Much drier today, though not without ....

Today was much drier.  I saw a few rain drops along the way, but nothing that interrupted the events that I was at.  Yay for small favors.

That all said, today wasn't without a little fun and trepidation.  Today's event was a baseball game.  Watching the Nationals take care of the "hated" Baltimore Orioles.  My son and I headed there while my daughter had some other plans with a friend of hers.  As we got to the stadium I bought my son lunch at his favored vendor and then headed off to grab my own food from another vendor.  I told my son I'd catch him at the seats, told him which section and roughly where to find it at.  The line for my food was not terribly long, but moved a bit slowly.  Interesting side note, I wound up in line behind the wife and son of one of the relief pitchers on the team.  Their young one was dressed up in a mini-uniform from head to toe.  Most women would probably have done one of those "awwwwwwwwww...." type exclammations since it really was awfully cute.  But, I digress...

So, after getting my food, I headed over to my seat expecting to see my son there, but well, he wasn't there.  And he continued to not be there throughout the game.  I looked around for him a few times, never found him in the general area, and wound up assuming and hoping that I'd find him as the game came to an end.  He's old enough to be on his own (he's an adult), and probably had enough $$ to get himself home if needed, but I was still concerned because he was apparently lost.

He found me in the last inning of the game.  Actually just after the end of the 9 inning regulation portion of the game.  He'd been sitting in the upper deck above me despite my having told him that our seats for the day where *below* where our usual season ticket seats are.

I was glad he found me, and we both got to celebrate in the extra innings when one of the team sluggers smacked a walk-off homerun.  I had just mumbled something about hoping that the slugger would put us out of our misery and smack one over the fence and sure enough he got a pitch he could crush.  That made both of us very happy and wiped out the earlier worry over where my son may have gotten off to.

The sad part is that if the game had been more crowded, he'd have found me much earlier after he checked his ticket stub, but the crowd seemed to have decided to stay home today.  With the clouds and threat of rain, I wasn't terribly surprised about that, but it was still sad because the team has been playing well and deserved the support at the box office.

After the game we both met up with my daughter and her friend and headed out for dinner.  Outback won the where would we go lottery.  Decent food with a slight let down in the service area.  Not horrible, but not great either.  Haylee (actual name since I don't know the last name and can't embarass the girl) needs to work on her service skills.  Letting a customer run their drink glass to empty is not a good way to earn a tip.  And screwing up the customer's order for their side items didn't help either.  And rushing through the dessert order wasn't smart either.  In the end I didn't stiff the girl on the tip, but did consider cutting back on it over my usual generousity.

We had started to go to a different restaurant that I favor, and if we'd gone there I'm fairly confident that we would have gotten great service.  I eat there regularly enough to know what to expect and know the employees there well enough to know who to ask for as my waitress.  Even if she's busy, the other crew members are good and she'll put in a plug for me with them to make sure they don't screw up my order and ruin the chances of getting a good tip for themselves.

Thankfully the work that I might have had to do tonite was postponed for another day.  I may or may not have to work late over the next few days, but I'm set either way, at least for now.

That's it for now, hopefully back again tomorrow.