Todays' highlights and well... low lights?

What should I start with?

I better blog before it's Wednesday night and Stacy gets worried.

The highlights of today's Dodger victory. First of all, it was a shut-out. Second, they scored in the double-digits and it was a shut-out. They scored six runs in the seventh inning, and ten overall. Ten to zip. Pierre did great today. How many people will quickly forget he hit a triple and three doubles? How quick will they forget? Another highlight? How about when Duncan got hit with the broken bat?

Okay, enough about baseball. Well, major league baseball. We played three fly's up at the park yesterday. It was so different using a wooden bat this time around. Afterwards, Daniel and I took a trip to WalMart to get an aluminum bat. Hehe Kevin kept saying "you catch like your husband (Russell Martin)" during the game. We also played Ultimate Frisbee. With all that running around and stuff ... I knew I was going to be feeling it the next day.

Well, my body didn't want to wait till the next day to be screaming at me. It did plenty of that during the night. It certainly gave me a piece of its mind. Every time I moved, I woke up because of the pain I was in. Mind you, I move plenty enough when I sleep anyway. Like at Kayla's, I moved a good couple of inches upwards. And I toss and turn all the time. Well, last night, every time I turned, it took a lot of effort and a lot of pain to turn. Today, it was certainly a chore moving around. Everything hurt. From my knees to my elbows, to my thumb, along with my back, ribcage, legs, and who knows what else. Work will be interesting on Thursday if I still can't move. Hopefully I can sleep better tonight!

BTW... if you haven't maxed out all of your email addresses yet... VOTE FOR RUSSELL!!!

Rats ... so much for getting through class without...

... getting frustrated with the guy next to me.

We went through the first half of the class without me having to deal with him.

THEN we had to do an in class exercise. Let the headache begin.

Where do we start? How about how to write the author's name in the title field? I kept telling him, first name, then last. What does he type? Last name, comma, first. I tell him, no, it's "Jane Austen," not "Austen, Jane." We go back and forth on this. I tell him, this isn't the 100 field. It doesn't need to be last name, comma, first. This is the 245 field. It's supposed to be first name, last. Then I have to tell him, you misspelled persuasion, Austen, Austin, and who knows how many other words. At one point, Ken, the t.a. came over and stood behind him. He was telling him what mistakes he was doing, repeating himself several times, just as I do. Me? I was sitting there, with my arms crossed, laughing with Ken, as we were telling him what to do and what to correct. Argh.

Maybe my head hurts from the day. Or it could've been when I hit my head against the bookshelf last night. Let's see ... first the library class, then the Dodgers lost against the Cubs, and work was crazy because the public has gone crazy. Did I miss anything?

What a day...

That seems to be the thing, huh? First, I got called and asked to stay to close. I was supposed to work 2 - 8, but then the closer called out, so I needed to stay. And as I'm going through the parking lot, this lady pulls out around this car and nearly hits me! When I got there, it was just me and Joyce. Julio was supposed to come in, I guess, at 3:30. But he didn't. So, it was just me and Joyce. We couldn't get a break today, I guess. People were still coming in, even as it got closer and closer to closing. Even when I went to close the door, this lady walked in. When she saw I was closing the door, of course she left. I went over the whole store to make sure it was recovered and then took out the trash. WELL while I was going through the fitting room trash baskets, guess what I discovered? Another one with an unknown substance in it, that was pale yellow, and smelled. Yuck! This time I had to throw it out, and it was heavier than I expected.

Then after I left ... I was driving down the main street and I see this car in the other lane in the opposite direction without their headlights on. Now, I'm thinking, in this day and age, most new cars have automatic lights, don't they? I know mine do. I know my dad's and Sherisse's don't. I did the right thing and let the guy know his headlights weren't on. But it did make me wonder. Because, like I said, my headlights are automatic. As soon as I put the brake down, they come on. I don't even know how to turn them off.

Onto the freeway. I was driving in my lane, minding my own business, when the car in the lane next to me and in front ... I see something come flying out of their car. I wonder to myself, "was that a shoe?" Next thing I know, thunk! Yup. It was a shoe. Because the other one just came flying out the window and hit my car. It hit just below my car, thank goodness. It was probably some little kid in the backseat. I'm just glad I didn't get into a car wreck. Hopefully it didn't do any damage to my car. After all, it was just a shoe. I think. It was dark. I was driving. How am I supposed to know if it was a shoe or not?

Absolutely frustrating

It's 3 AM and I'm still up. And on top of that ... my family is driving me nuts.

There's a trash can full of well, trash, and no one has emptied it for days. WHY?

There are ants everywhere, and does anyone do anything about it? Okay, well, not everywhere. Just the bathroom and the living room and the kitchen. Before, they were just on the table, especially if someone left food out. They were all over the sink. Now they're around the fridge, too!

There are dirty dishes in the sink.

The floor needs to be vacuumed.

IS THERE ANYONE ELSE IN THE HOUSE WHO CAN DO ALL OF THIS BESIDES ME????

Seriously. First thing I do tomorrow after I get off work is go to Target and find me the biggest can of ant-killer they've got. Who knows if I'll do the dishes or vacuuming because I have laundry to do, too. As for the trash, I usually leave that up to the boys. Then again, why should I leave it to the boys? THEY NEVER DO ANYTHING BUT SIT ON THEIR LAZY BOTTOMS IN FRONT OF THEIR COMPUTER SCREENS PLAYING THEIR COMPUTER GAMES ALL DAY!!!!!!! SERIOUSLY. I have two guys at home, my 14 year old brother and my 20-year-old cousin and they do the same thing. THEY SIT AT THEIR COMPUTER AND PLAY GAMES ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT. The only time they break away is to eat and sleep. And guess who gets the food for my brother to eat during the day? Usually that's me. All I ask is that he takes out the trash and help a little bit. But nooo... somewhere between going to work and trying to manage my own life I have to try and manage this household. Not going to happen guys. First of all, this isn't even my household to manage. Second of all, why should I fall under the double standard of girls have to do all the housework? Good thing they don't expect me to do all the cooking because then we have a very limited menu. Then there's my parents. My dad goes to work, comes home, sleeps and watches TV. I understand that he works long hours, but my job can be tough, too. So why is it expected of me to vacuum the house, take out the trash, do the grocery and house supply shopping, wash the dishes, and do the laundry????

Somebody shoot me and put me out of my misery.

Or better yet, can Russell come in knight's armor and rescue me and sweep me off my feet? Okay, I'll settle for his catcher's gear and he can still sweep me off my feet.

RUSSELL MARTIN FOR ALL-STAR

Come on guys, fourth place? That's it?

Think about it.

How many games has he been a key role in for the Dodgers to win?

May 23rd - he batted in 3 runs in the bottom of the first, scored a run, and then batted in another run on a sacrifice fly. That makes up the five runs the Dodgers scored to win the game.

May 22nd - he scored the first run after he walked and stole second, then batted the other two runs in when he hit a 2-run homer to make up the three runs the Dodgers scored to win the game.

I can't go back further, but I remember another game where Russell had a hand in making the only runs the Dodger scored to win the game in April. You can probably search the archive to find the date. But it's late, and I'm not going to bother. Let's not forget his GRAND SLAM on April 21st in the bottom of the 10th inning.

In the LA Times : 5-23
Good signs for the Dodgers include Russell Martin batting with runners on base, Russell Martin dashing around the bases and Russell Martin sliding on his belly.

Also, Russell Martin standing at first base, surrounded by 49 other players and various coaches, cross words flying and the competitive nature of the Dodgers' youthful catcher rubbing off on his teammates.

No punches were thrown, but the confrontation served as notice that the Dodgers will not put up with any headhunting involving their prize second-year catcher.

"Any player is valuable, but [Martin] may be a degree more valuable than most folks." Grady Little

What the other players have to say about him:
5-23 Duncan said "Russell's the best player on our team right now, and we've got to do the best we can to protect every player on our team."

5-22 "He's awesome. He amazes me every day," Wolf said. "For a young player who's already established himself as one of the best catchers out there, he's not complacent. He wants to get better."

"And I never get tired of talking about Russell Martin. He's a perfectionist, always looking for ways to get better."

4/28 "He's a special player," Dodgers manager Grady Little said of Martin, who played hero for the second time in a week. "We all know that. He's the kind of guy that would make people believe he'd been in the league 15 years."

4/21 "That kid makes things happen," Dodgers starter Brad Penny said. "He's quick out there and you got people rushing throws just to keep him from doing too much damage. He's a big reason this team is winning."

4/6 "I've been working on being quicker to the plate," Penny said. "If you give him (Martin) a chance, he's going to throw people out."


Martin leads the Dodgers in RBIs (32), runs (30), doubles (tied with Kent with 13), and average (.314). Does he count for on-base-percentage (.390) since the only two guys ahead of him are Kemp and LaRoche? He's got 8 for 9 stolen bases behind Pierre's 17 for 22. He's got 3 home runs (almost 4!!!).

Martin leads the National League catchers in runs (30), hits (49), RBIs (32), stoeln bases (8), and tied with LoDuca for average.
second in doubles (13 behind McCann), OBP (he's .390 and Willingham is .392)

If you made it this far, I hope the next thing you'll do is go to the All-Star ballot and vote for RUSSELL MARTIN for NL Catcher!!!

Today's game...

... would've been a good game to watch! Unfortunately I had to close with ... Mariam... grrrr... Not a good night. On top of that, they didn't broadcast it on PRIME as they usually do. Tonight was the one night they broadcast it on KCAL. I like when it's on PRIME because PRIME replays the game the next day. Sure, they cut out innings, but I still get most of the game. And WHAT DID I MISS??? Apparently a lot.

Bottom of the first... bases loaded and Russell hits what they call a "double"... yet he clears the bases and ends up at third. But it's still a double. Hmmm. Anyway, three RBIs with one hit ... sweet.

Bottom of the fifth... Russell is up again and hits his fourth home run of season ... till the umpires get together and decide it went foul. WHAT? I was just thinking as I drove to work this afternoon... "wouldn't it be neat if Russell hit another home run today?" He was robbed! Well, I couldn't see it during the replay but apparently it went foul. So he goes back up to bat and the pitcher almost nails him in the head. Why don't you just rub salt in his wound? He gets walked. Apparently from what I read and heard ... first base coach Mariano Duncan exchanges words with someone from the Brewers side ... things got heated ... Russell had to step in between Duncan and Brewers ... the benches are cleared as the guys get on the field.

Man! WHAT A GAME TO MISS!!! Did anyone by any chance record it? Sadly, Russell got caught stealing for the first time this season. I think AMartinez was saying how most catchers get caught after the first try or steal ... and it took Russell eight steals for him to finally get caught. Even Pierre has been caught several times. Russell is leading the team in runs, RBIs, and average! He's leading the National League catchers in several categories, too. YET he's fourth in the All-Star voting. FOURTH? Come on guys, he's leading the catchers in the National League. How is he fourth? Let's get out there and get him on the All-Star team guys!

Can't go another day ...

... without blogging. Thought I'd try. This afternoon, I went to go pick up food for my brother. I had my window rolled down and smelled smoke. It smelled like a barbecue. The air was a little smoky. But I couldn't see any signs of fire. But on my way back, there it was! It was off the 110, where the 100 north meets the 5 north. Dodgers win! Russell Martin is the man! He scored the first run off Gonzo's single, then batted the other two runs in with his home run! We need to get voting guys. They said Russell is fourth in the all-star voting. FOURTH? Come on! Let's go, Dodgers! We need to get on the ballot and vote for Russell!!!

Thought I'd try..

And not post something today. Oh well. Guess not. LOL I just looked on my computer to see when I work, and I find that my schedule isn't written down there! Oops. Good thing I asked Sherisse at work today and know that I don't go in till Wednesday. The thing that I wanted to post was ... when I went to work today, our mall has specific directions you can go in. Most of the time. Most of the time, the lanes are one way. And there are big yellow arrows on the ground to point you in the direction you're supposed to go. This morning, I was going the direction the arrow was pointing and I see this lady in a SUV headed my way. BUT she was going the wrong way. She looks at me, puts her hands up like "what are you doing" as if I was the one going the wrong direction. She waits for me to make room for her to go, and I wait to see if she realized she went the wrong way. Nope. Since I was the smaller car, I had to concede. Unfortunately, this happens ALL the time. People are always going the wrong way. One of the best is there's this one entrance and there's a sign that shows no right turn. Again, it's one of those one way thingies. YET people make a right turn all the time! Argh.

Forgot to write about the weekend. Sherisse and I left around 10:30 to go to Woodlake (near Visalia for those who don't know where that is). We stopped once we got off the Grapevine for gas and food. When we went to Wendy's, I started looking around for my debit card. No where to be found! GULP! We ate our lunch, and decided we wanted Baskin Robbins instead of Starbucks. We drive around, trying to figure out where it is, because there's no sign for it. We found it, went inside. Sherisse ordered her drink, and then I pointed out the sign that says : CASH ONLY. What establishment takes cash only these days? Anyway, we scrounge through our purses for the four bucks and some odd change for her drink. We hit the road. When we get to Woodlake, we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in Elderwood. We turned around and found our way back to Woodlake (with a little help from Juan, our GPS guy). While driving down the main street in Woodlake, we're trying to find the park. I told Joel we just passed the fire station and he said, turn left. I ask him, turn left where? He just says, turn left. I look to the left, and sure enough, there the park was! When we get to the park, everyone's quite surprised to see us. We had told Kevin as joke that we weren't coming b/c we were poor and I had forgotten my debit card at home. Guess we should've told him we just got off the grapevine too.

Onto the Bible Bowl. Naturally, they put the two biggest teams up first. It was Richmond versus LA. When we went up, I was sooo nervous. I wanted to cry. That was my initial reaction. I wanted out. I wanted to cry. It was so nerve-wracking. No wonder last year's age limit was 18 and under. After the first time around, the nerves got settled and then got competitive instead. There was a moment when one of the team members on the "bench" hit the buzzer for the person up. We lost by three points. Later, we went up against Woodlake and Sacramento. We lost to Sacramento. There was one question where I had to list three out of five things. I knew all five. But my mind went blank after three. Steve (the emcee) finally told me, "that's okay, you only needed three." He was just goading me on. PHEW. There were a few moments were I reached for the buzzer hesitantly, but then the other team would get it. Another favorite Bible Bowl moment, was when the middle member of the three on the panel started to turn around to talk to his team. But the other team had the group question, so discussion among the other team wasn't allowed. When he started to turn around, the two people sitting on to his left and his right, pushed him in the shoulders to get him to turn back around. Classic. I keep editing this because more things come to mind. My favorite moment? When little Harmony came back (she was looking for Sherisse) and declared loudly, "I'm ba-ack!" Everyone laughed. It was so cute.

Afterwards, Sherisse, Christianne, Heidi, and I went out. We drove through downtown Visalia to see if anything was open that we could go to. We ended up at Marie Calendar's. Heidi ordered this sundae, and when the waitress was bringing it over, Heidi goes, "Is that mine?" It was bigger than she expected. Sherisse and I stayed over at Kayla's. I slept on the floor. When I woke up in the next morning, I must've scooted myself up at least six inches. In the morning, we stopped at Starbucks. We had to go inside since only one of the three of us had cash. Unfortunately, they were really slow. By the time we left, we were late for Sunday school. Brother Ron was teaching and he made a comment about us coming in late. Sherisse told him, shouldn't he be used it it? LOL Actually, considering we don't go to his class very often in L.A. anyway? Also, on the way to Sunday school, I had noticed this white thing floating in the air and wondered what it was. When it landed, it looked like a crane (bird) of some sort! Cool. I wish I could've taken a picture of it. But I didn't have my camera ready and Sherisse was going too fast for me to take it anyway. It was interesting ... halfway through the choir number, I was thinking about this song "Total Praise" that I sang in my college gospel choir group. It was one of my favorites to sing. Next thing I know, the Woodlake choir was singing the second half of that song! What a coinky-dink! For lunch, Sherisse and I joined a bunch of L.A. people at Big Bubba's. Good food. Emery and Harmony stayed with us while their parents ran to the ATM/bank to get some cash. Harmony crawled under the table cause she said she was scared. Emery just sat in the high chair and watched different people try to ride the mechanical bull they have at Big Bubba's. They are such adorable little girls!

Oops

I just found our cell phone bill for last month. I get 1000 messages and I used 1234. I wish there was a way to track how many messages I use! Lame. What's more lame is I get 5 MB to use, but my phone doesn't connect to the web. Lame. So, the 5mb goes to waste while I overuse my text messages. Too bad I can't get extra texts instead of the MB. Oh well. When I get a new phone, all that will change!

This week's episode...

... of my library class starts of with the guy next to me typing in "library of congress search" in the address bar instead of catalog.loc.gov. Makes me wonder how much about surfing the internet does this guy really know. Or just basic computer things like minimizing and maximizing a window.

Maybe I should've called my mom. She's already called me ten times.

So, in class, we did a couple in class stuff as groups. The first one was to do an authority search. Thankfully, he said I could do it on my computer, so it didn't take long. Then we had to present it to the class. Thankfully we added another person to the group or else I would've done all the work. Then we had to catalog an exercise. Unfortunately, since he was in the middle, he got to do it. You should've heard a very frustrated me.

"Space, colon. Colon, not semi-colon. Hit f9. Okay, backspace. You have too many spaces. Capitalize it. Lower case that. Space. Period. Backspace. BACKSPACE!"

Another long day, another game

And what a day has this been! Seven o'clock shift that went till four; Dodger game that started at 7:10 and went till 10:15 (Dodgers win!)

Let's start with the morning. Before I left work yesterday, Tanzania asked me if I'd go in early today. Which is why I was in bed around 10:30 last night. No time for blogging and not much to blog. Just another Monday. Dodgers lost a very painful 4-8 yesterday, Tomko giving up eight runs in the first two innings. Russell didn't play very long. After they put Mike in instead of Russ, I let my brother watch a little of his NBA playoff game. By the time Heroes was over, I was ready for bed. Good thing too, since I had to be at work at seven.

So, this morning, I got up, showered, and headed to Starbucks. Sherisse was already there, so she got my drink for me since a line was forming. Meanwhile, I went to the donut place ... Winchell's... for a croissant. When I had pulled into hte parking lot, immediately I noticed the KTLA news crew. When I was getting my mocha from Sherisse, she had overheard the KTLA guys ask this one guy "do you go to Dodger games?" The guy said he worked for KTLA as a freelancer. Too bad these guys didn't get a look at my car!


Well, work as crazy as usual. I was originally schedule 9 - 2, but agreed to come in at 7. Little did I know, I was going to end up there till four. One of my managers called out sick, and we had to stay a little longer for coverage. By the time I got off work, I didn't know what hurt more: my feet, my back, or my lower left leg. Even now, I don't know what hurts more. When I got to the car, I had a voicemail from Kevin. We were going to another Dodger game today because he won four tickets on Ebay. His parents wanted to leave later, like at six or six-thirty. Then he texted me to say they wanted to leave at seven. Then he left me a voicemail saying they were okay with leaving at five. I was like, "okay, cool. Five is good for me." I look at clock, it's 4:15. "FIVE? WE'RE LEAVING AT FIVE???" That gave me about 45 minutes to drive home, change, and go to Kevin's to pick them up since my car was bigger.

We got to Dodger Stadium around 5:15 and in the field section for batting practice. Kevin missed getting a ball! It bounced off the right field foul post and into the seat RIGHT BEHIND KEVIN! It even hit the back of his foot. I tried to get it, but some guy behind us got to it before we could. Kevin tried to get his glove on it, but couldn't block the other guy from grabbing it. Kevin could've got it if he had used his hand! THEN during the game ... Rafael Furcal hit a foul ball that came sailing right at us! It hit the guy sitting next to JR in the shoulder and bounced into the crowd behind us. In the top of the 8th inning... Andre looked over in our section and threw the ball to us! Too bad it curved to our right instead of going to us, as it looked like it was going to. What can I say?

Dodgers win! Dodgers win! It s tarted off in the bottom of the first inning when the Cardinals pitcher faced all NINE batters in the line up. And it was only the first inning! The Dodgers managed to score three runs and Bases loaded in the bottom of the third and Furcal clears it with a triple! Almost as good as home run. Almost. That put the Dodgers up, 7 - 4. Furcal is hot! I'm glad he's out of his funk... going three consecutive games with four hits. Kyle (Kevin's 3-year-old brother) fell asleep during the top of the second inning and didn't wake up till around the fourth. The game didn't end till after ten, when most games usually end right before ten. I got some great pictures tonight! Gotta say ... right field is much better than left.

Anyone else at the game tonight? Tonight was so different from my previous experiences in that I've never seen so many people get kicked out of the game! There were at least two or three different groups in our section that had to be escorted out, at least one above us in the loge seats, and at least one in the right field pavilion. I know one group of at least eight guys a couple rows behind us were escorted out after they were "chugging" down beer. Or encouraging their friends to "chug! chug! chug!" I think they were the same guys who got caught for trying to blow up a beach ball. JR and Perla went to get food after Kyle woke up from his nap, and saw some guy get "escorted" out. THEN when we were leaving the parking lot, these guys were hanging out of a jeep with the doors open, chanting "Dodgers win!" or "Go Dodgers!" Their friend was driving like a maniac. I was worried they'd hit someone or something. Crazy night tonight.

I'm sure the people around me were just annoyed at me as I was at them. There were these three Cardinal fans in front of us and a row of kids behind us. Before the game started, Kevin "booed" a Card, and the lady turns around and says "I'm not going to boo the Dodgers, so why do you have to boo the Cardinals?" I told Kevin, that's okay, we won't boo at the cards, we'll just cheer louder for the Dodgers. I'm sure they must've loved how we got louder everytime Andre and Russell were up. Then there was this huge group of kids behind us. They made such a mess under my seat with their peanuts. My purse was under my seat and covered with peanuts. I made it known how unhappy with them I was. Later in the game, I think they were making fun of me because a) I cheered a lot and b) I took a lot of pictures. One kid said something like "I'm not going to take your picture because I don't like you" or "know you."

That's the Card fan in front of us.

And Kyle is out.

There's those guys getting "escorted" out. One guy chugged down his beer before he left.

There's that mess those kids made.

These guys were about five rows behind us, one section over. When the people in front of us left, them came and sat there. Then they moved up to the first row, and then moved back to where they are in this picture. The seats they are sitting in when I took the picture cost at LEAST twice as much as the seats they paid for. On top of that, the kid kept saying "let's go cardinals" during our "let's go Dodgers" chant. Dodgers win anyway. There was Dodger personnel sitting nearby, and she let them get away with it. Some other guys tried later in the game (bottom of the 8th) and a different clubhouse worker wouldn't let them. By then, these guys already left. Come on. The score was 9 - 7.

Kyle with my glove on his head! What cutie!

I love being in right field just because that is where Andre is. I will be very sad when Kemp is healthy and back, because then Andre may not get as much playing time. I see on the yahoo sports page for the Dodgers, Kemp isn't on their list anymore.

Bottom of the ninth inning, two down, one more to go.

I may actually have more pictures of Andre this time than I do of Russell! Interesting. Anyone notice how the Dodger seem to have this amazing ability to evade the third out and score runs with two outs on the board? It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens practically at every game I go to at least once during the game.

Mother's Day in Major League Baseball, part two

Mothers everywhere received a huge endorsement on Mother's Day from Grady Little, who is in his fourth season as a big league manager. "I think the job of being a mother is tougher than being a manager, probably," Little said. "A lot of times when you're a mother, if you don't do something in the right way sometimes, you don't have to read about it in the paper and hear about it on ESPN."

"I've had some pretty good luck on Mother's Day. If you hit a home run, it's a cheap way of getting out of a gift," Ken Griffey Jr. said with a grin. "My mom's real easy. All she wants is a phone call. I think that's all most mothers really care about -- just a phone call from us, letting them know we think about them. She never really asks for anything. But if she did, she'd definitely get it."

Ethier, who had a big two-out hit in the eighth inning to catapult the Dodgers past the Reds, said he was going to give his bat to his mom.

"I was lucky the company that makes my bats put her name on it, so I'm going to give her this one so she can put it up in the house," Ethier said. "Dads are important too, but moms deserve this because they do a lot of the work."

"The way players are superstitious in baseball, I wouldn't be surprised if you see some guys trying to sneak the bats out there tomorrow," said Juan Pierre, who had two hits, a run scored and the go-ahead RBI in a five-run eighth inning. "Individually, guys were staying within their game plans and we ended scoring some runs."

That's what Juan Pierre had to say about today's game. They had a total of 18 hits today, using those pink bats. Not everyone used them. Maybe they should have. It certainly didn't help Russell out, though. With today's win, we are now three games ahead of San Diego! Furcal went 4 for 4 today! Wow! Let's see how soon everyone forgets about that one.

Mother's Day

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about was ... well... these American holidays are just a bunch of hype to me. Quite unfortunate really. Like today, I think I only saw my mom when I got home around 11. Did I tell her "happy mother's day"? No, because in this house, unfortunately, things like that don't matter. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Fourth of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter... birthdays... we don't really celebrate anything besides Chinese New Year. In fact ... I don't even remember the last time we did that!

Why am I going into all this? I don't want to make anyone feel bad or sorry for me. That's just the way it is. LOL maybe like I was telling Kevin, since I haven't finished updating my journal, my blog is my journal for now. Of course, I can't put everything on here that I would put in my journal. Actually, there's more to this entry, but I had to take it off. It got too personal. Really.

This morning in Sunday school, Karen asked a bunch of different people why their moms were special. Brandon said because he though he's all grown up now, his mom still makes him breakfast before school. Juan said because his mom always made sure he got up for church on Sundays. I was really hoping Karen wouldn't ask me. Because I didn't have an answer. Yeah, I appreciate my mom and all she has done for me. But, still, I couldn't think of an answer for Karen. Okay, this is where I'm gonna stop and go offline to finish what I started and had to take off.

Another day, another game

After I got home from school, first thing I did was wash my car. It was a much needed car wash. My windows needed a fresh start, clean slate. The hard part was trying to get the roof of the car clean without falling off the car and breaking my neck. I think we should invest in a step ladder or something. Once the car wash was done, I had to get food for my brother and my dad. Then I headed off to Kevin's for the game. Yup... another Dodger game. This is my third game for the month, fifth for the year, and sixth overall.

Kevin and I got to the Stadium around 4:50. Okay, perhaps not the stadium, but the line leading into the Stadium. It was a much longer line this time. We got in, ate our food (we stopped at Taco Bell before getting there). Okay, Kevin ate his food while he was in line and I ate half my quesadilla before we headed in. We got our baseball hats (it was a free baseball hat promotion night, hence the huge lines to get in), found our seats, and made our way to the front for batting practice. I took some pictures. About 5:30, a baseball rolled up to Joe Beimel, one of the bullpen pitchers. As he was bending down to pick it up, I told Kevin, "KEVIN! CALL JOE! CALL JOE!" Kevin calls out to Joe, who has this quizzical look on his face as he is picking up the ball. It was like, "who's calling me?" kinda look. He picks up the ball, looks over at Kevin, and tosses it to him. My thought at the time: "don't drop it! don't miss!" It was a short throw, so I didn't know if Kevin was gonna get it or not.

We waited to see if we could get another one for me. The guy next to us caught a line drive into our area. He gave it to one of his kids. The kid next to him wanted a ball, too. He got one eventually. But not till the Reds were up to practice. One of the players had a bat and would hit the balls back to the infield. He only threw like one to the field box, hit one to the loge. But he was playing "croquet" with two of them. He hit one to where we were against the wall. The kid leaned over and was reaching for it. So the guy who caught the line drive picked him up and held him by the legs so he could get the ball. There were these three guys by the foul post who must have gotten two or three balls each!

Onto the game... Russell stole his sixth base in the bottom of the second inning. As he was running to third, he had to avoid getting hit by the ball (I think LaRoche was the batter). Bottom of the fourth, two outs... Dodgers score five runs! That was insane. Five runs. Wow. In the bottom of the seventh, Luis hit a triple! His first for the season I think. Josh Hamilton, the Reds outfielder tried to get it, but couldn't, stepped on his glove, and fell! From where I was sitting, it looked like he dove to get it, stepped on his glove, and fell again. Pierre made a great diving catch. It's hard to remember everything hours later. It was during the bottom of the fourth I realized I was still hungry (all I had all day was a croissant, a mocha, and half a quesadilla, plus jelly beans!). I looked in my purse for my wallet. Guess what? I must've left it in the car because it certainly wasn't in my purse. And with five innings left to go!

A little bit later in the game, these ladies came in. The one sitting next to Kevin started talking to him. She asked him if he caught any balls with his glove yet. He told her about Beimel throwing him one. She asked him who his favorite player is. He told her, Andre Ethier. She said, he was hers too. She knew someone who said he was Andre's baseball coach in high school. It was funny because she kept talking to him, like he was her long lost friend or something. I teased him about it later. So did Daniel. About the second or third inning, we had stood up to let some people walk by. That was when I noticed there were peanut shells all over underneath my seat. The jerks behind us couldn't keep their trash to their aisle, but dumped it under my seat. Along with their nachos! Good thing they didn't spill their beer under me. At the bottom of the eighth, everyone in our row started to leave. It started in our section and went two sections over.

Currently, Russell is leading the team in runs batted in, average, runs, doubles, strike-outs (along with Betemit), on-base percentage (excluding Kemp and LaRoche) ; second in hits, walks; one of only four/five players to have hit triples this year. He is a perfect six for six in stolen bases. Pierre may have 14 stolen bases, but he's been caught several times, too.

As for standings... Dodgers are 2.5 games ahead of the second-place D-backs.

I forgot to mention this in my first blog this morning. When I woke up, my back was hurting. Partially because the last thing I dream before waking up was ... I was in the passenger seat of this car. The driver shoots me in the back before shoving me out of the car. Now, this has happened plenty of times before. Usually I dream I get shot or stabbed and when I wake up, the place where I got shot/stabbed usually hurts. Anyway, wanna guess how many times I got off on Stadium Way today? Let's see. 1) coming home from school, 2) after getting food for Billy, 3) going to Dodger game, and 4) coming home after dropping off Kevin. Yesterday. 1) coming home from work. 2) coming home from Pasadena after picking my prints. 3) coming home after dropping off Kevin and Nina.

Mother's Day in Major League Baseball

From Dodgers.com:

Twelve Dodgers have tentatively agreed to participate in Sunday's Mother's Day awareness for breast cancer event by using pink bats during their game at Dodger Stadium against the Cincinnati Reds.

During games played on Mother's Day, Major League players will wear pink wristbands and pink ribbons will be displayed on player uniforms, as well as those of all on-field personnel. The breast cancer awareness theme will be carried throughout the game, including pink ribbon logos on the bases and commemorative home plates, and pink dugout lineup cards.

Among those Dodgers looking to be involved are Wilson Betemit, Brady Clark, Andre Ethier, Rafael Furcal, Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Kent, Mike Lieberthal, Russell Martin, Ramon Martinez, Juan Pierre and Olmedo Saenz.

Select game-used bats, as well as team-autographed bats from every Club, will be auctioned on MLB.com at a later date, with proceeds benefiting Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

More than 200 players have signed up to use a pink bat, which is more than twice the participation in 2006.

I just looked it up ... the pink bats are about $77 on slugger.com. So, what happens when a player breaks his bat on Sunday? Does he get a different pink bat? Or does he go back to his regular bat? Hehe ... anybody hear that there used to be a "tradition" that whenever a bat got broken, certain players on this certain team would yell "lamp" because there was someone on their team (or organization) who would take the pieces and turn them into a lamp? I forgot which team and who it was. I thought that was funny, but cool.

Great way to start the morning?

You be the judge of that.

I went to bed around two. Why? I spend a good hour or more uploading pics to Walgreens to print out. What happened? About 1:30, my internet connection decided to tell me it was time for me to go to bed because it stopped working. I figured I could go to class the next day and be able to send the order to walgreens and perhaps pick up the prints after class. Wrong. I didn't write down my log in info for Walgreens and was unable to log into Walgreens at school. Guess I'll have to send it when I get home and hope that hte internet at home is working. That way i can pick them up on Saturday and still get the 15 cent promotion.

Guess you can figure out I didn't get up early to go to Pasadena to pick up my prints. But I did get a head start on my morning Starbucks. Good thing too because the barista behind the bar was slow this morning. it took forever for me to get my drink And since I got their crossant last time and didn't like it, there was a Winchells in the same parking lot. So I walked over there and got my croissant. When I went to my car, I spilled a little of my white mocha on my hand. That's when I noticed my mocha was browner than it should be. Tasted it. No wonder. The guy made me a regular mocha. I looked at the order and it said WM... yeah I asked and paid for a white mocha. I weighed my options. Do I go in and get the right drink or just take off? Well, since I paid more for my white mocha, I decided to go in and see. If the line was too long, I was just going to take off. There wasn't a huge line on the bar so I let the guy know he made the wrong drink for me. It didn't take him very long to remake my drink. Now here's the dilemma? I only had 15 minutes to drink one drink. While driving to Pasadena. Usually on Saturday mornings, I have a hard enough time trying to finish off a tall drink!

First thing I hear from the guy next to me? He says he took his flash drive home and couldn't find the bib record on his flash drive at home. First of all, even if he could find it on his flash drive, he can't open the file. He doesn't have the program at home to open it. Only the computers at the library have the program. Secondly, he probably didn't open his flash drive properly. When I told him to open it, he opened the C drive instead of his flash drive. I told him, go to your flash drive. What does he do? Looks in the C drive for his file. I tell him, you're not in the flash drive. I show him where it is and voila! There's the file. How many times do I have to tell the guy? We're searching for series titles, not TITLES. I've told the guy next to me that about three times already and still he's doing the wrong search. HAH. Now he's bothering the person on the other side of him.

Is there a hit out there?

Or what! Driving to Carl's Jr. this evening, some car thought the lane we were in could fit two cars or something. I'm right behind Alan getting ready to turn, next thing I know... this car almost hits me as he drives past me ... while sharing the same lane! Good thing it was a pretty big lane. Hehe ... I'm pretty tired now but I'm trying to see if I have enough pictures to send to print. Walgreens has a great deal ... 100+ prints for 15 cents each ... compared to 50 + prints at 19 cents each. The promotion ends the 13th. Seeing as the only available Walgreens is Pasadena and I have class in the morning, I'm gonna try and squeeze this one in. And since I know how close it is ... maybe if I'm not too tired, I may actually try to get up early to pick them up BEFORE class. We'll see about htat. So, who wants to guess how many ellipses did I use in this post? Hehe ... I should do a contest. Winner gets an photo of Russell that I took! How does that sound?

Still trying not to get killed...

... on the Los Angeles freeways.

After I got off work, I headed over to the Target in Burbank. It's a much bigger Target and better organized. Well, apparently I must've been the target on the road today! When I was in the first lane, I hate being there, because that's when the cars try to merge on the freeway. Or, in this case, the lane is an exit only plus onramp and cars try to get out. Well, this one lady decided to butt her way into my lane. But instead of trying to get in behind me, she thinks she can get in while I was still next to her. A few more inches and she would've sideswiped me. Did she care? No. That was probably her intention.

THEN I got home and saw that my print order was ready at WalGreens. This being the same one in Pasadena that I took forty minutes to find. Instead of waiting to pick them up tomorrow after class, I decide to go today. Getting there wasn't a big deal. Except for the accident on the other side of the 2 freeway. Thankfully by the time I was headed back, it was already cleared up. There must've been an accident further up on the 210. But the 210 gets crowded right before Lake Ave. anyway. Like Grady Little (Dodgers' manager) said... it's where the 134 meets the 210 and it's like there's eight lanes of cars trying to fit on a six lane highway.

After I got my prints, there was no way I was going to fight the 210 traffic. Lake Ave. has the WORST onramp on the 210. There's got to be at least 25 cars in two lanes trying to get onto the freeway on Lake. So, I took the streets to get to the 134. Well, while I was waiting for a red light to turn green, I heard this loud THUNK. The car next to me just got a love tap from the car behind her. Lovely. Since I didn't see it happen, I didn't stick around. I just heard it, turned and saw the car bounce back from bumping into her car.

It took more time to get to WalGreens than it did to pick up the prints. Also, on the way home, I got stuck behind a car going 50 when the speed limit was 65! A tour bus passed us up. I tried to move over, but there were cars in the lane next to me. So, I stayed behind them. Unfortunately, they were getting off on Stadium way, like I was. Wanna guess how many times I'll be getting off Stadium Way today? So far I'm up to twice. And there's at least one more to come!

Here's some pictures

To make up for lost time

Color focus..
Color focus ...
At the top of Dodger Stadium, where the ticket booths are.
This is as we were leaving Dodger Stadium, at the Elysian Park exit.

Once it got dark, you could really see the fire. By now, it had spread further south than it was before.
There were taken from Palmer Drive. Since it was dark, it was really hard to get any decent pictures. The fire had been burning for about eight to nine hours by now.

These were taken the next day, from the rooftop of the parking structure at the Glendale Galleria. May 9th, 2007.

Trying not to get myself killed

Driving home from work, this is a constant battle. When I'm trying to get off the freeway, I'm on the far left lane and have to move over to the right lane, two lanes over. Sometimes it's real easy, especially when there aren't too many cars coming. Then there's moments like today, when there's a jerk in the middle lane who is going too fast for you to go in front of, but not fast enough for you to get behind. AND THEN they're trying to change into the lane you're in ... while you're still in it! What do I do? Slow down and try to change behind them, but then again, they're not going fast enough for me to change. All I can do is wait for them to move ahead of me, hoping they're smart enough to wait to change into my lane once I'm not there. Instead of trying to squish me.

Speaking of squishing... when I got to work this morning, this other jerk was parked crooked in the parking lot. So, instead of trying to find another spot, I pull in next to him anyway. You know how some parking spaces have a box separating spaces? Well, this guy decides to park a foot away from one line, while taking up the entire box on the right side. Leaving me just enough room to pull in, but not be able to get out of my car. I hope that person didn't have a passenger. And if they did, I hope they pulled out so their passenger can get it. Actually, I think I have a new ding on my car. Jerk. Naturally, I couldn't squeeze out of my car, but had to climb out of the passenger seat to get out. There was plenty of "real estate" for this guy to park, but he decides to take over the space next to him as well.

BTW ... I forgot to mention ... boy was it hot on Tuesday night. I think by eleven it was still in the eighties. It was really hot. How close was I to the fires? Probably a good ten or fifteen miles. Just not close enough to see it. During the day, I could see the smoke. But at night ... I'll do a photo blog later. For now, I'll leave you with the picture I took on my front porch around 7:30 as I was headed to prayer meeting. Even though our battle in Griffith Park is over, there's another one on Santa Catalina Island that's going on right now. Last I heard, it was about 500-600 acres. I think Griffith Park was an estimated 800 or so acres burned.

Guess I've been gone too long

Boy ... I guess three days in the blog world does seem like an eternity. Well, according to "The Cubicle Next Door." Cute book. According to someone *cough* Stacy *cough*, I haven't blogged since Sunday.

Let's see... whoops... getting distracted ...

Awww ... Russell is so cute when he talks about his dad. And his dad ... awww ... he gets so emotional when he talks about Russell. Makes me wish our TV/Dish was hooked up the VCR. I could've recorded it! What am I rambling about now? Since we upgraded our Dish to include Prime and FSN, I get Dodgers almost all the time now! Well, other than getting Dodger games and replays of said games, they also have Dodger Insider, and "Before the Bigs." Actually, "Before the Bigs" involves the other sports as well. Like yesterday, they had an episode with LUKE WALTON! Well, I looked ahead and saw that this morning, guess what? RUSSELL's was on at 12:30. So, I got up at noon. Couldn't sleep in any longer. The Dodgers Insider was on, and it was about their Dodger camp in the Dominican Republic. Well, while that was on, I ran out and got food for my brother and me. By the time I got back, Russell was just about to start. So, I sat there with my camera and videoed the whole thing. Well, I didn't do the whole thing. I missed a minute or couple seconds here and there to change my memory card. One card could only hold five minutes and the other ten. Turns out, the thing only went like five minutes at a time. So, while I was taping on one, the other was uploading so I could change it out. Hopefully I can catch it again and do a better job.

Okay... now that I'm done being distracted by Russell ... what was I saying...?

Monday ... work. Went to Nina's, picked her, Kevin, and Harold up. We went to Costco to take a look at their deal they have. Two field box tickets for $54 (plus vouchers for a Dodger program). Not bad. Considering they're normally like $40. Then, we went to Target so I could pick up some stuff for work. Then we were on our own time. Went to Sports Authority and then back to Nina's after stopping for some food.

Tuesday ... had the day off. Which was good, cause we went back to Costco to buy those ticket vouchers. Except, it was just me and Kevin. I left the house around 1:15. When I got on the freeway, I noticed some smoke coming from the hills to my left up ahead. I figured, "great, another wildfire." We just had one last month in the Hollywood Hills by the Hollywood sign. When I got close to Nina's, the little puffs of smoke were getting heavier and becoming bigger clouds of smoke. Got Kevin, then headed to Glendale. As we were going down the 134 freeway, you could actually see the flames at the top of the hill. By 2:00, the smoke was much heavier now. We went to the Glendale Galleria to drop of the supplies at work. I got a smoothie and stopped to talk to my friend at Sweet Factory. By 2:30, the fire swept down the hill! The rest is history. And naturally, recorded in photos! I took photos throughout the day and night. Oh yeah ... Kevin and I bought the vouchers and then headed to Dodger Stadium to trade them in for our tickets. We hit the freeway and it was clear sailing until Colorado Blvd. Then it was jammed. We got off, took San Fernando to Glendale back to Riverside Dr. We saw the freeway and it was clear sailing on the southbound side we had just gotten off of, but the northbound side was jammed. They had closed the Los Feliz and Griffith Park exits. The 134 was affected because they also closed the Zoo Dr. offramps.

Wednesday ... work. Well... you already heard about my morning with Russell. I got home in time to watch the last out of the ninth inning (replay). And the game started over after Lost was done. But my dad came home and I only got to watch 2/3s of the first inning. Just enough to see Russell score because the bases were loaded and LaRoche got walked, sending Russell home.

The pictures are here at my flickr:
http://flickr.com/photos/fallingleaves02/

Getting a little off ... anyone catch the new look of the New York Mets? :-D Also, some of the players will be sporting pink bats for Mother's Day for breast cancer awareness. I think that'll be cute, and cool. Pink bats, huh?

What a day, what a day

First of all, it started off with a staff meeting at eight. During the said staff meeting, Mariam decides to ask about when you start helping a customer, but then get busy to check on customer, and someone else helps them. Who does the sale go to? She said she tries to be fair, but gets mad when people steal her sales. EXCUSE ME?!?!? Didn't she do this to me on Tuesday? First of all, I gave her a chance to help the lady she was helping. She wasn't busy on Tuesday. So what? I didn't intentionally try to steal her sale. I was just trying to help the customer because she certainly wasn't helping her. Besides, in the end, she rang her up under her number anyway. AND on top of that, she TOOK MY sale, which she "thought" was hers. Okay, so we don't work on commission, but still... I was so mad. That was the point I wanted to make, but I couldn't get a word in edgewise. Well, sorta the same point. Because she was supposed to make up the sale to me. HOW IS A $50 SALE SUPPOSED TO MAKE UP A $250 SALE??? LOL, at least there were some funny points in the meeting. Like when I was spouting statistics on everyone. After the meeting, I was still fuming. And on top of that, I had to come back to work at 4:30 to close with, guess who, Mariam. GRRR.

So, we went to church. Had lunch. Practiced for the Bible Bowl. I left at four so I could get my mocha. While I'm getting my mocha, I see that I have a missed call from work and a voicemail. I go, "oh no. Are they calling to say I don't have to come in?" If only it was that. They were calling to say I was late. Guess what? I wasn't schedule to come in at 4:30. I was supposed to be there at four. Oops. My mistake. It's okay, because we didn't leave till eight anyway. GRRRR. By then, I was so tired. And I had to work with HER the entire time. GRRR

Annoying person who doesn't know how to use a computer

Argh, the guy next to me is driving me crazy. Copy and paste, no problem right? Nope. I tell him to hit, control and v. What does he do? Shift v. Again, I tell him, Control, v. He does it. Nothing shows up. I tell him, go back, highlight what you want, hit control c. What does he do? Shift c. I tell him, "control, not shift" once again. Then we go back and I tell him, "okay, now hit control V, no control, not shift." Sigh. I like my seat. I do. It's the very last seat in the first row. I prefer having the last seat. However, I don't like being stuck next to this guy the entire semester. He rarely knows what he's doing. The poor t.a.'s are always getting stuck helping this guy out. Not only are they stuck, so am I. Even the teacher was getting frustrated with him today. One of the t.a.'s would smile and wink cuz she knew I was stuck next to this guy who didn't know what he was doing. I was already done and off in blogging world, adding and changing the pictures on my blog. Hence, the new pictures I have up. For example, I already changed something that the teacher didn't change. When I brought it up to the t.a., she brought it up to the teacher, who thanked me in front of the whole class for pointing that out. LOL too bad no one noticed I spelled the author's name incorrectly in my record, which I caught and changed.

So, show of hands... how many of you noticed the change in the pictures? Most (if not all) of them are pictures I have personally taken of Russell. There are a few my friends took (like the one of me getting a hug from him). Other than that, I changed them all to original photographs by yours truly. This guy, he's always looking at my screen to see what I'm doing. Even when I'm blogging about him. It annoys me that he's always looking over at my screen.

During the break, the t.a. (Molly) commented that she went to a game on Monday, which the Dodgers lost terribly. It was the 9 - 1 defeat after their amazing 17 inning game the day before. I was wearing my Dodgers hat in class, since I hadn't washed my hair yet. I told her, I had gone to the game the next two days, which the Dodgers won, 2 - 1 both times. Another guy (Gordon?) commented that he was going to the game on May 11, for the fireworks night. See, I don't have to go to the fireworks game to see the fireworks. I can just stand in front of my house and see them. Well, since our street has a lot of trees, may across the street from my house. When I was growing up, we lived in a two-story apartment building. And whenever the Dodgers had a fireworks night, all we had to do is go upstairs to the second floor and see them. Mind you, now that I'm older, there are some nights where I would like to go to bed at ten. Then to be awaken half an hour later by the said fireworks show.

How did our boys in blue do today after getting shut out yesterday? They came back with a 6 - 3 victory. It could have been 6 - 1 if the Braves didn't score those two runs in the bottom of the ninth. Oh well. At least we won. And hey, Furcal got out of his slump and hit 3 - 4 today and Betemit (of all people) hit a home run! Hehe I was fortunate enough that my 15 minute break coincided with the last fifteen minutes of the game. So, I was actually able to catch the end of the game. Sweet. Victory.

It was funny, the announcer commented that Russell Martin looked back to see where the baseball went. He thought it went past him, but it was actually in his glove. Reminded me of the time at youth camp last year when I caught a fly ball, but I didn't realize it. I'm not the greatest catcher. Ever since I got hit in the face with a basketball in the first grade, I have this fear of round shapes flying at a fast speed towards me. It's gotten better over the years. Well, during last year's staff vs. high school baseball game ... wouldn't you know it. Standing the middle, a fly ball is coming at me. I stick both my hands up, not wanting to look at the ball. I feel the ball hit my right (gloveless hand) and it goes right into my glove on my left hand. I look around, thinking, "where did it go? where did it go?" My friend Kevin told me later he could totally see my face react. Because I really didn't think I caught it. When I did realize it, boy was I surprised. Then again, the year before that, I did manage to catch the ball as it bounced out of the tree. So I'm not completely hopeless.

If you can compare today to yesterday ...

Today was a breeze.

Except ... I got as pink as ... well ... a flamingo!

No, not from embarrassment. From our friend, Mr. Sun. Turns out the sun decided to stop playing hide and seek around the time the game started. So by the second or third inning, the sun was out in full force.

Where was I? A Dodger game, naturally. Wasn't I just at one last night? Yup. Why was I at one again? It's one of their only afternoon games. Kevin and I left his place around 9:30, stopped at Burger King so I could grab some breakfast. It was a good idea. Not a great breakfast, just a good idea. In fact, I should've stuck to my original plan and went to Starbucks. We got to Dodger Stadium before ten. The gates weren't even open yet. There were about three lanes of cars in front of us, each three deep. So we sat in the car for about ten to fifteen minutes before they opened the gates. Some idiot decides to try to cut in front of me, and wouldn't take no for an answer. At least he was a polite idiot. He said thanks. Whatever. We parked. First row in the section, eighth car down. SWEET.

We got into the stadium a little after quarter after ten. Got to our seats. Since it was an afternoon game, I went cheap and got us tickets in the left field pavilion. PLUS, I wanted to get there early to get batting practice, warm-up, and bull pen pictures. Well, when we got there, only Randy Wolf and Derek Lowe (?) were on the field throwing a baseball around. It was a school field trip day, so there were about fourteen, fifteen different schools participating already there. They were seated in the right field paviolion. A bunch of very active Disney people were there, demonstrating the basics (and physics) of baseball. They announced that two Dodger outfielders would join them for some questions. Since the Dodgers only have Juan Pierre, Brady Clark, Luis Gonzalez, and Andre Ethier (am I missing anyone?), we figured Andre would be one of them. Turns out, it was Andre and Luis.

Here are some of the questions and answers mentioned. Q: Do the pitchers pitch underhand or over? A: There are overhand pitches, and to the side pitches. Underhand is mostly called softball. Q: What kind of bat is better? Aluminum or wood? A: Batter's preference. Major league requires wooden bats, however. Q: Are you married? (Actually, the way it was phrased was: my teacher wants to know if you're married.) A: One of the Disney team members asked, which one? Andre went first. "Uhh yes I am married. So is he." Then Luis says, "I am married. My triplets are eight, going to be nine." They asked questions like how many home runs have they hit (Andre, about 14 over a span of one full season, plus this one; Luis, probably over 300, over a span of 17 seasons). Another one was about when they started playing baseball, who their favorite baseball players were... I'll add more later if I can remember anything else. But that's about it.

Andre and Brady came out to warm up before Russell did. But because we were in the left pavilion, we had great views of all the players as they were warming up. Naturally, I took a TON of photos. It seems like every time we go to a game, okay every time I have gone to a game, my picture count goes up and up. The first time was like one or two hundred. Second time three, third time five. Can you guess what this trip totaled? Not six, not seven, but a little over EIGHT. Yup. Believe it or now. However, you know how digital or any kind of photography works. You take one roll (remember those days?) of twenty four exposures and if you're lucky, you can get about half to three-quarters worth of decent photographs. Okay, sure when it comes to a photography class anyway. But, it's true you know. For every twenty four pictures, you're lucky to come out with at least eight decent pics.

Remember those kids sitting in the right field pavilion earlier? They ranged from elementary to high school age. After the Disney thing finished, the classes dispersed to their ASSIGNED seatings. Some were in the top deck and some where with us in the left field pavilion. We overheard one kid say, "But Miss So-and-so said we could sit wherever." Yeah, right. And I'm marrying Russell Martin. Ha! Apparently, they didn't hear the announcer say they needed to go to their ASSIGNED seats. Well, good thing someone knew what they were doing because the kids did end up in their assigned seats. Not that it kept them there. There were a whole bunch of kids crowded in our section in the front row later on, trying to get one of the outfielders (namely Brady Clark) to throw them a baseball.

Sitting in the left is definitely different than anywhere else I have ever sat. Then again, this has only been my fifth game. But I have been fortunate enough to sit in a different section each time: top deck, right field pavilion, lower reserve, field, and now left field pavilion. Unfortunately, I probably won't be experiencing any other different seatings.

So, this lady comes in with her family, doesn't have a clue where their seats are. They sit down in one section, ask someone, and move over to the right section. Later on in the game, some guy comes in and tells her family they were sitting in their seats. "Season tickets." He says. They get up and move back a row. The guy leaves to get some paper towels to wipe off the bench where they stepped on. By then, the lady looks at her tickets and sees that they were in the right seats. The guy is calling for an usher. He calms down and sits with the family. He was quite a jerk about the whole thing.

There were two guys in front of us, with a three year old boy. The guys were nice. Unfortunately, they had to leave because the little boy started crying and wouldn't stop. It was around the time the sun came out and started really warming up the stadium.

Okay, since this blog is getting a little long ... let's see ...

Brady made a lot of great catches! Furcal scored one, Russell scored the other. Dodgers win! I'll post another entry with pics and the picture stats later.

Back to being pink part ... towards the end of the game, I noticed my right shoulder started to irritate me. That's when I realized ... uh oh, I should've grabbed that bottle of sunblock. As we were leaving the stadium, I noticed how pink my right arm was around the elbow. My left arm was a little pink, but not as much as my right arm. Good thing I had a baseball cap one or my face would be pink too! As the day went on, I discovered I was more burned than I realized. Including my knees.

The day has finally come to an end

Has the day ended better than it started? I guess so. Dodgers won! So, that's a plus. We got to the game really early, another plus. Our seats were awesome! They were better than I expected, so plus, plus. That's what ... up to 5 or so. Anyway, I think I was in a mood swing most of the day until after I got off work and got some food in me. Plus ... the lack of food plus certain circumstances equals a raging, ranting, madwoman.

Today's game was ... well ... wow... it's late an I have to be up in less than nine hours for a day game. Which, I'm really excited about. This one had no stressful strings attached. But, alls well that ends well. And today certainly did. Daniel gave in and went with us. So, phew. That ticket didn't go to waste after all. And let me say this, the seats were amazing! We had several foul balls hit our way, though mostly in front or behind us. Still... and the pictures I took ... awesome!

That's all I'm gonna post for now. I'll do the picture and game stuff later.

My favorite moments in tonight's game:
When the D-back outfielder's misjudged Furcal's double and let it drop between them
Russell sliding into third, knocking over the third baseman
Russell's at bat, when he twirled around, after narrowly missing getting hit by the pitch
Andre spitting sunflower seeds all around him, while blowing bubbles with his bubble gum

Update

Uhh I guess my day isn't a .5 anymore. It's more like a 1 or 1.5. Yes, Stacy, I just got off work and picked up food and now I am at Daniel's. Work wasn't that great. In fact, it just followed the way the morning has been. I spent an hour in the stock room and only got two boxes of shipment done, instead of three like yesterday. I should've had more done. One of the boxes was half full of shoes, which is pretty easy. BUT it took forever to put them away because there was no room in the shoes. I had to rearrange all the shoes, proceeding to break the nail on my big toe. It didn't matter, but then I saw a little blood peeking out. It wasn't enough to worry about.

What made my day worse was when Mariam accidentally rang one of my sales under hers. I was helping two ladies in the fitting room. You would think the jeans would tip her off. They were from off the floor. YET she still rang her up under hers. She thought this was the lady she grabbed a pair of shoes for. ANYWAY, the lady she did bring the pair of shoes for, I set her up with a fitting room and brought her another two pair of shoes. WELL, she ended up taking some things, plus one of the two pairs that I brought her, not the one Mariam did. And can you guess what Mariam did? She rang it under hers. DID SHE BRING HER THE SHOES SHE BROUGHT OUT FOR HER? DID SHE PUT THINGS IN A FITTING ROOM FOR HER? OOOH I WAS SO MAD. ON TOP OF THAT, MARIAM APOLOGIZED FOR TAKING MY SALE AND WOULD RING ONE UP FOR HER. She should've rung this one. Because it was a big sale and so was the other one. Instead, what did she give me to make up for the sale she took? One lousy shirt that was barely 40/50. The sale she took must've been at least five times as much. GRRRRR.

My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Okay, it's a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad morning. It's not even ten yet.

On a scale on one to ten, with ten being awesome ... today is wavering between a .5 and a 1.

How is that possible?

Where do I start?

How about having four tickets to tonight's Dodger game, and from the get-go, I couldn't find a fourth person? I asked about half a dozen friends, not a single taker. When I finally find someone to take the fourth spot, my number 2 person drops out on me. Now I'm back to finding someone and it's even harder now!

Then there's the Dodgers getting hammered yesterday. You don't even want to know the score.

Let's move onto this morning. I got up early to go to work to get coffee. When I get to work, I park in the closest spot I found. NEXT TO A VERY CROOKEDLY PARK vehicle. It wasn't even a little car either. It wasn't an SUV, but it's the size in between. Not wanting to climb over the passenger seat, I squeezed through the small opening left. OUCH! It was a very tough squeeze. Anyway, I go to Gloria Jean's and BeBo (aka Juan) isn't even there today. The manager was there. Apparently he switched his shift with Jose. I get my coffee and a bagel. Me thinks they forget to apply my mall employee discount. I dunno.

I go to work, with ten minutes to eat my bagel which wasn't toasted all the way. Oh well. They never toast the bagels all the way. Tracy used to ask them to leave it in the toaster longer. About two minutes till nine, Anahit shows up. We're confused. Which one of us is opening? Mariam shows up. We go in. Check the schedule. I don't come in till four. I just checked my schedule. It says 11 - 4. Where did I get the 9 - 2 from? I'm confused. It's been a horrible morning. So I go back to my car, and unfortunately, buddy next to me hasn't left yet. So, instead of painfully squeezing into the car, I just climbed in through the passenger seat.

With two hours (okay, hour and a half to kill), I didn't want to get back on the freeway and drive the fifteen minutes to get back home. Since I was working till four, I decided to go to the bank and deposit the money my parents gave me to pay some bills. Well, guess what? Even that couldn't go right! The lady in front of the lady in front of me was pain. She wanted to withdraw some money, a large amount, in small bills, in an exact amount. That took forever. Then when it was my turn, one of the bills my mom gave me is a possible counterfeit!!! They couldn't tell if it was real or not. SO they're gonna send it to the secret service and I won't find out for two months if it's counterfeit or not. If it's counterfeit, I'm out of a hundred dollars. If it isn't, they'll credit my account the hundred dollars. And I won't find out for at least eight week. At least. It took me forever to get out of the bank.

Since I wasn't going to get off work till four, I decided might as well run home, shower, and grab everything so I can just go to Kevin's from work. Hehe still no blanket, but I said as much. I didn't really expect anything to come of yesterday's fun morning wake up call. My computer took forever to get up and running, and even then the web pages weren't working correctly at first. I set my mocha down by the printer and guess what? My giant sketchbook slides off and knocks that over. Later I discovered that when my drink got knocked over, my straw broke. Well, it got a crack in it. So, when I tried to drink my mocha, I had to squeeze the crack together so it would't be like drinking my mocha through a coffee straw.

Anyone ever heard of the children's book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? That's kinda what's going on right now. I wouldn't be surprised if it starts pouring! Well, it's just supposed to be partly cloudy most of the day. Wouldn't it be my luck if a thunderstorm started and I get struck by lightning? Knock on wood.