Let's Go Mets

We got the LOA (Letter of Acceptance) via Fed Ex yesterday morning and Lela and I rushed up to Jamie's office to have him sign and then send back. I spoke to my agency about dates and it turns out that October is sort of a blackout month for adoption travel, a national holiday - actually a holiweek, at the beginning and then the Guangzhou International Trade Fair Oct 15-30, when hotel rooms in that fair city triple in price, if you can get one. So if we don't travel in September, we can't travel until the end of October. That puts us on a very tight time line. If the TA comes as expected around Labor Day, we'll only have about a week before departure - if we can get flights that won't kill our bank account. It's always something.

There was a huge storm yesterday morning, lightning and pouring rain. Where we live it was a strong but fast moving storm. In NYC, only 15 miles away, it was much worse with flooding and a tornado, which is a very big deal on the east coast. The city ground to a halt with flooded subway lines and roadways. The storm was gone by 7:15 am, leaving air so humid you still needed a raincoat. And it got hotter. It was 81 at noon and 92 by 2, with a heat index over 100 and air quality warnings.

But we had big plans - Lela's first baseball game. We are Mets fans by virtue of living on the train line that goes directly to Shea Stadium. By 6:25 the trains were back on schedule and we went off to the game. We met Aunt Christy at the ball park (she got the tickets through a knitting group) and up we went to the nose bleed seats. Since we were surrounded by knitters it was a little different but nicer than usual, fans trading skeins of wool, rather than hurling bottles. It turned out to be a perfect game. A breeze came up, it cooled off a bit, the game was exciting (Mets vs. Braves) with the Mets pitcher putting the game to bed in the ninth with the Braves at bat and bases loaded. Lela's favorites? The seventh inning stretch, singing "Take me out to the ball game", the wave, the eats, and - WINNING 4-3.