Thursday At The Park; or, Hey! That Kid Tried to Trip That Pierogi!
My boss called me up to her office this morning. Her other paraparalegal (who works on her other cases) was already there, and she said to us that she knew that she asked some hard and awful things of us and that we were really good about it and that there are few rewards. Then she announced that her boss, the head of litigation, had decided to reward her for the hard and awful things she does with his seats for this afternoon's Pirate game and, more importantly, with the free time to use them. So she decided to take us too, and as a bonus she said not to deduct it from our time. So for three hours today, I was paid to go to a Pirate game and watch. Yes, I was Pat Meares for a day.

I was trying to think of a way to convey just how good these seats were. I came up with several: Good enough to see the muscles move for the Astros' facial expressions. Good enough to see the Astros' space shuttle patch in enough detail that it was clear that it wasn't just a phallic symbol. The best one I came up with was this: We were close enough to read the logos on the Astros' batting gloves. We were seven rows back, right behind the center of the first-base dugout. Other than the road-team first-base dugout being a crime against nature ("and the Lord said the home team shall resideth along the first base line, dammit!" --made-up Bible verse 32:12), this was pretty much a perfect place to be. We were also in the last row before the break from the two-digit section numbers, so there was a wide aisle behind us for the stadium dork crew to walk through, for ushers, and of course where the famous pierogi racers walked through to get back behind the scenes after their race. On their way through, a six-year-old or so boy was hi-fiving the combatants, and my boss said something I missed. I asked her to repeat. She had pointed out that, "Hey! That kid tried to trip that pierogi! He hi-fived them, then put his foot out to trip him!"

I also got a free lunch of Quaker Steak and Lube wings out of the bargain.

It was a very good day at work.