First Game at Yankee Stadium

Mike and I took a bus to Yankee Stadium this weekend, Mike's first time in New York and my first visit to the Bronx.  The Yankees are Mike's and his dad's team, and since my mom is from New York, more than a few people in my family are Yankees fans, so it was especially sweet to see the stadium finally.  I thought the six-hour bus trip would find me and Mike featured in a "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" magazine column, but we experienced both the travel and the heat-index-of-103°-temperature and lived to tell the tale. 

Mom made up a gift basket and this cute Snoopy card for us and arranged to have it waiting in our hotel room.  The card was one of the first things Mike unpacked when we got home this afternoon.  :)

 We got to visit with both my parents this weekend, as well, so it was a sweet weekend all-around, with Dad loading up our rental car with vegetables from his garden before we got back on the road. 

Mike got to see Alex Rodriguez warming up for the game.  This was the only player we saw signing autographs for the kids before the game too. 

In my favorite photo from the game, Yankee Stadium's rooftop lights and flags are reflected in Mike's sunglasses.  A happy accident.  This trip was both our vacation-ish thing this summer and my birthday present for him, so to look at our pictures later and see Yankee Stadium in his eyes was great fun. 

And as a final sweet post-game surprise, we discovered while looking up video online of one of the game's home runs that we can be seen in one of the crowd shots that aired on TV after the game, since a guy sitting in front of us caught the ball.  'Not bad for our first visit to the stadium.  :)

And another two days off before I have to go back to work.  'A most refreshing and much-needed break.  Next on this summer's to-do list is painting the bathroom and bedroom.  Yes, the building manager gave me permission to paint!  Onward and upward.  :)

Yankees-Red Sox = Best! Fight! Ever!

Swistle recently asked her readers about recurring arguments they have with their loved ones that would seem stupid to people outside the relationship. Boy howdy! Can we all say "Yankees-Red Sox" in unison? Tonight's game is the last of the teams' series this week, and I am just grateful I missed even one game due to this week's work schedule. Mike is a Yankees fan. And that is all the necessary back-story for what became our first fight. One night a few months after Mike and I had started dating in 2007, Boston beat New York and Mike ranted so much post-game that I felt like I was suddenly living with a stranger--and a crazy raging stranger, at that. "Why can't you just be happy for them?" I asked. "They went how-many-years without doing well and they're such a good team now. Why can't you just be happy for them and their fans?!?" Mike goggled at me speechless as if he'd just watch me sprout a second head. Apparently, my question was The Dumbest Question Ever, and upon seeing his reaction to my own, we were off to the races!

Because this is one of "those" fights, it couldn't have ended easily or quickly. Oh, no. At least an hour later, we were still at it, not getting much further than my "Why can't you just be happy for them?" and his "Because I hate them." Mike got more and more red-faced as I elaborated, "I know they're not your favorite team--I get that. But after they've been the underdogs for so long, why can't you just think, 'Well, yeah, I'd be happier if the Yankees had won, but good for them! They played well, and this has to be sweet for their fans'? Why can't you just look at it like that?" Mike continued ranting and raving in disbelief, intermittently shouting winner comments like "You just don't get it!" and "I just can't talk about this with you!" until I really thoroughly disliked him and went to bed crying in frustration. And I hadn't even cared who won, if this is unclear. I was just stunned by his adamant hatred of a group of ball players, for goodness sakes, and with his complete inability to articulate it beyond, basically, "I just do." So I retreated to bed and lay there crying and thinking that we were going to break up over this and wondered which other neighborhood I could move to in this new-to-me city, and then I would cry harder imagining scenes of bumping into him around town and the awkward post-breakup conversations we would have. . . .Mike and I had been friends for nine years before we'd even started dating, mind you, so the idea that I thought we'd break up over a Red Sox victory is ludicrous, but so it goes.

He felt bad that I was crying, of course, and came to me, and I took that as an opportunity to try once more--!!--to "resolve" this between us. ("Why sleep on it when you can drag it out until you can't stand each other" was my motto in the early days of our relationship, apparently.) So I started again: "Even if you don't like them, can't you just enjoy watching them play? I don't like football, but I can watch a player run fast or make a good catch or throw the ball what looks like a mile and be impressed by it! Can't you just forget about who they are or who they're playing and just enjoy their talent and skill and power?" Mike looked like his head was about to explode by this point, and likely only because I was working as a breakfast cook at the time and had to get up just a few hours later, we finally dropped it and went to sleep, although probably not without making a few energetic neck-wringing gestures to the other's back.

Tonight, I just say "Oh boy" and otherwise ignore him when he yells at the TV during the game, although there are nights I randomly yell "Gooooooooooo, Red Sox!" just to liven things up around here. :)