spynotes ::
  April 21, 2007
Saturday

What a day - glorious, sunny and full of baseball (seventy-four degrees!). After early morning yoga torture (standing splits against a wall, endless Kundalini abdominal exercises), a stop at the bookstore to pick up some things on hold (Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette, Daniel Allarcón's Lost City Radio, Judith Lasater's Living Your Yoga) and a giant bowl of oatmeal (with apples, golden raisins, vanilla, nutmeg and soy milk), I finally got around to a shower while AJ and Mr. Spy went to pick up his baseball uniform from the back of a truck in a park district parking lot.

AJ was still running a slight fever (100 even) this morning, but I didn't have the heart to keep him from the opening day parade, his very first as a participant. At 11:30, after slathering on boatloads of sunscreen ("We're going to be late! C'MON!"), we headed up to AJ's school where we gathered in a vast sea of children in uniforms of all colors. At 12, the fire engine turned on its siren and we marched down the hill, past the school and turned right on Main Street ("Where are we going? How far is it?"). There were so many children and parents in the parade that it didn't seem possible that there would be anyone left to watch the parade, but watch they did. We ended up on a baseball field (decked out in bunting) behind another elementary school a few blocks away. And there we sat. And sat. And sat. AJ's league, the youngest, led the parade. As we watched, more and more and more kids poured through the gates, filling up the entire field and then some. 1400 children -- over 9 percent of the total population of our little town (and drawn only from those between 5 and 14 years old) are playing little league this spring.

Once everyone had arrived, we sat for another eternity as speeches were made and awards handed out to volunteers. Two ceremonial first pitches were thrown (one by a man with a baseball, one by a woman with a softball). An a cappella choir sang the national anthem (very well, but too quiet). And then (finally), AJ's league was called to the microphone. While everyone listened, 60 five and six-year-olds (mostly boys) sang "Take me out to the ball game" with great feeling and absolutely no sense of pitch. Someone yelled, "Play ball!", caps were thrown in the air, and we stumbled back home up and down hills (in and out of weeks and over a year...). AJ, who was feeling a little feverish again, went straight to bed, but he couldn't stop talking about tomorrow's game. While AJ rested, I filled as many containers as my potting soil stash would allow (petunias, verbena, ferns, wild strawberry, johnny jump-ups, snapdragon, blood grass, lemongrass, parsley, coriander, thyme, and several more annuals whose names I can't remember). The house is full of fresh air, I smell flowers when I step out the front door. There is a perfect crescent moon hanging just below Venus in the evening sky (it looks just like the South Carolina state flag). The window is open to the deck and I can hear the spring burbling out of the ground at the bottom of the garden. It sounds, smells, looks, feels and tastes like spring.

2 people said it like they meant it

 
:: last :: next :: random :: newest :: archives ::
:: :: profile :: notes :: g-book :: email ::
::rings/links :: 100 things :: design :: host ::

(c) 2003-2007 harri3tspy

<< chicago blogs >>