First Installment
Irish and I waited in line outside Roger Dean Stadium, wind and palm trees. We had already visited Target for breakfast that morning: bananas, peanut butter, Cliff Bars. And we had already walked around the stadium to the practice fields. Irish discretely – or maybe not so discretely – removed Carrie’s monocular from her backpack and began her survey.
When the gates opened, we already knew we were going to be burned. Our sunblock lasted only 80 minutes, and we ate up that time alone huddled by the dugout where Irish obtained three signatures: Greg Garcia, Aledyms Diaz (just up from Cuba), and Daniel Descalso. Sitting just behind the grating a few feet above the players, I couldn’t decide whether I felt more like we were in jail, or they were animals in a cage at the zoo:
“I feel kind of bad asking them for their autographs now…” Irish noted this vibe, and poured on added genuine-polite to make up for it.
Standing Room Only. That’s what our tickets said. No matter. We browned up, or pinked up, in the wind and heavy sun behind the yellow line. Up and down off the pavement, peanut skins blasting over us from the stands above. Standing to watch favorite players, sitting for the batting Mets when Adam Wainwright wasn’t on the mound. Occasionally Irish pulled out the monocular just to check out any potential monkey business in the dugout: dolphin flaps, awkward turtles, goofy dances, etc. And:
“I was checking for wedding rings,” she told me shamelessly. “But then I realized that they wouldn’t be wearing them out there anyway.”
In the bottom of the seventh, a snow bird handed us his tickets someplace behind home plate for the rest of the game. A college kid from Peoria, IL chatted with us about the players. And we caught the pink-and-white-striped back of John Mozeliak a few heads in front as we exited the stadium at the end of a loss.
The rest of the Snicketts girls had found the mall (dancing shoes for Mom at the wedding), Quizno’s subs, and the beach, one of many to visit during the week.
Just before sunset we found another ritzy neighborhood gray-sand beach, sliding under choppy water and wild wind, a shoreline riddled with sea kelp and expired Japanese Man of War. Sand was walked and shells were collected for Puck.
Satisfactorily burned and fed on glassy waves, we filled out stomaches with Howley’s 1950’s diner food in a place just hipster enough to get you labeled a “purist” for ordering plain macaroni and cheese, and a free Spanish newspaper on the way out. Well, that last part wasn’t hipster. Anyway, dinner conversation focused primarily on our individual methods of surviving the sinking of the Titanic, or just punching oneself in the face until one became unconscious and mercifully drowned.