Sad news

My Grandmother, Sarah Pietraszka, passed away in South Amboy New Jersey at 8 am on July 26th, 2006. She was 30 days from turning 100.

I have no words.

She was my hero.

It's that time people, Christmas in July! You should have received your invitation in your email inbox. If you haven't, maybe I don't have your email, or maybe I just didn't invite you. But if you're reading the blog, you were on the list to be invited.

As usual it's the last Monday in July, starting around 7. We provide beverages, you provide food.

In other news, I'm slaving away teaching theatre camp. I have not missed it in the years since the West End closed. I will be extremely happy when it's over. One more week. And I also took 2 online 3 week intensive classes to help finish my teacher certification requirements. I don't really recommend taking 2 intense classes at the same time. It's a good thing I had nothing to do during the day for 2 of those 3 weeks. It was crazy the amount of reading and writing. And it's teacher crap so the textbooks and articles were BORING! But they're done and I only have one more class to take. Then I mail my crap to the state and hopefully they mail me back a piece of paper that says "Yay, you're a teacher". Then I can continue to collect the salary.

Sidetrip a few weeks ago, Bud had a meeting in Charlottesville and I went along so we could stop at wineries on the way home. Stopped at the Prince Michel winery (the only one that said they were open on a Wednesday). Yeah, they were closed that day. But they have interesting lawn art;)

I am also adding in the picture from the last post about Nick Johnson's disturbing back view from when we went to the Nats game. What does that man have in his pants????

I am glad that I can post pictures again. I hope that many of you can make Christmas in July. It should be a low key fun evening.

BLOGGER MANAGED TO LOAD ONE WHOLE PICTURE AND THEY DON'T KNOW WHY I CAN'T LOAD ANYMORE. SORRY.
So on a steamy July evening Bud and I spent time at our nations pastime! And a great evening it was!
We got our tickets online at the Nationals Replay ticket window. It's where season ticket holders can sell their tickets for a game they can't make. As you can see by some of these pictures, we had great seats. If you know RFK, we were in section 112, 8th row. Just behind the visitor's dugout between home plate and first base. It was great. We didn't get there early enough for the Nats batting practice, we got there after the Marlins started. It's all good tho.

Interesting to watch the mass populous slathering for the autograph; begging unashamedly really. Funny to watch all the Nats fans clamoring for a Marlin autograph.There was a little pre-show entertainment from the Taipai All Girls High School Marching Band. Different. I'm sure they looked much better from the upper deck. They sounded good tho.

Things started off with a bang. Alfonso Soriano led off the lineup and his third pitch went over the wall!! 1 -0 Nats and it only got better from there. The Nats were on fire and it was great;) Run after run scored. They had a new pitcher last nite and he did very well too holding the Marlins to just one run. I was concerned about all the stuff the apparently Nick Johnson (first baseman) happens to carry in his back pockets. Very lumpy back view and somewhat distracting.

The Marlins, on the other hand, had a number of troubles necessitating a couple of conferences at the mound.

It's always interesting to me the people that go to games too. Before the game are the rabid "I must get an autograph.....ANYONE'S autograph" fans. There are also the annoying "I want a ball" fans. MOST of them are small children, but not all. There are a lot of the "let's drink ourselves incredibly stupid" fans that yell stupid shit, or subject you to their inane conversations because they are sittin behind you. We had those last nite. Funny really to listen to this one guy talk about being at Beach Week and it was amazing that as the week went on they didnt go through as much booze as earlier in the week because they had drunk themselves into perpetual drunkenness. According to him, they didn't need as much booze to get drunk anymore. FASCINATING. Then there was his equally drunk friend who kept trying to whistle through his teeth or fingers or something. He couldn't, but he gets an A for annoying...............um I think I mean effort.There was also the group of 5 chicks that sat next to me. They drank about a 6 pack each and I don't think they even knew there was a game happening. They talked the entire time about everyone they've ever known and all their realtionships, or lack thereof. They left during the 8th.

All in all it was a great time. If you can get seats in that area, I highly recommend it. It was awesome. I wish I could afford season tickets and sit down there all the time.

I hope everyone has a spectacular Fourth of July. I'm taking 2 online classes, so it's a brief break in the classwork to drink margerita's and post this blog.