Takin' Care of Business

You may remember my trip to a Phillies game a few weeks ago . . . you know, the one where we had luxury box seats and almost got a guy fired from his co-op? Yeah that one. An interesting thing that I failed to mention was that I got a phonecall from my Uncle Eugene; interesting because he said him and some NY cop buddies were driving down to Philly to see one of the games of the Mets series and he was wondering if I wanted to go and show them around. I laughed at the irony alone.

Well anyway, they came down last week, just in time for our area to finally get some rain. I took our wonderful public transportation system (no sarcasm, you can't beat free interchange between three different trains for $2) and met up with them at Chicky's and Pete's. They were all a bunch of good guys, real friendly and just looking to have a good time. In the end, the Phillies won after just 4.5 innings of play because the game got rained out. I felt kinda bad for them, but they definitely had a real good time. They are used to Shea stadium, which is a shit hole and where the closest place to get a drink before or after a game is the airport. Coming to a somewhat new stadium with plenty of bars and food places near the stadium was enough to make them cream their jeans. And while their team did lose the game, it was pretty close even at the end with some fantastic plays by both teams . . . hell, the Aaron Rowand catch was probably the best anyone's seen all year.

I knew that the weekend was going to be pretty bleak, with everyone going home for Mother's Day weekend and all, so I figured I'd go check out my brothers' baseball game on Saturday, something I hadn't done in awhile. My sister got back from school for the summer about 10 minutes before the game started, so most of the family was in attendance. Both of them were hitting pretty well, and Mikey was pitching for the first half of the game, which turned out to be unfortunate because when the other team wasn't hitting it to the gaps, our defense kept making errors. Then came the real surprise . . . Bobby pitching!?!? No one could believe it, my dad included. I knew he had practiced doing it before, but this was the first time he pitched in a game. He actually did very well, allowing no runs for most of three innings and only one or two at the end of the game, which really didn't matter since they were losing by a lot anyway. On top of that, Mikey was catching (since the kid can do everything), so we had the "Tegan battery" going on.

While the game was going on, I called Colavita and told him to get his bony ass over since he lives across the street from the fields. After the game was over, we headed back over to his place where I hung out with the "other" family. Not much happened there: grandma and aunt over, telling stories, busting on Mike, dropping icecream in the street, pork sandwiches . . . the usual. Mike and those guys are done with school for the summer, but apparently nothing has been happening (he said he had hung out with people once in the week). Surprising to both of us, Ray gave us a call saying that he was going over to Joe's to "chill". It sounded pretty bland, but hey, it was something to do and an excuse to go hang out, so we headed over.

Turned out to be a decent decision. Flacco was over there when we pulled up, so the five of us were hanging out and shooting the shit. Then Minardi, the worst alcoholic I know, showed up and made things a little more interesting. Then Jackson showed up, minus a Tara, and the good times rolled. It was pretty good since I hadn't seen any of those guys in more than a month, Jackson even longer than that, and I'm never one to shy away from catching up with old friends.
Not too much else going on since then. Kent actually came out yesterday to grill it up with us here on Larchwood. Rachel is done for the summer too, so it was a good excuse to light the grill and entertain (I cook a mean porkchop). All the CS kids here have a lot of homework to finish up, but hopefully we get a football game to happen tomorrow. That's right kids, the knee is healed and I'm itching to get out and play.