Yankee Stadium,and the latest family taco dinner

Every year since sometime in the 1990’s I go to Yankee Stadium with my friend Mike. I think one of the early times we went with his brother Steve and it was the only game I ever went to that was rained out. I bought a hat that day and I think I still have it.

When Covid hit our yearly trips to Yankee Stadium stopped. It’s been about five years since we’ve gone. On the last few trips it seems Rob has had to deal with some issues his daughter has had. Most years he figures it out. This wasn’t most years. His daughter is in California working to be an actress. He and his wife flew out there to help her out. I don’t know the problem, but having two daughters I’d be on the flight to California, if they’d called and had a hangnail. So I really can’t blame Rob, it was just disappointing. It's been five years and it hit the three of us Friday night at Nanuet Restaurant, we’re not getting any younger and how many more years are we going to be able to do this?

All of the previous leads up to now, we have an extra ticket. Louie asks his sons, I ask Karl, Eric is a Met fan. After all of that I think, I’ll have to ask Nastia. I love her, but I thought she’d be a problem. She’d want food and not eat it, then about the fifth inning she’d get bored and want to leave, you know. I ask her and she agrees. She and Sean are going to the beach Saturday night, it’s a day game, so we’ll be back in time for them to leave.

I wanted to take the Mustang, but the three of us are old and fat and even Nastia would have problems fitting in the back seat. We choose confort, Nastia’s car over a stylish Mustang Convertible.Doesn’t matter, Mike and I will use it on Sunday when we go to Somerset NJ to see the Yankees double A farm team with what we hope will be a future Yankee star Spencer Jones. Nastia and I go pick up Mike at his hotel, we swing over to Louie’s just 90 mother’s house, pick him up and take a comfortable ride down to the Bronx. The whole summer has been scorching. We have the air running and everything is good. We park on the first floor of the Jacob Ruppert parking garage, a first and walk into from the garage to the park, across the street and onto one of several long lines. Nastia is uncomfortable in the crowds and wants to hold my hand. Her mother doesn’t like crowds too, I guess she inherited it from her. Yeah, I know, adopted and all, it must have been through osmosis or something.

We enter the Stadium and it is a give away day, a metal coffee cup. Mike will use it the next morning in a drip coffee maker. It will get hot and he will throw it away. Nastia is amazed they are giving something away for free. I don’t tell her the price of the tickets. She continues to hold my hand until we hit the bathrooms. She heads toward the ladies, I tell her where I’ll be waiting. She takes a while and I thinkI can sneak into the men’s. When I’m done, I get a little nervous, I've missed her coming out of the ladies and she will panic, I did miss her , but she doesn’t panic. We get online for some food. I bought two Nathan’s hot dogs, helmut fries and two sodas for only $55.00. At the Palisades Center it would cost around $20.00 minus the hat the fries come in.

It’s time for me to finally buy the Yankee hat I’ve been waiting for. Nastia comes with me. As we search for a Yankee store, she asks if I can buy her a Jersey. Forgetting we’re in Yankee Stadium, I say yes. She finds out Sean's favorite Yankee is number 99 Aaron Judge. I won’t say they hide the prices of things in the Yankee store, but they definitely don’t advertise them either. I pick up a hat,and we wander over to the jerseys in the women’s section. She tries on a small, it fits her great and I’m thinking, okay, two items, but I really want a hat that has pin stripes on it. Nastia, as she does, asks someone for help. I don’t like doing it mostly because when I’m done looking the person helping is still trying to help. She asks a passing girl who asks her boss, who radios down to the warehouse, I guess looking for the hat. I want to go, but we wait. Twice I want to go, but they are still looking. Finally it’s time to leave. I thank the people who tried to help me, we get on line and at the cashier, they couldn't scan the jersey. They ask me if I want a bag for my purchase. Two items, a bag will make it easier, I say, yes. The jersey won't scan. Finally they read the number off the tag and the price of the jersey is $218.00. I stammer for a second or two before saying, I’m sorry I can’t afford that. They take the jersey off, I ask what the dollar charge is. It’s for the bag, I let it go. At home later that night I try on the hat and for some reason there is a gap between my skull and the top of the hat. I look in the mirror and I look like a special needs person. Guess who wasted $50.00 on a hat.

Back near our seat, we hang out in the concession area until it is closer to the game. It is sunny and hot . Our seats are in the sun and will stay that way until the game is almost over. I sit next to Mike on my left, and Nastia on my right. I try to take a picture of all four of us, like I do every year. This year, Louie seems to hide in each picture and my arm is too short. Nastia, as Nastia does, takes the camera and asks the people next to us to take our picture. I never do that because I alway imagine the person running away with my phone as I stand there with a dumb smile on my face. The person takes the picture and doesn’t steal my phone.I guess the cracked screen protector is a deterrent. I’ve always worried Nastia would get bored at a game. This day she doesn’t, even though the Yankees get trounced 8-1. We wait for a while before we leave. No beer can hockey at our age in the parking garage any more. It’s a nice day. I enjoyed having Nastia there. I hope my friend’s did too. I don’t need a Yoko Ono situation here. Family dinner has alway been a special time for me with my family. I treasure it like the rare precious stone it is. I grew up with a father who did what he knew best, and that was to provide for his family, but not be at home for dinner. It is something he quietly did for the majority of his life. I only recently understood he abandoned us unnecessarily to provide for his family. I know it wasn’t malicious, it was what he learned and did as a child in an alcoholic family to survive. I sometimes find myself secreting from my family doing the same thing. Family dinners when I was young were regular, most every night, but were missing my dad. So when we gather around the table for dinner and a taco dinner, and on top of that provided by Nastia and Sean, well mostly by Sean, it’s a home run all around. I went out to buy some beer, the second beer in six weeks. Nastia came with me and we talked like we used to always talk before she got so involved with Sean. I know these visits will be fewer and farther between as time passes, so I treasure them and try to not sweat the details. We talk about things she wants to or just joke about nothing. Again I don’t sweat the details and I don’t get upset about whatever she says. Back home we sit down to tacos. Nastia and Elena talk over Teri and I talking about something. I talk louder and louder trying to out talk the girls. I ask Teri if it reminds her of growing up. She looks at Sean and asks him if it does. Both agree we were not loud enough. Usually conversations like this get a little raunchy. This one did not. I did throw some cheese at Nastia to stop her from talking, it worked. I stood up to get some cheese and used a back hand flip to land a small gob of nice yellow cheese on her glasses. She didn’t find it funny, but everyone laughed. Dinner clean up went quickly and everyone went their seperate way. Nastia, Sean and Elena went upstairs to play Zombies on Xbox, I think. Teri sat at the table while I wrote this every so often yelling in pain over her disease that has her hands and feet all dried out and the skin cracking, not fun at all.