Change

I've decided that I hate change. I know I have decided this multiple times before, but hear me out for a minute. I am home this weekend. It's really only been a year since I lived here, but already so much has changed. Driving into town makes me want to do one of two things: 1) Wish desperately that I could turn back time and be my carefree, happy 12 year old self running and gossiping with my girlfriends in the schoolyard or 2) turn the car around and drive straight back to Provo so that my panic-y feeling will subside. I know that neither option is reasonable or even sane, so I am faced with spending three days in my hometown where I feel more like a stranger than at home. I have almost no friends left here and the ones that I do have are either engaged or married. My family is still here, but both of my parents live in different houses than the one I grew up in and both new houses are inhabited by lots of strange step-somethings who I have never really had the chance to get used to. I have become so accustomed to life in Provo now... Would it be sad if I started to call it home?

I am the type of person that constantly needs structure and familiarity. So, even the thought of going back to Provo to a new school year, new roommates, new faces in the ward, ect., is almost as scary to me as sitting here in Idaho Falls for the rest of my life would be. It takes me a while to warm up to new things and people. Usually by the time I have gotten used to one set of people or classes, they are being replaced by the next. It's an unsettling thing.

However, when it comes down to it, I realize that every good thing that comes in life is also a result of ... change.

Rosa Barbosa, the Indian, and me

The true reason for visiting Atlanta was of course to go see a Braves game. Going to the game was the real reason the trip even happened. I have been a fan of the Braves ever since I can remember. I know what you are thinking..."Why was some girl from Idaho such a big fan of a team that was on the other side of the country?" Well, the reason is really because my dad was a fan, and who knows why he was a fan, but his fanship rubbed off on my sister and I at an early age. Our obsession began with keeping charts and graphs of who won what games, players batting averages, ect. We wrote letters of thanks to TBS for carrying such extensive coverage of their games. We started to collect memorabilia. I even had a subscription to "ChopTalk", the official magazine of the Braves. My love of the team did not extend beyond the TV, however, until I was in the 8th grade when I got to go see them play in St. Louis with my dad and sister. We sat in the nosebleeds and my favorite player, Brian Jordan, was out with an injury, but I was still in complete bliss. Fast forward to this year. In casual conversation between Camille, Ronnie and I in mid-May, we jokingly suggested that we should all go to Atlanta to see the Braves. No one thought that we would really ever do it, but as the weeks went by, a little good luck came our way and we planned a date to take the trip.

Monday we arrived at Turner Field around 12:00 for the game to start at 1:00. I was so excited as I surveyed the beautiful ballpark that was home to my team. I didn't care about anyone else at that point, I was bound and determined to have an amazing time at the game. Ronnie and I had decided before hand that we needed to sit together because he was the only other true fan of the Braves. He would be appreciative of the actual goings-on at the game, whereas the others were there more to humor me than anything else. During the course of the game, they did prove to be more interested in napping, eating the world's largest hot dogs, or taking a thousand pictures of randomly chosen objects.

Upon finding our seats, we were amazed at our good luck! We were in right field right next to the foul pole, 5 rows up. Before the game was over though, Ronnie and I had found our way to the first row. It was there that we met some very interesting characters who added a bit of variety to our visit. The first was a man decked out in full-blown Indian attire. He looked as if he could have been the mascot for the Braves. Upon talking to him, we found out that he has been to 634 home games in a ROW... in the exact same seat. Talk about die-hard! Camille asked to have her picture taken with him and he seemed smugly pleased about that.

The second was a lady named Rosa Barbosa who, no joke, ate everything the ballpark offered. She had an extra seat just to house all her food. Rosa was a 65 year old Puerto Rican who took great pride in shouting random things at the right fielder, Jeff Francoeur. She informed us that she was starting a fan club for Jeff and that she would let us in if we would email her a picture of his tooshie. That didn't seem to be asking too much, actually it gave me a nice excuse to take a picture of his butt. Rosa was even kind enough to shout to Jeff, "We have two girls from Idaho here that love you Jeffy..." I thought I saw a smirk cross his face as he pretended not to hear. As a parting gift, Rosa was kind enough to offer us some random coupons, baseball cards for players that neither Ronnie or I had ever heard of, and a date with her 25 year old son. Rosa is coming to Provo in October for a meeting and she excitedely announced that we would definitely have to get together and go to dinner. I don't know if Rosa will remember us, she did seem to be drinking a lot during the game, now that I think of it. But, It would be a real pleasure for me to consider her a friend.

The game ended quite sadly as the Braves choked 4-1. I know I cursed them; they were on a 6 game winning streak and won the day after as well. Oh well, the whole experience was a fabulous one indeed. I can only say that I was disappointed when Ronnie, Jason, and Gabe didn't exert any effort at all to catch a Pirate homerun that flew right near us. Gabe was too busy thinking about Lucy, Jason was stuffing a hot dog in his face, and despite the fact that Ronnie had promised to go after any ball that came near us, he covered his head and screamed like a girl as the ball came near. We found out later that the ball that had come so close to us was hit by a rookie and it was his first major league home run. An official came to talk to the boy who caught it and told him that the player wanted to buy it from him. This news caused me to have a little outburst, but I settled down and we all ended up ok.

Leaving the ballpark was bittersweet. I enjoyed the game thoroughly, it was something I have waited for my whole life. The loss was a little tough to handle, but I must say that the other experiecnes we had there definitely made up for it.

This is officially my first blog ever. As a result of being a first-timer, I have received strict instructions from my mentor, B. I will now dutifully recite an episode that I had last night while traveling home from the SLC airport with my Atlanta cohorts (minus Camille and Ronnie). While Bryant and Gabe rambled themselves deeper and deeper into a computer-lingo conversation, I found myself lacking the ability to give my complete concentration to interpreting their conversation and instead decided to dig into the deep confines of my purse to find my work schedule for the following day. To my dismay, the pink post-it had altogether disappeared. In order to save myself from the disaster of showing up at the wrong time (or not showing up at all), I asked Jason to drive by my work on the way into town while I quickly ran in to check the schedule.Everyone was tired and I knew that we all just wanted to be home eating our own foods and sleeping in our own beds, so I made an effort to be quick while at work. As I returned to the car and slammed the door after me, I shared my excitement with the group that I had beaten the alarm system that we have at work. By this I mean that I had gone in, checked the schedule, and come back out within the one minute grace period that the alarm has before going off. I was beaming with pride at my accomplishment when Gabe quickly replaced my joyous feeling with one of complete terror. He casually mentioned that I was nothing short of an idiot; the alarm would still go off whether or not I was in and out within the minute's time. I tried to talk my way out of the situation, but Jason had turned the car around was heading back before I could object. Bryant insisted upon following into the building with his camera to catch my embarrassment as i realized that Gabe was indeed right; the alarm was shrieking uncontrollably. I raced down the hall, hurtled around a chair, and breathlessly arrived at the alarm system to punch in the code. The whole time I was racking my brain for the passcode that the alarm people or police would undoubtedly want from me. I sighed as the high pitched wail ceased, but my relief did not last long. The phone started to ring immediately after the noise concluded, and from the look on his face, I knew B was enjoying my shame more and more by the second. In my state of stupidity, I strongly considered just ignoring the phone and walking out, but I knew that no one in their right mind would be calling LA Weightloss at 10 PM for a consultation, so I faced the music and answered the phone. Luckily, the pass code had just re-entered my mind as I picked up the phone. The man was nice, he assurred me that they would just ignore the whole incident. However, I know that this incident will go down on my wall of shame in the minds of the people that were with me. Like the time I ran into a dumpster in my mom's mini van, this is something I will probably hear about for a long, long time.