The Sparks went to Washington...: Take me out to the ball game....

Wednesday was our outing to watch the Washington Nationals play the Phillies at Baseball. It had been several weeks in the planning, Tim was very excited and taking care of all the arrangements, and was rolling with the punches...it turns out that the original idea to tailgate at RFK stadium wasn't going to work out as they didn't open the lots until 5:30 and the game started at the new stadium (a shuttle bus ride away) at 7:10. No time to cook the burgers! So having been told that there was a BBQ pit at the side of the building he duly went off and booked that through the building management office. Sorted! Or so we thought! I suggested that we take a look on Tuesday, and quickly discovered that there was only a small seating area, and certainly no BBQ pits....

Time to panic!

Options were:
1) buy disposable BBQ's - quickly discarded as you can only fit about 4 burgers on each one and we were cooking for 30....
2) call caterers. Dawn suggested Red, Hot and Blue so Tim went off to call. They usually want 24 hours notice so they weren't sure they could do it.

Dawn and I continued to swap e-mails on options whilst I was babysitting, until nearly midnight. The next morning I did a web search and came up with Chicken Out. Tim called and they cold do it. Situation saved!! Dawn was going to pick it up whilst Tim and I went off to Costco to buy the rest of the stuff. Just before we left Tim got a call from the Red, Hot & Blue delivery man wanting to know where we were located. WHAT??? Turns out that they could do it, but had failed to actually let us know....

Tim, Stephen and I headed off to Costco and Harris Teeter to get the booze, chips, dessert, ice - all the essentials for a good party, so after a load of rushing around we got back to the office to set up. We decided to hold our alternative tailgate in the office as it was looking suspiciously like rain.

I was busy icing down the cans of Ratspiss Lite when someone came in and had the temerity to complain that we'd bought cans (not bottles) of Lite beer. When I pointed out that there were bottles of Heineken I was informed that he didn't like that, and he supposed he'd have to just drink Pepsi. Surely if you pour the beer into a glass it all tastes the same? Or do they brew it differently for each container type?? He got a look and quickly exited, but that didn't stop him moaning about the food, the location of the tailgate...pretty much everything really.

After being told that parking at the new stadium was not overly plentiful I decided to pre-book a space. We had originally been going to tailgate and park at RFK and bus over, but as we weren't tailgating there, and I didn't fancy waiting on a bus at the end of the game along with thousands of other fans, booking a space looked a great option. The parking lot nearest the stadium was $40, but what the heck - it meant that we weren't walking round a dodgy area of DC. I was gnashing my teeth and swearing at the end of the booking process. $40 parking turned out to cost $49 when you added on all the taxes, fees and, most unbelievably, the $1.75 "delivery" they charged me for printing out the parking pass on the office printer!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tim was huffing when I put out an e-mail with the transport options. "I thought we were car pooling to RFK" he pouted. WHY? It was just another step in the cat-herding process and half the folk were taking the metro anyway. Let me just say.....AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!! Were people conspiring to do my head in??

Anyway, people seemed to enjoy the food. They had a nice time getting to know one another. Paul;s kids had a great time alternatively cuddling me, riding round the office on an electric scooter and putting ice cubes down Stephen's back! We ended up with loads of food left over, so we (my 3 little helpers and Lisa) had a fun time trying to stuff it all into the fridges (especially when I found a bag of rotten, liquid primordial soup, that may have once been someones chicken sandwich in the small fridge).

The game was good. Or at least as good as it could be when you're supporting possibly the worst baseball team in America! The Nats lost 8-5, and the game rules are still pretty incomprehensible to me!! I'm actually pretty sure that Americans only really go to sporting games in order to eat themselves sick! There was a girl in front of me who ate: hotdog, popcorn, cotton candy, nachos and washed it all down with beer. As she was pretty skinny I figured that that was possibly her only meal that week!!

Dawn bought be a bag of CrackerJacks as I'd said I had no idea what they were. (Its caramel and peanut popcorn, very tasty!). They were immortalised in the song traditionally sung at baseball in the 7th Innings Stretch - where you literally stand up and stretch! I'd always assumed that it was something to do with the actual game, not crowd entertainment!!

Take me out to the ballgame,

take me out with the crowd,

buy me peanuts and crackerjacks,

I don't care if I ever get back