Saturday, February 28, 2009

A Perfect Day

Wednesday was my birthday. I’m…well, I’m quite young compared to the seventy-three year-old college basketball player in Tennessee. I burned a personal day. Sleeping in until six, I started things off with a cup of coffee and a little ESPN on the TV. Then it was off to the gym for a nice work out. My wife and I relaxed with coffee and muffins at the local bakery. I’m telling you, this is the life. Slightly jacked up on the coffee, I headed over to the nearest book store to pick up a couple of writing magazines.

The main event was opening day of Spring Training with my seventeen year-old, Macaulay. The Angels played the White Sox at Tempe Diablo Stadium. We basked in the Arizona sunshine, eating hot dogs and Italian Ices. As a father of five girls, my sports IQ has diminished over the last couple of decades. The only person I recognized was Angels coach, Jim Abbot, and this is due to the fact he only has one arm. You don’t need to know the names of the players to enjoy a baseball game, not when the sun is shining and the company is right. The Angels won thirteen to four. Or was it thirteen to three? Either way, it worked out good for those of us in attendance. You see, when the Angels score ten or more runs, everyone in attendance gets free chicken wings from The Claim Jumper Restaurant. So Macaulay and I stopped at the Claim Jumper where the hostess handed us each a bag of hot wings. I know chicken wings are bad for you but man they were good.

Back at the house, my wife showed up with Pei Wei take out. I had the Asian coconut curry chicken. Among my gifts were a t-shirt that reads IRISH I Had Another Beer, a sign for the garage that reads Free Beer Tomorrow, and a couple of six packs of Zwiec Polish beer. I think my family is trying to tell me to drink more beer? Zweic is my favorite beer – very expensive so I only drink it on special occasions. You have to buy Polish beer at the Chinese market. I guess this is because we don’t have a Polish market. I'm sure there are Polish markets. I wonder if they sell Chinese beer. I enjoyed a couple of Zweics and tried to follow what was going on with Lost before hitting the sack at eight-thirty. How can you beat a day like this?