Linnea's Bucket List
Joe cracked open the door to St. Louis I’m guessing sometime before four o’clock this morning – after three months of adventurelanding the realms of all things Boy Scout. Even twelve-days-short-of-24-years-old young guys find themselves homesick by the end of that.
Puck got down to business wrapping up bars of blue painter’s tape and inspecting his breakfast apple for “worm holes”. The Bear worked from home, which always makes things a little more like a circus and a little less like a one room schoolhouse… Well. It never really feels like that anyway, I guess. Add in hot tea and a cigar for the Bear – which is a rarity of twice a year mostly – and an unconventional Wednesday had begun.
Joe must have only power-napped, because he was awake again by the time I called Mom around noon, editing strips of video from the endless escapades. That’s Joe, though. He’s still somehow in college-mode, I guess, where kids – yes, they’re still kids – can manage life on four-hour-sleeps, boxes of cheap pizza, and black-canned energy drinks. I wouldn’t know. Gathering up the thousands of ends of a Bachelors degree the unconventional way was one of the best things that happened to me.
Brick and mortar?
No thank you.
Anyway, back on the ranch.. Mom was gone tile shopping with Gloria. Holly – aka “compact Mission Control” was refilling the hummingbird worlds with their red nectar. And there were cream horns.
Curses.
Joe was stretched out on the couch with the fat black cat lounged on his stomach…
“Ooh, I feel dizzy,” he noted, standing up.
Most people do after fourteen hours on the road and two-point-five hours’ sleep. He proudly displayed the box of “bison butt” he had toted back from Philmont, and handed off a bag of hazelnut and chocolate cream to the Bear.
“Who wants some liquid chocolate chips?” he asked.
“Why would that exist?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t it exist?” the Bear replied, wiggling his eyebrows.
Yes, it was time for Round Nine.
This time, Linnea-Irish donned the passed-around STL cap and joined me for another Ice Mountain Autograph Night in the Circus Maximus. I packed us a 3/4-filled bag of Cheez-Its, several bottles of water, and we were set.
Matt Carpenter was a little stone-faced behind the table after a somewhat nervously eager Edward Mujica signed the cowhide first. But Matt-C asked Linnea how she was doing at least, to which Linnea replied with a – “Great!”. I guess I wouldn’t be so happy to be sloughed up in a golf cart to sign two hundred and two autographs before playing three hours at third base either.
We still had an hour or more to kill, so at Linnea’s suggestion we hit the vacant seats behind the outfield to observe the Astros wrap up batting practice. No sooner had Linnea set down her eggs-and-bacon-plaid-smiley-faced-tote that she noticed one of the pitchers scoop up a stray ball on the turf.
“Me! Me! Over here! Here! Here!” a passel of young kids waved wildly by the first base foul line.
But Linnea was also waving her hand. One of the acting-outfielders turned from the kids to Linnea instead and lobbed a hard big league throw into the first row of the stands. We cringed as it rocketed towards us…
THUNK.
Injury avoided as the seat in front of Linnea took the hard hit. The amused chap laughed from the field at the result of his overly ambitious throw as we waved our thanks and he jogged back to the dugout.
So – a win, an awesome Jay-catch, a Molina RBI… and a masterful sneak back into the 2nd Wild Card spot.
The night was good.
We should have waited for the Bear inside the gates though. If it’s not someone asking you for money, it’s overt PDA or Superman posing for photographs at the gate. Or just a group of guys smoking cigarettes trying their hand at limp flattery. Sorry, boys. I’m just not that impressed that you “think” my sister and I are twin eighteen year-olds. More honest fellows are nearer the truth when they ask if I’m her mom. But if you’re really 36 as you say, probably you shouldn’t be hanging around looking to pick up teenaged girls after baseball games…
Steak ‘n Shake called our names.
As did a jumping spider in the front seat.
A little Radiolab.
It’s good to have the family all back together again.