Fields of Dreams

In my book, a girl's first baseball game is a big deal. Going to a SeaDogs games was another of those moments I dreamed about sharing with LMC as soon as I knew she was coming. Even so, it caught me a bit by surprise that I got a little teary-eyed when we walked out of the concourse into the sun-lit fields of Hadlock Stadium.

Any attempts to actually watch the game are mostly moot at this point, and if you asked LMC what her favorite part of the experience was, and she could speak in sentences, I'm pretty sure she'd say the french fries. But it's harder to find something more summery and American and wonderful than a minor league ballpark on a July day, particularly when your team is up by four runs.

The only thing that could perhaps be more perfectly summery is a field of sun-ripe strawberries. I've already noted LMC's love of berries here before, but it's something else to be in a whole field of them. We made it to the last picking day of the summer at Jordan's Farm in Cape Elizabeth, and while the berries on the ground were no longer numerous, they were still delicious, and fortunately the farm stand was still well stocked, since the berries we picked seemed to mysteriously disappear...

The Do Run Run

I'm not what you'd call a sporty person, but after a year and a half off, I took up jogging again about two months ago.

To give myself some motivation, I signed up for the Portland Sea Dogs Mother's Day 5k.

It's the second-largest race in the state, with 3,000 registrants and over 2,600 runners on the actual day.

You don't quite realize how many people that is until you're in the midst of it, but that is a lot of people! But it gave me a lot of options for people to pace myself off of, and I've learned that I seem to run at the approximate pace of a fit 65-80 year old man. (I just squeaked past a 79-year old at the finish line).

One of the reasons I chose this particular race was because the finish line is inside Hadlock Stadium. And I totally felt like a superstar running into the stadium and giving high fives to the kids along the edge of the seating.

I can't say I'm at the point where I enjoy running itself, but I will say that this race was a blast.

Oh and I finished 33 seconds better than last time!

Stitch & Pitch

For national weather watchers, and New England blog-readers, you may have heard that it was a damp June here in Maine. We pretty much had mist, fog, or rain every day for the last three weeks of the month. A little fog didn't keep six brave knitting souls from attempting a stitch n' pitch at Hadlock Field this past Tuesday.

By the middle of the first inning we had seven runs against us, one out and a reliever pitcher, we never rallyed as hoped (I've yet to ever see the Seadogs win a game), but despite the weather I had a great time.  It's July now and it looks like we'll be getting more sun, and there are more plans to knit outside, so fingers crossed!