for some strange reason i woke up early this morning (around 8am, after having gone to bed at 4am). i think the blockage in my left ear was bothering me and i just decided to wake up (i'm seeing a doctor about it tomorrow morning). i knew it was early because when i turned on my computer, nobody else was online [in instant messaging] yet. i was hungry but there was nothing to eat in the house (i'll need to do a grocery run tomorrow, when it's not raining). i ended up eating just a devil dog snack cake but apparently that wasn't enough because by the time the early afternoon rolled around, i started feeling dizzy from malnutrition.

i got dressed and stumbled outside, first to deposit a check (from client N, who finally paid me for the portion of work i did for them back in november), then to wrappo, this new falafel takeout restaurant julie told me about a month ago. turned out the place wasn't so much middle eastern as it was more greek. i ordered the lamb kabob dinner plate to go, nearly passing out waiting for them to prepare my food. i came home and quickly scarfed everything down. my impressions? pretty good, no real complaints. the rice was a bit fluffy though, but tasted delicious all the same (maybe because i was so hungry). even after eating all that though, i was still dizzy. i started to wonder if it was maybe an inner ear imbalance issue instead.

despite my questionable health, i took a shower and got ready to head into boston via MBTA to meet up with andrew to watch a red sox game at fenway park. scoring red sox tickets isn't so easy. you can't just go up to the ticket counter and buy them (because they'll all be sold out). either you have to buy them in advance at the start of the season (when tickets go on sale for the very first time), or you go through an online ticket broker, which is basically just a fancy version of a scalper, which by the way is your third option to securing said tickets. andrew and maura had bought a series of tickets for 10 games. maura wasn't able to go tonight, so andrew called me up yesterday asking if i'd be interested in taking her place.

apparently andrew had been calling me all day but i never bothered to check my phone until i actually arrived at fenway. he just wanted to make sure we were still on and to let me know he was running a bit late. i waited about half an hour outside the stadium before he showed up. he was wearing a red sox jacket. after getting our drinks ($4.50 cup of coke, don't even know what beer is), we made our way to the seats. because they bought the same seats for all 10 games, andrew and maura have developed a relationship with the other "small season" ticket holders sitting nearby. it was all very chummy, fueled by some alcohol consumption no doubt.

nobody recognized the two guys sitting to our right, who were probably seat crashers. they were big and loud and apparently a little bit trashed. they also knew nothing about baseball for some odd reason. they were there for the first few innings, disappeared for a while, then came back for another inning before leaving for good. i didn't mind though: by then it was so cold, it actually warmed me up to be so squeezed. although it wasn't raining anymore (there was even a slight rain delay, as it was pouring earlier during the day), the suddenly clear nighttime sky quickly dropped the temperature through radiational cooling. if it wasn't so cold it'd make for a great night of baseball, but the temperature plunged to an uncomfortable 40something degrees. i saw a poor guy sitting in front of us shivering and clattering his teeth the whole time. we got hot dogs ($4.75/each) from the wandering vendors to warm us up but that didn't do us very much good since they weren't that hot to begin with.

to make matters worse, it was a heated pitching duel between jon "the molester" lester and roy "i pitch complete games" halladay. maybe if you're a fan of that sort of stuff it'd be interesting, but most fans wanted to see offensive, of which there was very little. thankfully the game went by pretty fast, although some fans did start to leave because it was just too cold. even with the rain delay, the game still ran under 2:30. the red sox have been in a slump recently, having lost their last 5 games, so they were due for a win. that was the hope going into tonight's game.

when the bottom of the 9th inning rolled around with the score still 0-0 and the first red sox hitter stepped up to the plate, everyone was standing and cheering. partly due to excitement, but probably more to just keep on moving around so we wouldn't freeze to death. even though we took out our starting pitcher and replaced him with our closer (which seemed like a mistake at the time), the toronto bluejays decided to leave their starter halladay in for the final inning. that turned out to be their fatal mistake. first ortiz got a base hit (or a walk, i can't remember, i just know he got on base). then manny did the same. finally, youkilis knocked one into center field, which should've been just a single, but ortiz scores all the way from 2nd base to gave the red sox a walk-off 1-0 victory. the diehard fans that were left (and there was still a lot of us) celebrated, high-fiving each other. nothing like a win (especially in a most dramatic fashion) to warm you right up. andrew and i joined the sea of people leaving the stadium.

andrew and i split up at fenway, since he was taking the green line back home. instead of enduring the crush of people trying to catch the train from kenmore square, i decided to walk to the corner of newbury and mass ave and take the no.1 bus straight into harvard square. when the bus finally did arrive, it was also crowded, but not as crowded as the green line subway cars leaving fenway park. i walked home from harvard, noticing how all the magnolia trees have been stripped of their flower petals by the past 2 days of unceasing rain.