This One's for Q

There is, of course, an inside joke in that. But it's still pretty adorable even if you don't know why it's funny. There are also now videos up of the Laura Lopez Lecture Series from our field trip to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park on Sunday. You can also check my comment on the last post for the multitude of pictures available for perusing if you're so inclined.

California Dreamin'

The quintessential California experience: Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge on your way to wine country in a convertible with good friends while the Mamas and the Papas "California Dreamin'" plays on the radio.

Approaching the bridge on the return trip (after Amal realized he may have just bought a 1999 Saab Lemon).

Amal races into the shot just as the camera timer runs out.

Chocolate, Part Deux

Today was the last session of my chocolate making class. (For Brandy -- we've been using Noel brand chocolate.) Unlike the previous two sessions, we were not as focused on making delicious fillings and chocolates that tasted amazing. Instead, we were aiming for our "chocolate display pieces." We could only be so creative, given that we only had the giant molds that the school owned. But I still did okay, choosing to use the creepy dwarf with two children and a dog mold. There was a debate about whether or not the "dwarf" was in fact supposed to be Santa Claus, which would explain the children and the sack, but not the dog. I wanted it to be one of the seven dwarfs... and after my cocoa butter paint job, all of us in the class agreed that this dwarf was named "Creepy."

We unfortunately ran out of time to make the "plastic chocolate" roses, but I did manage to make a little bow with some of the scrap pieces. "Plastic chocolate" is regular chocolate mixed with corn syrup and has a fondant like consistency. I took some home with the intent to try to make a rose... Chef Delphin made it look easy. I have a suspicion mine will not be as nice as his!

Creepy the Chocolate Psychedelic Wizard

Thistle truffles and a "chocolate plastic" bow

Chocolate Dolphin

A large (hollow) chocolate ball... just because

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Chocolate!

I did not think it was possible to become too full to eat another piece of chocolate. But tonight I took the first class of "Fine Chocolates and Fillings I" at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, and I've discovered that it is possible. I've also discovered that it's possible to have purple chocolate with passion fruit jelly and dark chocolate ganache inside. Oh, but the maple ganache made with maple syrup (inside the dark chocolate with red, yellow, and green highlights) is my favorite by far.

Overall, I came home with quite the haul.

My job

Red is infected; green is uninfected. Squares are males; triangles are females. Not that they're all that visible at this resolution, but (very thin!) blue edges are marriages and (almost invisible!) violet lines are short term relationships.

Red Sox 4, Rays 3

I have the best boss ever.

Today, I, two co-workers, one coworker's girlfriend, Forrest and Karolina, and Quinn and Keila were able to sit in the front row of Right Field Box 90 and watch a very exciting ball game... all because my boss couldn't use the tickets. Great seats, great game, great weather... his loss, our gain!

It turns out this was Quinn and Keila's first time at Fenway. At one point, Quinn remarked to her, "You know how all the tourists in Puerto Rico [her home] sound like idiots to you because they don't know where anything is or what's going on? That's what we sound like to Rhode right now." Yeah, that was true. But I was highly amused when he tried to explain to her that a grand slam was when a homerun was hit over the Green Monster.

At the other end of our group, Forrest may have been the only person in the stadium who appreciated the fact that I brought a Homer Hanky. (It's in my baseball bag, which also generally includes my glove, a poncho, and my scorebook.) In return, he showed off his lucky red socks... the Red Sox have only lost one game that he's ever attended while wearing those socks. And that game was against the Twins, so we figure they're lucky.

The game itself was an excellent one with the lead see-sawing a bit at the beginning before settling into a tie from the top of the 6th to the bottom of the 8th. Then Papi almost hit his first homerun of the season... but settled for a double. He scored on a follow-up double by Jason Bay to put the Sox up 4-3, where the score remained going into the 9th. Then came Papelbon accompanied by the Dropkick Murphy's "Shipping Up To Boston" (kind of like this). This resulted in my favorite quote of the night, courtesy of Keila: "Wow, people get so excited. I mean, I guess it could be worse -- it could be golf."

And I did say that Papelbon came in in the 9th... so you can fill in the rest pretty easily. The Rays snuck in a runner on third with no outs, but Papelbon responded with three consecutive strikeouts to end the game and send us out with "Dirty Water" serenading us (something like this, only it was almost midnight).

Red Sox seating arrangement

Some fans have too much time on their hands.

On the other hand, it's been very useful for distributing the tickets my boss sold me yesterday to the rest of my co-workers.

My boss is awesome

My boss just stopped by my office for the following exchange...

Boss: Erin, do you have a second?
Me: Sure, what do you need?
Boss: Well, I know you're a Twins fan and all, but my wife's family is coming in to town this weekend and we have 8 tickets to Sunday's Red Sox game, but now they're all leaving early and I need to get rid of the tickets. Do you think you could use some or all of them?
Me: Well, I could definitely take one and I can probably find people for the other 7 as well.
Boss: Really? Great! I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get rid of them. They're $50 seats, but I'll give them to you for $40.

Five of the seven have already been taken by co-workers... and we haven't even asked everyone in the office yet. I can't believe he thought this would be a problem.

Mackenzie Brown

This girl is my new hero.

Day: Red Sox 10, Twins 1; Night: Red Sox 7, Twins 3

Between 5:30 pm yesterday and 10:40 today, I spent 13+ hours in Fenway Park... much of it waiting for the rain to pass. Yesterday was a total bust, with no baseball happening at all. However, I did learn that if you get to the park more than an hour before the game starts, Fenway Franks are half price.

As a result of last night's rain out, today was a day-night double header. At about 11:30, I quickly came down with a "terrible illness" and had to leave work. (Actually, the administrative assistant was shocked that I even came in at all.) I got to Fenway for sunny skies and baseball -- the perfect treatment for my ailment.

Unfortunately for Twins fans, the Red Sox proceeded to hit a two run homerun in each of the first three innings, going up 6-0. The Twins managed to squeak one around in the fifth off a Justin Morneau single, but two pop flies later left the bases loaded and all hope of a rally diminished. As an aside, how disappointed was I to hear that Justin went and married some other woman (who he's actually met) in the off-season?

Once the Twins got their run in, the rain started coming down in the 6th inning. Things got really bad in the bottom of the 7th. For starters, it appeared to be the inning that would never end as Juan Morillo actually walked in a run and was relieved by R. A. Dickey, who promptly let three more runs score. And the all the while, it was pouring -- and so the inning that would never end never really did as the umps called the tarps out with the Red Sox up 10-1 and only two outs in the bottom of the 7th.

And so, I sat in Fenway Park doing crossword puzzles (because I came prepared) for two hours in covered seats while we waited to see if the game would start up again. (It didn't.) It was actually not a bad way to spend an afternoon, given that I was dry.

Eventually at 4:30, they kicked us out of the stadium. I ran across the street for some Bruegger's and returned when the gates opened for the evening game at 5 pm. I wandered around in the drizzle, took some pictures, and chatted with some of the grounds crew. Did you know that if you sit directly behind home plate at Fenway, you get the perk of being able to watch the game on your own personal television sitting in front of you? This seems redundant to me (and the grounds crew guy I was talking to about it agreed).

Finally, by some magic of a baseball god, the weather cleared up right around 7:00. The tarp still had to be removed and the pitchers still had to be warmed up, but by 7:55, we had a game going. Francisco Liriano started out strong for the Twins with four strikeouts of the first five outs... but then he lost it with two outs in the second, giving up a couple of walks and a three run homerun to Jeff Bailey in his first major league at bat. He gave up two runs in the third and two more in the fourth. To quote Yogi Berra, it was deja vu all over again.

(Speaking of slugging percentage, which we were last week, Bailey's slugging percentage stood at 4.000 until the 6th inning when he popped out to Nick Punto.)

After Liriano was relieved in the 5th, the Twins' bullpen held the Sox to just one hit for the remainder of the game... but the 7 runs of damage was too much. The Twins fared a little better offensively this game with Morneau hitting a homerun and a double, both of which lead to runs, and Jason Kubel getting a double which eventually had him scoring as well. However, that's only three -- not enough today.

Once the game ended -- almost exactly after the last out in the 9th, in fact -- whatever magic was keeping the storm away subsided and the rain started up again. But I didn't mind... even if the Twins didn't do very well. Because a day at the ballpark is almost always better than a day not at the ballpark.