Quick, what’s the thing I least like to do on Saturday? Get up before noon, right? And yet I was up before 9:00 am to eat breakfast (an orange and a whole wheat bagel) before Eric came by so we could go to the Giants game. Yes, besides getting up early, I spent most of the day in the fresh air, and a lot of it walking up and down the ramps at AT&T Park and across the parking lot at the ferry terminal.

And what was the best part? Well, there were lots of good parts. It was all good, really, except for the game itself, which was kind of a disappointment in that the Giants lost and looked bad doing it. But the rest of it — spending the day with Eric, riding across the bay on the ferry, being at the ballpark, seeing a few great plays amidst the dross, finding a concession stand that sells veggie dogs — all that was good. Of course it was worth getting up early for.

I’m paying the price tonight. I’m exhausted and I’m really, really sore. My legs can feel all those ramps and my knees are crying with pain. Maybe the weather has something to do with it. It didn’t rain on us at the game, except for a few sprinkles, but it came down in buckets while we were driving to the ferry. There was no guarantee the game would even be played, but it was actually more pleasant in San Francisco than anywhere else we were today. Dark and gray and cloudy, but pleasant, in its own way.

We had great seats, too, overlooking the field from behind the first base dugout. This game was my birthday present from Eric, but I hope we get to go again before the season’s over. The game wasn’t televised because Fox Sports thought we’d rather see the Mets and Phillies. (As it turned out, they were probably right.) The fact that television cameras weren’t there and they didn’t have to stretch out the time between innings to fit in all the commercials made the game go by quickly. Just like in the olden days. I remember the olden days. Some things were better then, whether we like to think so or not.