Home of the Braves

It was a busy but fun weekend. On Friday we headed out to a marriage retreat with our young marrieds class at church. Getting there was something of a trick, with Friday traffic and ongoing construction on I-85 southbound. We both dashed off from work, our itinerary complicated by the fact that Michael had to drop his truck off at the shop for a tire rotation. I ended up running home, throwing things into a weekend bag (you’d think I would have thought ahead to pack beforehand!), not even bothering to change, and heading down to the shop to rendezvous with Michael. We drove downtown to the conference site, getting there only half an hour after registration ended and exactly as dinner began. (As Merry said to Frodo in Rivendell, ‘You have shown your usual cleverness by getting up just in time for a meal.’) It was a great retreat. I love retreats: the good food, the fellowship, the (usually) luxurious accommodations, the sessions, the breakout activities, the relaxing downtime. This was my first marriage retreat, and it was simply marvelous. I’ve missed the annual Blue Ridge Women’s retreat. This reminded me a bit of that. But if I were going to the Women’s retreat, I’d have to leave Michael behind. So this was even better.

After the final session on Saturday afternoon, we dashed back north and congregated in the parking lot at my work, to ride the chartered bus to the ball game. Practically my whole office was there. It was great fun. We had great seats on the lower level (and it was the only time, of all the three Braves games I’ve attended, that I’ve sat below the upper deck skyline) right along the third baseline, in a perfect set-up for foul balls if any had come our way. It ended up being a low-hitting game (we won 1-0), with no one making it past first base except for the one home run, so it went by quickly. It was great fun going with a large group. Several people bought peanuts, and they passed them around liberally, and we cracked the shells and dropped the husks on the ground. There was one point at which the catcher dropped the ball, and it rolled away, and in all the scramble and confusion I thought there was plenty of time for the runner to make it to first base, if he’d been on the alert and ready to run. But Michael said he was only allowed to make a run for it on the third strike. Very odd. When we won, they shot off fireworks from the stadium. I love going to Braves games!