A bracelet for a baseball game? That's a first.

Tuesday:

I don't remember much about Tuesday morning, but let's just assume that I woke up.

At 11:30, I went to meet my friend Rhonda at her parents' house in Lake St. Louis. You know that feeling you get when you go back to a place that you haven't been in awhile? The smell takes you back to when you were 16. With the amount of change that has happened in my life in the last 10 years, that house is one of the very few places I can still go back to and get the same feelings I had when I was a teenager. Sure, her old bedroom has now been transformed into a playroom for when her adorable children visit their grandparents and there have been a few updates, but when you walk in the door you will still be greeted with love by whatever part of the family happens to be home. You will still find her mom genuinely concerned with how you are doing. It's not that I had forgotten how much I love this family, but it was so great having the reminder.

After visiting with her mom for a little while and watching the kids show me how fast they can run, Rhonda and I made our way to El Maguey for the Mexican I didn't get on Monday. I hadn't realized how long it had been since we'd had an actual conversation and there was so much to catch up on. The great thing about real friends is that it doesn't matter how long you go without talking, you can still fall back into your friendship like you saw each other a week ago. Seeing that we finished our meal and stuck around for awhile after (with a few questioning looks by some Mexicans), I would say that it was a successful lunch.

After dropping Rhonda back off at her parents' house, I went home and got ready for the Cardinals game that night. Ali was running late (he had forgotten to mention that he was buying a new car that day), so Thomas, Laura, and I just went on without him (I'm not completely mean, Seth and Angelo were coming downtown later and said they'd pick him up on the way). The plan was to go to the John and Jill Ruggeri's new restaurant Gio's (which happens to be next to the stadium) and talk to Jill for awhile. Jill ended up not being there, so we had a few drinks and engaged in a little light conversation with John. Although I had worked at his restaurant and babysat his children for years and years, this was probably the most that John and I had ever had a continuous conversation in our lives.

Around 6:15, we made our way to our seats at the stadium. I had made the decision that the all-inclusive Legends Club seats were the way to go. After doing a little math in my head after the game, I'm starting to believe that maybe sitting closer to the field and just buying our food would have been cheaper. Oh, well...you live, you learn...and the fudge brownies were de-lish.

At one point near the end of the game, a foul ball was hit along the first base line and I saw two guys catch it and start hugging it out like it was the most magical moment ever. At the time I thought, "Hmmm...those queer looking fellows look familiar..."

When we made our way to Show-Me's (the second-rate Hooters of Missouri) after the game, we learned that those guys looked familiar for a reason. Seth and Angelo had caught the foul ball. When Seth showed Logan the foul ball the next day, he touched it and excitedly asked, "Can I play t-ball with it?" (Awwww, sweet Logie...thinking that you will be able to make use of a ball that will ultimately end up sitting around, collecting dust...how cute are you??)
My favorite part of the evening was when I heard the classy waitress scream from behind the bar and turned to look at her bringing everyone their chicken wings. When she was dropping them all off she was sure to warn us not to ever get chicken wing sauce in an open cut. The only thing I could focus on was the fact that she just informed us that her open wound touched our food. Needless to say, I stuck with water that night.