TGIF! -- Really?

Once again, the week has wound itself around to Friday. Though for retired folks, it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference. In fact, many times we don't even know for sure what day of the week it is. The only day we really keep track of is Sunday.

I spent a good share of the day doing laundry. My little Splendide washer/dryer did a week's worth of clothes in three loads. Once again, Auntie Violet looks like a laundry. I only run the dryer for about twenty minutes, then hang the clothes up to finish drying. That way I don't usually have to iron anything.

Towards late afternoon we made a trip to Lowes to look for a slightly bigger pot to transplant the little miniature rose bush Forry gave me for my birthday into. We found a nice pottery pot and bought the smallest bag of potting soil we could find. It's still way more than we need...

We had a nice sunshiny day today, but it is still a bit on the chilly side. The Mariners played the Padres this afternoon for the first day of Cactus League play. Unfortunately, they didn't this first game -- I'm not sure that's a good omen or a bad one. Some of the sports writers seem to think it's like dress rehearsal for a play -- that a bad rehearsal means a great Opening Night. Let's hope they are right!

Easter in San Diego!

I was a bit saddened this morning to realize we weren't in Oregon and wouldn't hear the wonderful Easter singing at Zion. We have been worshiping with the Bretheren In Christ/Mennonite Church in San Diego. There are usually 25-30 people present. Today there were over fifty. The service was wonderful, but I still miss the Zion singing. One of the highlights of the service was an ugly nondescript cross covered with chicken wire -- Pastor Sara described it as "sort of yuck." The children came with flowers during one of the hymns and filled all of the wires with them. It ended up flower filled and gorgeous -- I only wish I had taken my camera in.

After the service and the generous snacks, we (Forry and I and Joel, one of the long-termers) headed for Petco Field:

The San Diego Padres were playing the third game of their series with the San Francisco Giants. They won 6-1 today making it a clean sweep 3-0. The Giants don't seem to be nearly as formidable without Barry Bonds.

We had great seats about forty rows back behind the dugout on the first base side, but they were in the shade. There was quite a breeze at times and by the 7th inning we were freezing. We finally got smart and moved down into empty seats in the sun for the final two innings...

Petco Field is interesting in that they renovated and incorporated the 1909 Western Metal Supply Co. Building into left field. The team store is on the first floor and luxury boxes are on the upper ones.

We stopped at TGIFs on the way back to camp for baby back ribs. All of our wandering long-termers were back this evening to welcome our new crew. Compared to the last two weeks, it's a small group of all guys with three from Oregon, two from British Columbia and one other Canadian.