Baseball, Basketball & Breast Lumps

In their opening series Mom's Rays took 2 of 3 from those evil Red Sox but beyond that, I'm not too sure what's going on in this very new baseball season.  I had hoped to go to the Mariner's opening day yesterday but somehow let it slip by.

Next week, the Rays are in Seattle for a 3 game stand and you'd think I'd have tickets but I don't.

I definitely have a motivation problem where baseball is concerned and I know exactly what's causing it.

Basketball season is just getting good.

If Mom was Baseball Betty, I'm Basketball Becky.

I think basketball was just too fast and too physical of a sport for Mom to embrace.  Mom and I watched the winter Olympics together one year and during the ski jump competition, Mom would actually scream as the skiiers would leave the jump and become airborne.  They'd do flips and twists in the air and she'd be screaming the whole time.  I'd say, "Mom, they're supposed to be doing that, they're trying to do that" but something inside her just couldn't prepare for the sight of it.  A human being airborne.  I think that has a lot to do with why Mom never really got into Basketball - it's brutally rough wth lots of unexpected physcal feats - but it's always been my favorite. 

I have a voice mail message saved from Mom, she'd been channel surfing late one night, not ready to go to bed but her baseball game as over and she was flipping through the numbers looking for something to pass the time.  She clicked across a Sonics game, we were playing New Jersey and she was, as usual, a riot.  She said "boy, those New Jersey guys are good, they almost never miss!"  She also said that she didn't even like basketball but she was going to watch the game just for me.  She asked if perhaps I was at the game; I had season tickets for years.

Well here we are in this cross-over time of year, with Baseball under way but Basketball playoffs just about to begin. 

Right now, as I type, I'm being bashed about on Amtrak (we're speeding, trying to make up lost time and the ride is really rough!) on my way to Portland to see a Blazer game tonight.  On Monday, I drove to Portland for a game and drove right back home after it was over.  It's 3 hours, one way.  I would have stayed in Portland in between but I had a mammogram yesterday in Seattle so that messed everything up.

I have a lump that needs to come out, I've had two others out and both were nothing but because my breast tissue is so "dense" they can't see it well enough to be sure it's nothing so they take it out as a precaution.  Just to be sure.

I'm sure my sister could handle this minor procedure but she's not here and I'm not there so I'll have to go to a proper surgeon and I did make sure to schedule it for after Basketball playoffs have ended in mid-June.  I don't want anything to mess up my viewing schedule!

On Saturday, teachers begin flying in to work with me in my Seattle studio next week and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be working every night next week while the Rays are here.  I'm taking them all into the cadaver lab for a 5 hour anatomy class at a local medical school on Wednesday, I think that's going to wipe them out such that hopefully I can sneak away Wednesday night for the Rays game and they won't even miss me.  I've got my eye on 3rd baseline seats.  I'm also in workshop when the Rays are back here in August - what awful timing - but at least I know I'll see them down in St. Pete a couple times this season and that's what's really important. 

I do have Mom's Rays cowbell and I will surely take it with me if I go next Wednesday.  I'll be ringing it just like she did during that magical run up to the World Series last year.  And I'll be singing and stomping and yelling enough for her and for me. 

I miss her terribly but what can I do.  Everything marches forward, nothing goes backward and we only have what's real to deal with. 

All in all, life is good in Seattle, on the train, on the way to a game.

Love and Prayers From Here to There.