2004-06-26 - 12:59 p.m.

Oh yeah, we had the Big Company outing on Thursday.

The night before, five minutes before the day people were ready to go home, there was a cancellation, and although I�m sure I wasn�t the first person asked, I was the first person asked who knew someone who could take a day off on such short notice, so the Roommate was the beneficiary of an extra Sox ticket.

Since I didn�t have any work to do at the Big Company, The Roommate and I got to go straight to Kenmore. We got there early and got some Dunkie�s and wandered around, and then to Boston Beer Works, where we waited for the rest to arrive. I got a Bambino Ale (I asked for the closest to Bud, and that�s what I got), and that was the first beer I�d have in a day in which I drank for more than twelve hours.

Us corporate folks had some food together, apps flowing like wine, and then got our seats at Fenway. The seats faced the outfield as opposed to home plate, and it was extremely sunny, and almost everyone was situated in two long rows but the Roommate and I and some other guy got stuck by ourselves in a third, but it was nice, as always, to be at Fenway. I drank some beer, snuck out for a few smokes (both were made easier by virtue of my seat being on the end), and the Sox lost in extra innings.

After the game it was a little chaotic, but I got folks to agree to meet at the Last Drop--close enough to make it �close,� but far enough away from the park that there wouldn�t be five hundred people there.

We all made our own way there--I didn�t even really care if folks didn�t show, and when the speedy Roommate and I arrived the place was virtually empty. We availed ourselves of a few beers and watched as folks started arriving in threes and fives. The Big Company basically had the place to itself, and I did get the credit for my wisdom.

As people started leaving, the Roommate and I decided to go on a nice drunk-but-there�s-pleanty-of-daylight stroll, and ultimately ended up at Steve�s, where she hadn�t been, but to which she would love to return. (We had the flaming cheese, by the way.)

From there, a nice inebriated stroll through Trader Joe�s, and then a walk down Copley, where the Roommate begged me to put my shirt back on.

We took the train home, and it was getting late by the time we got there. I went down to the local hole-in-the-wall Packie, where I flummoxed the lady there by asking for Chambord. I left instead with a far less challenging 12-pack of Bud, and returned to watch the Hitchhiker�s Guide to the Galaxy BBC mini-series from 1983 with cheezy computer graphics.

It was a very good day.

Oh, and last night we saw the Mittens at T.T.�s, and it was packed. People were dancing to their songs and knew all the words. I remember when I bought their CD from them for a dollar and had the guy sign it, when they had maybe fifty total fans, when I got to watch them play in tiny spaces to indifferent crowds. I guess that�s over now, for me, although obviously it�s all the better for them and I�m happy about that. I�m not mentioning this to get credit and I�m not suggesting I should automatically get to stand in the front row or anything like that--it�s just weird for me--most of the time when I like a local band they don�t get much further then they are, and I�ve never really had to deal with a band I love becoming more successful and less accessible--in a way it feels like they broke up, an event to which I�m far more accustomed.