This year, Philomena’s dance recital was on the same day as the Maker Faire. This meant that she was busy preparing and rehearsing and getting dressed up, however the boys and I took the opportunity to spend a couple of hours at the Faire. We met up with John’s friend Lily and her family as well as Frankie’s friend James and his family. John hung out with Lily most of the time and me and Frankie were on our own, so I got more pictures of Frankie but Lily’s dad sent me some photos of John. We made bracelets by hammering patterns into metal and then bending it and made art prints as well as learning how to solder!

One of Frankie’s birthday gifts was tickets for the Yankee game today. The Yankees beat the tigers and he and John and I went with Yia Yia. We got there early so we got a chance to go to monument Park and the Yankee museum. It was Star Wars day at the stadium. The boys conned their grandmother into buying them batting gloves as well. Frankie also got the Juan Soto jersey he had been asking for for his birthday.

For his birthday, John received tickets for the family to go to our first game at Yankee Stadium together. As a trial run, we took the Long Island Railroad from Ronkonkoma to Grand Central, and then the 4 train uptown to the stadium. Overall, I thought it went pretty well. I think it is something that we can do again. Mom came along this time in case of problems, but things went pretty smoothly except for me getting us lost a couple of times in Grand Central. Having to take elevators to get up and down to the platforms does make things much more complicated and makes things take longer. But that’s part of the deal.

Prior to the game, the Yankees held a ceremony in honor of the recently retired John Sterling, the announcer of Yankee games on the radio for 36 years. John was the soundtrack of the late ’90s glory years for me. However, in the last year or so his significance has grown for me. You see about 10 or 12 years ago, when you kids were born, I lost track of following baseball. However, 2 years ago I broke my neck in a fall and became a quadriplegic. Finding things to settle my mind and manage my anxiety has been a challenge in that time. Last year I started putting the game on again at night as I was getting put into bed for the evening. It really turned out to be quite comforting to listen to John and Suzyn again. I fall asleep and end up getting woken up when WFAN’s abrasive hosts’ voices come on. John and Frankie are 7 and 10 and last season they saw me getting back into it and caught the fever themselves. So much so that a month or two ago, I got tickets for John for his birthday. It’s his first game at the stadium and my first in a wheelchair. The tickets are for this Saturday, April 20th. As sad as I am that I won’t be able to listen to John call the games anymore, I’m gratified that we were there to send him off.

Unfortunately, the game didn’t turn out as we would have hoped. The Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Yankees 2-0 in extra innings. I think the boys really appreciated and enjoyed the experience of seeing a game in a setting like that. We’ll have to make plans to go to a few more games, and this time hopefully they will win!