Hot Italians
Look at my potatoes. And turnips although the turnips aren’t too wonderful at this point. They get wormy and woody and have a weird tang.
On Tuesday night we went to an exhibition soccer game between the Portland Timbers and AC Milan Primavera AC Milan’s under 21 team. I love to watch cute Italian boys playing soccer and these did not disappoint, although they were all born around the time I running around the Sunset Strip chasing after hair bands. The Timbers are cute, too and some of them were even born in the 70’s so I can oogle without feeling like dirty old grandma.
When we planned to go to this game, we invited Priscilla and Aunt Betty. Then it turned out Bob had a work thing in Spokane and wouldn’t be home until 7pm the night of the game. We asked at least a half dozen people and couldn’t find anyone to take the ticket so Bob decided he would take the train from the airport to the stadium, find my car and dump his bag, and meet up with us late.
I killed time at the office until 5:30 and then moved my car closer to the stadium. It was still early so I went in the park and figured I have something to eat and drink and kick back and watch the boys warm up. I had what had to be the nastiest bratwurst on the planet. I’ve been spoiled by the farmer’s market sausage sandwich of the millennium. This thing had a soft squishy bun like the kind that sticks to the top of your mouth and the only choice was regular yellow mustard which, to use a new expression that I learned, tastes like Satan in my mouth. I like spicy brown. And the sausage itself was greasy and texturally challenged. I almost chucked it after one bite except I paid $5 for it and I wanted a cold beer and I am finally old enough to have figured out that drinking and not eating = bad. I picked around the mushy bread and ate most of it and then got a $7 Italian beer that was featured at the park.
I had about two sips and then there was this tragic thing that happened that would take too long to explain but I fell (completely and totally sober) and a large splash of beer went up into the air. And of course this happens when we’re sitting in the front row so I turned to the fans and say, “Wait ’til you see what I have planned for the half.” The bad weenie and fall/beer spray set an off tone for the evening.
I did enjoy the game. The Timbers’ mascot is Timber Jim a lumberjack who runs around with a chainsaw. I’m not making this up. It seemed to amuse the Italians. Our seats were over the dugout where there’s a wide concrete ledge (with a puddle of my spilled beer) so Timber Jim came up and did his thing right in front of us. Is it safe to wave around a chainsaw over people’s heads? It was so close we could smell the gasoline. Then he did his drum thing about 2 feet from my face. And damn I didn’t have my camera with me. Timbers won on penalty kicks. I’m not clear why an exhibition match needed to go to a penalty shootout, but it was fun to watch.
