Incredibly
tired today. I suppose it is to be
expected, it has been a grueling trip. I
wonder if starting the day out tired is an omen of a bad day. Does being tired shift karma? I know that in my case when I am tired, I
have a very difficult time engaging and being in the moment. It is not necessarily that I am in the past
or the future, just nowhere. It is like
that old saying, the lights are on, but nobody is home. The 4 hour drive from KC to Saint Louis was a
blur of rain, semi-trucks and the cruise control set at 73 mph. I did manage a short yin yoga practice
working on my lower body before I left, still treating my upper body with
respect until the shoulder and back feel better, but it didn’t do anything to
shake off the doldrums.
I
got a great room in the Hyatt Regency Saint Louis that one block from the arch
and 3 blocks from the stadium and at check in had plenty of time to see the arch,
get dinner and then go to the game.
Prior to doing that though, it was time to head over to the stadium to
get a ticket. I didn’t want to chance
the game being sold out because the Cardinals have the best record in
baseball. The heat and humidity walking
over to the stadium reminded of me DC in the summertime, which to me is totally
fabulous. It also felt like thunderstorm
weather, which wasn’t so fabulous for baseball, especially considering the amount
of rain that was left behind in KC.
After buying a Cardinals hat (I buy a hat at every stadium I visit), I
went to get my ticket and !score!, another ticket in the first row, this time
behind the visitor’s dugout.
Despite
being exhausted I felt pretty good as I walked back to check out the arch. To go up in the arch, you stand on a
stairwell with 8 doors. Each door
contains a pod that holds 5 people in a little unenclosed circle. It is like sitting in one of the old Mork and
Mindy eggs, for those old enough to remember that TV show (Pod
Here), except that there are 8 of them attached. They move up the side of the arch like a
roller coaster goes up the first hill.
It actually feels and sounds exactly the same and since you can look out
the window and see the interior construction of the arch, it is a bit
freaky. The view from the top, once you
get used to the swaying, is really cool, but cramped. It looks west over the Saint Louis skyline
and east over the Mississippi River into Illinois.
Once
down from that adventure, I decided to relax on the lawn right under the arch. Laying on my back and looking up at the
clouds pass by while staring straight up at this breathtaking architecture is
an experience that brought the focus and he moment back to the day. It was energizing. We were taught in yoga that sleep is not the
only means of relaxation of the brain, and that by utilizing the proper
relaxation techniques in the mind and body, the equivalent of sleep can be
obtained. One of our instructors walked
us through a yoga nidra demonstration (Yoga Nidra) where we were in
savasana (corpse pose, which is lying on your back, heels together, toes
splayed, hands at side, face up, body melting to the earth) for 30+
minutes. It felt as if we were there for
5 minutes. This is the experience that I
had lying under the arch, and yet another affirmation that and revelation that
taking yoga teacher training has me on a wonderful path.
I
decided to go to a pre funk at a bar called the Broadway Oyster Bar. I would best describe this place as a well-constructed
shack except for the fact that other well-constructed shacks would be offended. It had plenty of character including a sign
on the front door that said “Leave your attitude at home.” This is going to be my kind of place. The bartenders were super nice and I had the
alligator for dinner. It was delicious,
and not my first experience eating alligator.
I ordered the matching boots and tipped my Cardinals baseball cap to the
alligator who donated this delicious meal.
From
there things went a bit downhill, and I began to wonder if my good karma had
run out. Upon arriving at the stadium,
it began to rain. In Seattle we would
define this rain as rain number 274, the kind that is steady and wet enough that
you just need an umbrella, but with no breeze.
Only people from Seattle wouldn’t use an umbrella anyway, because they
are {insert your own adjective here} like that.
I then went to my seat in the first row only to find out that it wasn’t in
the first row. It was in the 15th
row. While my ticket clearly stated row
one, the woman that sold me the ticket at the Cardinals box office failed to
mention that there were 14 rows of letters in front of row one. My inner child frowned on this and felt lied
to, but learned a little something in the process.
Since
the game was delayed at least an hour due to rain type #274, I went to the
batting cages in the stadium to take some swings. This endeavor should have NEVER been
attempted. Ever. The last time I tried to hit a fastball was
10 years ago. Did I mention that my
eyesight isn’t what it used to be? Did I
mention that this should have never been attempted?
Busch
stadium itself is nice, but if you took Safeco Field in Seattle, Minute Maid Park
in Houston, the new stadium in Philly and put the insides of all of them next
to each other, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. They were all designed by the same
architectural firm and there isn’t much unique about it. That is not to say that it isn’t nice, it is
fabulously nice, it just doesn’t differentiate itself from any of the other new
stadiums in baseball. Anyone from Saint
Louis who reads this will want me drawn and quartered for saying this and I
have yet to get to the derogatory part…..
While
the employees of the stadium are very nice, the people that work in the
concession stands are extremely poorly trained.
In my interactions with them, they were repeatedly screwing up orders,
making customers wait an excessive amount of time. The entire operation looked like an
unsuccessful venture into cat herding. Lots
of people running around, but not really accomplishing much. On top of that, I was unable to sit in my “front
row” seat because all the people in the rows in front of me had their umbrellas
open and weren’t at all interested in considering that there were people behind
them that wanted to watch the game. I
moved to a higher and dryer location.
The
game itself was a laugher, for the Diamondbacks. They got to the Cards starter and then Paul Goldschmidt
of the D-Backs smacked a grand slam to make it 7-1. Naturally I am playing against Paul Goldschmidt
in fantasy baseball this week. That was
a nice touch by the karma gods allowing me to see that one in person!!! The D-Backs went on to win the game 10-3.
As
I sit at 12:15 a.m. and finish up this post, I am smiling to myself because all
in all, it was a good day. It is
difficult not to be grateful on vacation and in a situation like this but also
easy to complain about Cadillac problems, that is human nature I suppose.
I
have concluded that the day was karmically twisted, for my pleasure. Chicago, here I come.
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