From the Dodgers Stadium

We were actually 11 rows from the field, aisle 29. We were so close to the action I could almost hear the players spit. Hardcore fans were everywhere, people of all walks of life. During breaks, Parents and Kids would turn into Court Jesters in desperate attempts to appear on "The Big Screen". My own grimaces fell short of being a hit, to say the least. However, competition was rough. The owner of the Dodgers (I failed to catch his name) walked by our aisle while signing autographs and chatting with fans. As he signed an autograph for this adorable little girl who couldn't have been more than 8 years old, she started lecturing him about his trading some player, most articulately sharing her thorough disappointment. He empathetically apologized to her. She acquiesced and proudly mentioned she's a catcher in her softball team.

What happened to little kids being clueless, naive, and innocent?

There I was sitting with Brandy in those amazing seats we got for "free" thru the company she works for, barely knowing anything about the game, the players, the team and its politics, while this little kid was next to us, dressed in Dodgers gear from head to toe, and schooling this businessman on how to run his team.

I think the last time I had set foot in this stadium was back when I first moved to L.A., in the summer of '95, during orientation. USC's ESL department had set-up all those trips to get us acquainted with American Culture. A "Dodgers Game" was one of many excursions. That game wasn't at all high profile, the stadium was near empty, and I could barely make out silly little flies aimlessly hopping around on a green surface, while desperately reaching for an imaginary oxygen tank in the nosebleeds.

We were wise enough to have avoided the 110 freeway on a friday evening. We took the 710 to the 5. The 710 is turning into a steamy pile of crap, but I'm not either looking forward to traffic disruptions caused by the State fixing it. When the sun is lower, colors more saturated, smog becomes palpable. But we don't call smog "smog" here. We call it "Haze". It's a prettier word, more politically correct. You don't want residents of those bazillion dollar homes in Pasadena to start thinking of this yellow tinted persistent fog as "smog". "Haze" is okay. How bad is smog in Pasadena? Consider this: Our work offices sit at the foot of a mountain we cannot see beyond its immediate flank, despite the weather being dry and not a single cloud in the yellow-tinted blue sky.