. She's a sweetheart.
We watched the game from the outfield for a while, near Dixie's. The Mariners were trailing the game which was certainly a plus. After dinner, we found our way to our seats, which were on the second level on the first base side. On the way we got some cotton candy, not for me, mind you, but she just had a taste for it. We sat down, got comfortable, and started to watch the game. It was a chilly night. Safeco Field is a retractable roof stadium, and the roof was open tonight. I'm not sure how much the retractable roof affects the temperature, but having it open certainly wasn't helping.
We sat and cuddled, as we watched the Tampa Bay Devil Rays sink the Mariners into a deeper and deeper hole. Each hit, each put the Mariners further and further behind. Most folks around us slowly sank further into despair. Naturally, I was cheerful. There are few teams I dislike more than the Mariners. Pam became a bit chilly as the game progressed and we decided to leave shortly after the seventh inning started. Alas, there was no foul ball hit our way and thus no chance for me to catch one. [Sigh] The score was Devil Rays 8, Mariners 2 when we left.
We got a couple of salted pretzels on our way out, as well as, a lemonade… to wash it down. We continued walking out of the ballpark, onto the street. We had located a nearby bus stop and proceeded to stand by it. Neither of us really thinking about the ride back or anything like that. It was a few minutes before she realized that we had picked the stop on the wrong side of the street and we would be heading away from her place in Queen Anne. It's a good thing that one of us is paying attention. Needless to say, we crossed the street to find the appropriate bus stop.
The wait was about fifteen minutes, which wasn't bad, except that she was feeling a bit chilly. I did what I could to shelter her from the wind. There we stood in the cold Seattle street, occasionally exchanging kisses. Naturally, it was a full load for the bus, which meant that we would stand. The bus driver accepted my transfer from the earlier ride, despite the fact that it was clearly expired. I suppose they felt a bit charitable, but I don't think that they really ever check for the actual time on the transfer.
Pam ran into one of her workmates on the bus, although she didn't really remember her name. They exchanged their pleasantries and that was pretty much the end of it. The woman did say that Pam was tough to recognize outside of her work clothes. What does that mean?
We arrived at her place shortly after that. I suppose that Pam needed a sense of completion and wanted to know the final score, which turned out to be Tampa Bay 10, Seattle 3. A Mariner loss… Woo Hoo!.
I hung out to unwind a bit after getting back. I toyed with the idea of going home, although she said that she wasn't finished yet. She asked me what else I would like for my birthday… I asked, and she obliged. Have I mentioned lately that she's a sweetheart? A very gifted sweetheart?
That was the "cherry on top" to wonderful birthday. It was almost perfect (the Braves lost, you see…). I'd like to give a special thanks to my girlfriend, for quite possibly my best birthday. Here's a big, wet, soppy kiss. [Smooch!]
June 19, 2000