father's day and more

One benefit of living in a city that can boast the worst baseball team in all of the major leagues is that it's possible to get really good seats on short notice. For Father's Day this year, since the Mariners were playing at home (against the third-worst team in baseball, the Washington Nationals), I decided my family should take me to a ball game.

Hey! Ichiro!

Oh, and buy me a hat.

I also bought a pink Mariners jersey for the kid and Mimi sported her old-school Dan Wilson t-shirt. The geek-fest was on!

It was a beeyooteeful day for a ball game, made even nicer by the fact that this spring and early summer have been especially gloomy. Our seats were 12 rows up, right along the left field foul line. A wonderful vantage point for watching our hometown boys throw another game down the toilet (it was their seventh of what would be an eight game losing streak).

"I'll turn around when they do something worth watching."

And later that night they fired their GM. Neat. Anyway, I didn't think we were going to get more than three or four innings out of Yuki-pants before we had to pack up, but it was kind of hot and rather noisy (there were almost 40,000 people there to watch this world series of bad baseball -- lots of dads and kids) and I think Yuki was overwhelmed so she ended up being really clingy instead of fidgety.

"So hot. Must have $5 lemonade."

I held her for the first few innings, then Mimi took over and Yuki fell asleep sometime in the sixth inning. Then mother and child went for a stroll in the shaded and much cooler concourse leaving me with my overpriced beer and my two chatty and sunburned neighbors, one of whom took the photo of the three of us. (There was also a row of obnoxious Nationals fans who were making much ballyhoo of their team beating our team which really isn't saying much since our team has only managed to win 25 of nearly 75 games this season). My lovely ladies returned for the ninth inning, rested and refreshed. Somehow my kid managed to stay for the whole game!

She even got to see the hydros! Go Yellow!

Then we went to the grocery store and she was back to her usual climb-out-of-the-cart-run-around-outside self. It was a glorious day and could be the start of a Father's day ... thing. Next time, though, I'll get there in time to parade around the outfield with all the other dads and their kids. I am a nerd like that.

Otherwise ... we bought her a pool a few months ago and have had exactly one opportunity to use it.

not pictured: her drinking out of it
(but we do have that picture)

Hey, here's a big one! We got her a forward-facing car seat! She likes this one much better. I haven't had to sing "I Know You Hate Your Car Seat" once!

not pictured: Daddy's totally crooked installation

And sometimes she likes to try putting on her shoes.

Yes, it's a Red Sox t-shirt (thanks Hallal!).
You didn't think we were going to raise a Yankees fan, did you?

Haven't had as much time lately for movie watching, but we eventually recorded and watched the entire run of Planet of the Apes movies. They get better and better the further away from the original you go. And by "better and better" I mean weirder and more poorly constructed. FYI, Claude Akins played General Aldo in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Yes. Sheriff Ellroy P. Lobo! Anyway, that was also the one with Paul Williams as "Virgil." Methinks I need say no more.

And day care is going well but Mimi has promised to write more about that soon (including, I hope, "Baby's First Incident Report"). Yuki is no longer the youngest in the group. That honor now belongs to the delightfully named "Ace". Maybe she is taking her new responsibility seriously.

Bye for now!