Cold and Hot Friday Night



With the mistress still out of town, I wanted to have some long-overdue fun with the boys--especially after having to dump them off at a friend's house three full days this week so I could work. We dumped the kids off at someone's house last Saturday so we could go to the temple, and that family was going to take Aaron to one of their son's baseball games. Because of some problems, he wasn't able to go--and it really disappointed him. So I thought to make it up to him with an even better brand of baseball: Saxon (who are first in league and top 10 in state).

I picked up the boys at their friends' house around 4:00 p.m. (where they were both reported to be rather sad for much of the day; even though they haven't mentioned their mother at any point during her absence--not even a "When's Mom coming home?"--I think they long for her return). We were all so hungry, we ate at Arby's (well, we got take out anyway). The baseball game had just started when we found out seats on the hill behind home plate. The boys diligently watched much the game (at least until their food was gone), but Edward eventually found it more exciting to explore the grounds. The Saxon's starting third baseman is in my Sunday School class (they got his name wrong in the paper--big surprise), and it was neat to see him start the rally that brought home the go-ahead runs for their victory.

After the game ended (in just a little over an hour--it was the fastest high school game I've ever seen), we raced back to our car and drove to West Salem to watch the South vs. West lacrosse match. Two of South's players are in my Sunday School class as well, so we had some players to watch and root for (and their parents to talk to--especially Aaron's favorite, Sister Scott--a distant cousin and the mom of my sister Megan's former roommate at Ricks). It was an exciting match, as South came from behind to win by a goal. I think the match had playoff implications, with South inching ahead of West in the league standings. It got really cold at the stadium, though (after reaching about 70 degrees during the day)--we all huddled together under the blanket I had brought. But when we arrived at our house in South Salem, it was warm--just another reason I don't like West Salem and think it should succeed from the city.

During the lacrosse match, I asked Aaron if he had any desire to play either of the sports we had watched. He said maybe he'd like to play baseball, but definitely not lacrosse. I think Aaron doesn't like the idea of contact sports (which is perfectly fine, and is consistent with what he has said before--there were guys getting mauled all the time during the match).

Before I went to bed tonight, I checked OregonLive to see if anything important had happened. There was a link to a story about a fire breaking out in a retirement community in Salem. That piqued my interest, and after the story opened I saw the story's picture which I immediately identified as the place where my grandpa lives (I would call him the next day to confirm everything was all right; he had to evacuate for a short time, but he said it was orderly and was nice to have some excitement around the place for once).

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