i went boom.

even after hearing about rich's sudden departure for my homeland (i was born in chicago), i still wanted to bake for friday. somehow, i've ingrained in my head the idea that it's my duty to provide sustenance to an ever-rotating bullpen. last thursday night was no exception, and it was a late evening. when i got home (say, 10PM-ish), i noticed that the recipe i pulled off the web was wonky, and i got nervous. i emailed the chef and posted a note to her on the chow web board. i googled parts of her recipe to see if it popped up anywhere else. it did- the exact same recipe, though. and it received compliments! "this tasted great!" "yum! my friends love this!" yadda yadda yadda. by 11:30PM, I decided to forgo baking so late and instead wake up at 6AM, check to see if there were any replies, and if not, trundle on ahead.

i hit the sack and, for the life of me, couldn't count enough sheep until almost 1AM. dang sheep. i'm a vegetarian; i shouldn't be cursing out poor fluffy imaginary animals!

friday morning, just 13 hours before game time and 3 hours until i had to be at work, my attempt at making coach maca-ron-s (french macarons) bombed. seriously. as in kablooey. no response from the chef or anyone else. i sat and pondered, finally guestimating that the chocolate that seemed to be doubled in the ingredients list was actually correct, and that the chef must have accidentally "halved" some of the ingredients in the instructions for no reason. i breathed, focused, and concentrated, just like mark ellis does every time he comes to the plate (or so i envision in my head). the egg breaking was fine, the chopping and crushing of the almonds was so-so (2 cups seemed like way to much, and later on, i'll prove this theory right). and ta-da! the chocolate melted perfectly. i added the vanilla as instructed... and got a solid blob that greatly resembled poo. not cookie worthy. or even toilet worthy. i wouldn't even serve the wad of brownish mess to my worst enemy (who on this particular day was turning out to be the shall-remain-nameless chef).

i tried it again. maybe my pan was too hot... nope. i produced poo #2. by this time, it's past 7AM, i hadn't showered yet, and i tried one last time. please cookie gods, pretend to like me today! i separated out the chocolate and vanilla into two direct-to-dough additions. screw this combine-before-you-pour stuff... and it worked! so i stirred, measured out spoonfuls about an inch in diameter as directed... and 15 min. later i had cookies that had ballooned to 2 1/2 times their post-baking size.  this was bad. very, very bad. they looked like cocoa frisbees for snow white's seven dwarfs, not baseball players! plus, they didn't taste that wonderful (way too many almonds to where the cookies were mealy as opposed to light and airy).

by this time, what's a poor girl to do? i showered, fretted, and laid down on the bed to pet the cat and contemplate... and woke up almost an hour later. i had set the alarm, just in case i needed a reminder to get up and go, but the power in the apartment seemed to have gone out (all the clocks were flashing 12:16...). was this karma? by this time, i was even later for work, and i was ready to go nuts, when i had this green-and-gold-lined epiphany--NUTS! cha-ching!

with a cup of almonds here and some walnuts and pistachios and cashews there, i made a quick ron-smary slightly spicey nuts. they were tasty and i felt at least slightly better about the whole debacle.

before the game, i handed the tupperware of nuts (with the craziness, i had a hard time finding my white boxes, plus the oil from the nuts would probably have bled through anyway. friday i relented and embraced the plastic...) to coach ron, who said thanks and went back to staring at a page of stats. i'm not quite sure what he thought of them, what with his introverted, focus-on-the-game-and-not-on-the-multitude-of-female-fans mentality, but here's hoping he at least felt slightly touched. (and these nuts here were the leftovers- really, the bullpen got a good two cups full!)

i also spoke for a few quick minutes with miguel from guest services. i mentioned my pining for wolverine (chad gaudin), and he said that the field crew were sort of not really missing him yet. chad loved his sunflower seeds, and the crew hated picking up his leftover shells. seems the bullpen area has been much cleaner since he moved to the midwest.

the game itself was fun, even though i wanted to internally boo newbies gallagher and murton. with their stellar debuts, i bottled it, but i'm ready to let it out at anytime in the future. the coolest part, though, was the post-game fireworks. for the longest time i can remember, i've sort of hated fireworks. or intensely disliked the whole fireworks=patriotism+boring music. the a's and the oakland tribune really pulled out all the stops, and i'll admit this was the best fireworks show i've ever seen. ka-boom!