Anyhoo, today was the first real hot day of the year -- 80's and humid. We didn't really have a spring. We went from a very long winter to this summer day. Anyway again, a bunch of things happened today as a result of the heat that I don't like:
1) I wanted to sport my Minnesota North Stars gear today. No reason, I just kind of felt like being an obnoxious sports fan at work. One looks that much more conspicuous -- and therefore annoying -- when you're wearing a lot of sports stuff and you're not a sporting event. I think I was OK.
I went to work with my North Stars hat and jersey. Things were fine, except that whenever I moved my hand, the huge sleeve from my jersey would pick up and move all my papers around. Yeah, this will probably be the last time I wear a hockey jersey to work. Got a few compliments that are always appreciated, though.
Mid-morning ushered in a change, however. The air conditioning in the room started to not work. It got very uncomfortable wearing a polyester jersey. Eventually I just had to take it off the rest of the day. Thankfully I had a t-shirt underneath.
As for the hat. ... When you wear it enough times, it gets dirty, if only on the inside collar, where it quickly gets yellow and brown from all the sweat. I know that. I have almost two dozen hats, and all of them have that shitty-looking collar. Plus you sometimes adjust your hat with fingers that you haven't cleaned yet, so the brim gets dirty.
Eventually every hat gets dirty. Still, I try to break in a new hat by shielding it from as much dirt and grime as possible. At some point I'm going to forget, but I'll do my damndest to keep my virginal hat. I feel that way about the North Stars hat, my newest one. I bought it at the Mall Of America on sale and I didn't use till about a month ago, when I attended a hockey game at the Xcel Energy Center. Hell, I didn't even take the hat out of the bag for three or four months. That's my modus operandi: Keep them as immaculate as possible.
However, I also need to sleep. And since I started working days, I have re-remembered that the best way to try and catch a nap during lunchtime is to fold my hat and put it on my head in such a way that it just about covers my eyes. I was not going to treat my North Stars hat any different.
However, remember that it reached into the eighties and was humid. As I was trying to pass out I could feel the sweat generating on my skin. "Oh-oh," I thought to myself ... but then I started paralyzing, a sign that I was about to fall asleep. I never really did; it was too damn hot. Still, when my alarm cell woke me up, I took off the North Stars hat, and I saw patches of sweat on the back of the head, where the sweat from my brow seeped in. And now my pristine hat's ruined.
2) When my sister was in town, she used my car. Recently I found a note of hers. It was a series of directions she probably wrote for herself. Well, I like that little reminder that she was still around, so I didn't clean it out and put it on the passenger floormat.
I went to the Twins game tonight -- more on that later. Instead of just cranking it full blast from the start of my way downtown, I roll down the windows and gently turn on the "circular" fan in the car. If the car's overheating -- there's nothing to suggest that it was, but it was hot outside -- I would be able to vent it through the car because the windows would be down. Plus, putting the windows down before I got onto the highway seemed like a smart idea to gradually lead the car into giving me air conditioning, which uses a lot of energy.
I didn't think it'd kick up so much turbulence inside my car. After I made a left onto the "mainer" drag from my neighborhood and picked up some speed, but not yet at highway speed, the wind swirling in my car picked up this little note. It started floating, then stuck to the inside A-pillar. "Oh shit," I thought, and I tried to trap it little Post-It in my car by pulling the windows up. But it was too late; halfway up, the note flew right out my car. Looking at my rearview mirror, I saw the turquoise note flipping in the wind, right in front of the probably stunned cars behind me.
Thought about going back and looking for it after the game. Promptly forgot. Wouldn't've been useful probably anyway.
RIP, turquoise Post-It note my sister made.
3) The game sucked. It sucked so bad that I broke a cardinal rule of mine: I left the game early. Now, I'm one of those purist, die-hard traditionalists. I usually don't leave a game until it's over because that's what I went there for. But this time there were a few things that persuaded me to leave -- in concert, unbeknownst to me, with the other three friends I was with, thus relieving me of any guilt over ditching them:
- First of all, the Twinks sucked tonight. I knew Francisco Liriano wasn't going to pitch even close as well to the no-hitter he threw last week. But the fucker didn't even get to the fourth inning, allowing four runs in the process. He was so bad, his pitches went wild on a four-pitch intentional walk, for shit's sake. He was pulled at the end of that inning because he was "hurt." If "hurt" meant "back to his inferior ways," then I might buy it.
- There was a rain delay that lasted more than an hour. See, this shit is why this team should've stayed in the Metrodome, or at least get a retractable roof stadium built instead of this Target Field crap. People say there's tradition behind the rain-out, maybe even a hint of romanticism. I may have been softened up by the fact the baseball team had played indoors as long as I remember it, but I call bullshit on this outdoor rain delay crap. I want a game to go off as scheduled, and I want it to get to its finish as naturally as possible without any outside distractions -- like the fucking weather. Waiting around to see the game get going back again slowly pissed me off.
- Oh yeah, did I mention that I have a day job? Well, at least until next week.
- And after it started raining hard, it started hailing. Hailing??? Not only was it not supposed to hail, it wasn't even supposed to rain until after midnight. Thanks, Weather Channel. It got louder -- therefore bigger -- and more frequent. I spent ten minutes finding a parking spot that I didn't have to pay for. I'm closer to the highway on-ramp than the stadium, and now, seeing this hail, I'm kicking myself that I didn't play it safe and get my car in an indoor ramp. All I could think about once I saw the balls start to fall is rushing back to my car to see everything all dented up and shit. My mind's now totally out of the game.
4) I finally tried the new gyros place across the street from My Favorite Stripclub (No Cover Division). I wanted to leave the game, but I didn't really need to go home yet. Plus, there were no dents on the car from the hail, thank Buddha, so I was in a sort-of good mood. Also, I thought I was hungry; even though I ate at Twins Dog and drank a whole souvenir-size cup of Pepsi, I thought the calories were sweat out of me because of the heat, so I could eat again. Finally, there was never a good time to try this place, at least not anytime soon. No better night than now.
Pretty good. I had the gyro combo. The Gyro was fat; I had to eat the lamb before eating the whole thing, soft taco-style, in the pita. What I appreciate more (other than the fact that they were open past their announced 10 p.m. weekday closing time) is that both the gyro and the fries came out hot. Really hot. So hot, in fact, that I should've waited for it to cool, because either the gyro or the fries (maybe both) put a blister on my tongue. This is why I sometimes wait until the food gets a little too cold before I eat it; that patience bars self-injury.
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