(Sunday Paper, Year VII, Issue 20)

I’m honestly not sure, as I begin this post, if this is going to turn out to be about baseball or about eggs.

I’m going to call it 50-50 odds either way.

Last Friday night, Kathy and I went to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

(Baseball 1, Eggs 0)

It was the first time we had been there in three years - long enough ago that I don’t remember anything about the last game I attended at Fenway.

(I did make it to Citi Field for a Mets game last season.)

(Baseball 2, Eggs 0)

Though I’m not a Red Sox fan, I always enjoy being at Fenway Park - I try not to take it for granted that we have the opportunity to just drive a half-hour to go to a venue that people come from all over the country to see.

It’s hard not to have a good time at Fenway Park.

And Friday night turned out to be even better than we could have hoped.

(Here come the eggs!)

First of all, the single biggest stress-related piece of going to a Red Sox game for me is parking.

Luckily, one of my favorite things to do is get to a ballgame early and take in the before-game sights and sounds of a ballpark and walk around and see what’s there - even at a place I’ve been to as much as Fenway.

And getting there early means I have time to circle neighborhoods within walking distance that I’m familiar with to find on-street parking.

I do not like paying parking lot prices for this kind of event when I know I can find a meter somewhere.

Last Friday we didn’t have the luxury of getting there super-early but as I told Kathy, I wasn’t stressed about it - it was kind of a last-minute decision to go to the game, I was pretty carefree about it all, and sure enough I found a spot on Commonwealth Avenue before I even had to hit my secret stash of parking spots.

It was a good omen.

When we walked into Fenway, there was a table set up displaying the logo of a brand of eggs that we really like.

(I know. We have become boring old people.)

We were about to head over to a concession stand to get food and begin our night, but I was like, “Wait, let’s see what the egg table has going on.”

Turns out they’re the official egg sponsor of the Boston Red Sox (I don’t know why I’m not using the brand name but I’m sure given that information you’re not going to have a hard time finding out who they are) and the women at the table had 1/2 off coupons that they said we could take.

“Great,” I said. “We love these eggs.”

Then Kathy added, “I was just telling him how much better these eggs are! The yolk is so much better!”

Kathy’s enthusiasm got one of the women at the table to pull from her pocket the ‘free dozen’ coupons, and she gave one to Kathy as she agreed about the yolks. “That’s what we’re known for,” she said.

Then they gave us sunglasses and egg stress balls. (I got three - one for each of the girls, and Saturday morning I pretended to juggle real eggs three different times as each of my daughters got out of bed. Only one of them actually thought the stress eggs were real eggs.)

Now, I know when the women were sent off with the ‘free eggs’ coupons it was probably, “Use these in case you get crazy egg people and you need to get rid of them. Send them off with sunglasses and however many stress eggs they want. DO NOT ENGAGE FURTHER.”

But I’m OK with it either way - how often do you go to a Major League Baseball game and end up making money instead of spending money?

(You don’t. Within 20 minutes I’m pretty sure I was overcharged for beer…I mean, like over the already-existing overcharge. I didn’t realize it until I saw my statement the next day.)

I love baseball, but I really love my eggs. Every morning when I eat my eggs I look forward to that day’s Mets game, but every night when I go to bed I look forward to the next morning’s eggs.

So they’re basically tied, and this was a great ballpark experience. Almost as good as a bobblehead night.

Anyway, the final piece of the fun night puzzle was that the Fenway Park organist takes requests through Twitter, and I tweet him every time I’m at Fenway.

He’s played Billy Joel and Keane for Kathy and me, Vampire Weekend for me and one of my daughters, and when Kevin was in town from the University of South Carolina we got him to play some Hootie and the Blowfish for USC-connected (not sure if they’re both official alums) Hootie and Jackie Bradley, Junior. He listens to a clip of the song and then plays it by ear pretty much. Very talented.

This time I asked if he would play Matt’s See You Soon. He did.

It was thrilling.

So the video of that is at the end of this post.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

“SOUR” - Olivia Rodrigo
“Ramones” - Ramones
“Failure” - Kathleen Edwards
“WE” - Arcade Fire
“Elephant” - The White Stripes
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society elicited the first “You’ve never seen this movie?!” of the experiment from Kathy. I thought that comment would come sooner, honestly. That was also number 100 in terms of combined albums and movies. (59 albums to that point, and 41 movies.)

Notes

*I mentioned the Mets earlier. They are off to a really great start, but my daughters keep me from getting too excited. “Don’t they start off really well a lot and then get bad?” I mean, this year feels different…but the girls are not wrong.

*I know I say this often in different contexts, but I can not believe we’re halfway through May here. Today is pretty much the culmination of the busy bonkers part of the month…but I’m sure the next month-plus will be busy in its own way.

*Part of why this past week was so busy is on Saturday was the girls’ dance recitals, which were outstanding. Great to see it happen in all of its glory again this year - last year was a much more toned down affair.

*Don’t forget there are the social media buttons to Like and Follow below.

*And here’s the organ music. ‘See You Soon’ blends into ‘Right Back Where We Started From’ and it’s a little hard to hear ‘See You Soon’ because of the ambience of the ballpark, but there’s a pretty clear-sounding shot of it at about :15-:25 seconds of this video. (And if you don’t know anything about Matt or his music you should check it out at this link and you can see where he’s touring for some of the summer.)