Down and Rejected - The Saga Continues

When we last recounted our lives, Warrior Queen and I had a deep case of the blues brought on by an adoption rejection from the local cat shelter. We had applied to get a companion for Nyla who, as you may recall, lost her older sister Meredith in January. The rejection came last Saturday.

Sunday dawned, but Nyla seemed unconcerned at our rejection. She treated her mommy to an early Mother’s Day gift: a ticket to see the Phillies play the Washington Nationals at Citizens Bank Park. We used to be Sunday season ticket holders, but now other expenses (ah, that pesky mortgage) forced us to cut back from attending 13 games per year to one.

Actually watching the game is only part of the fun. A good part of the day is taken by getting to the game. The cost of this travel via rail and taxi is usually as much as the tickets themselves. We used to take a train from our town into Center City, walk two blocks to the Broad Street subway and disembark for another two block walk to the stadium. We’ve abandoned this approach as the walking is four blocks too long for my circa 1959 effed up hips.

In the last few years we have taken a train into Center City, going as far as the third busiest Amtrak station in the country, 30th Street Station. There we can find dozens of taxis waiting to take us wherever our little hearts desire. It is definitely more expensive than the Broad Street line, but not as crowded and not as smelly. 
 

It doesn’t seem to matter how often they clean the Philadelphia subway system. The smell of human urine is omnipresent.

The day started dreary and overcast. The weather report had forecast better conditions in the afternoon. Partly sunny, albeit windy.

Our transportation plans nearly took a turn into disaster this year. The trip to 30th Street went smoothly. We boarded a cab, driven by a person of foreign descent, which is not unusual. The immigrants to our shores are much like our own forefathers: hard working, industrious, pledged to make a better life for themselves. Our driver this day was all this, but a bit distracted by some device (computer, iphone, we don’t know) next to him. He also did not seem to know where we wanted to go.

Anne Marie helpfully gave instructions: go to Route 76, enter at the South Street on ramp, and head south. I don’t know if the driver heard us - he wore ear buds the entire trip - but instinct took over and we were soon on our way.   The adventure continued.

Somewhere on that highway our driver tried to pass on the right of a slower moving van in the center lane. It was a tight squeeze, but...BAM! The van side-swiped the cab.

Wonderful, I thought! Now we’ll be late for the game while the drivers sort out their little game of bump ‘em cars.

Now officially, as per the Pennsylvania driver’s manual, when situations like this happen, the participants are legally obligated to stop, survey the damage to their respective vehicles, perhaps summon the authorities if damage was thought to be over a certain amount, file a report, exchange insurance information, and proceed on their merry way. Apparently no such niceties are observed on the wild and woolly streets of South Philadelphia.

This time there was no stopping of either vehicle. Perhaps the driver of the van did not know he/she had made contact with our cab. Our driver slowed down to avoid running into the back of slowed traffic in the right lane, glanced in the rear view mirror and, upon realizing that the van was not slowing down,  proceeded to pass around the stopped traffic and onto our destination.

This year the Phillies celebrated Mother’s Day by distributing wide brimmed white hats to ladies 14 years of age and older. I did not get one handed to me; I blame the sight of my scraggly, salt and pepper mustache for precluding me from receiving the cherished head gear. Bummer!

A hat on my head would have been handy for the weather. We experienced a drizzling rain once we got to our seats. We had bought the tickets so we would be under cover of the level above us, or so we thought. It turned out that our row was the last row in the section NOT to be sheltered by the concrete seating level at the top of the stadium. I felt a few golf ball sized drops - my use of the term drizzling is an understatement - before the rain stopped. Anne Marie remained dry; the hat brim was that wide. The clouds lingered for a few innings before finally giving way to the promised blue skies.

The game itself was exciting (we shut out the opposition 1-0), but anti-climatic after the ride we had in the cab. Our return trip to 30th Street was likewise uneventful, but the day’s events worked their magic. Our spirits were lifted out of our recent disappointments. My good mood even lasted for a few days.

As the work week wore on, we focused our attentions again on a getting another room mate for Nyla. We have several leads, and hopefully this weekend will afford us the time to take advantage of them.

(Thank you for reading! Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers! Wait, that didn’t come out right...)