I’d say we’re firing on all cylinders now that the pandemic is in the rearview mirror. Our June schedule is easily the busiest since at least March 2020. Swimming lessons 4 nights a week, travels, outings, racquetball matches, and more are cluttering up the schedules. It feels good to be back out doing stuff maskless and not distanced, but I tell ya what… I’m actually ready for a little slowdown.
Over Father’s Day weekend, I requested we drive up to the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Arlington, TX, home of the Texas Rangers and their brand new stadium. The Twins were making their one and only trip of the year, and I wanted to check a new ballpark off the list. So off the family went! John and I got there 90 minutes before first pitch to watch batting practice, and we were glad we did. Miguel Sano launched a home run right near us, and a Rangers fan caught the ball and handed it to John. He was stoked! We explored the park, enjoyed overpriced snacks and drinks, and soon Lauren and Edie arrived for the game. Amazingly, I had a foul ball hit directly to me and I would have caught it except I was holding the ball from batting practice! It went right off my left fingers. If I hadn’t had that ball in my right hand, I no doubt could have caught it. Oh well! The Twins won 3-2 in what was a pretty boring game. The rest of the day was spent at the hotel and pool. The next morning we found a good playground for the kids and had a Father’s Day brunch before heading back to Austin.
And then the next day I flew right back to Dallas. I was on my way to Tulsa to the new ConsumerAffairs office to meet the new team, and upon arriving at DFW learned my connecting flight to Tulsa had been delayed. And then delayed again, and again, and again. After 4 hours they canceled it altogether. I quickly got on my American app and found a seat on the next DFW-TUL flight, but then that one got delayed multiple times. I got sick of waiting and bailed on the airport. I took a shuttle to the rental car area and drove the last 4 hours to Tulsa, beating the plane easily.
I spent 3 nights in Tulsa, which actually was kind of interesting in that I bookended company travel by being the last one to travel pre-pandemic in 2020, and the first one to head back out in 2021… it’s funny because Email Marketing Managers typically don’t need to travel much for work. But I love going in and seeing people and getting that valuable face time in. There were big happy hour events, dinners, and of course many in-person meetings. I was so weirded out with my first in-person meeting I literally started to get a panic attack before calming myself down. Real human faces in the room across the table from me. Crazy!
I returned from Tulsa and then the weekend was just as busy. We met up with our friends the Allens at the Rentsch brewery in Georgetown Saturday, and on Sunday Lauren and I joined Chris for our first ever Austin FC game! Major League Soccer is not something I follow closely, but having a pro team less than 10 minutes from our door is amazing. It is the thing I miss most about living in Uptown Minneapolis, being able to easily go to Twins, Vikings and Wolves games. Anyway, we were sitting in the Supporter GA section which meant our seats were bolted shut—we had to stand the whole game, and we had to lead chants and songs. Soccer cheering is much different than any other sport I’ve attended. It was a big workout, in fact. It ended in a 0-0 draw vs. Columbus, but it was a great time. We were apparently spotted on TV several times, and were two rows up from the field. After the game, the players walked through our section and high-fived us all.
Today, perhaps not surprisingly, I was just beat. Dead tired. Largely because of the Austin FC game, but also the previous 9 days or so. So much going. But I’ll take this over being confined to the house for weeks on end.
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