Predictably Surprising

A nice blend of prediction and surprise seem to be at the heart of the best art.

-Wendy Carlos

Turns out a nice blend of prediction and surprise seem to be at the heart of the best husbands too. I can predict certain things about Adam. For example, he will tirelessly seek and almost always find a free parking spot. The man loves free parking. If you ever need a free parking spot in Seattle, give him a call. He will hook you up. He knows all the good ones.

Another predictable thing about Adam is that he’ll surprise me. He is forever making things more interesting. Yesterday I took Braeden, Emma and Mark to the Pacific Science Center. A bonus to our trip was that Grandpa Linn, Grandma Geri and Adam's cousin Jamie and her son Ashton who are visiting went also. I am a girl who likes a plan and I had my plan. I knew roughly when we were leaving, when we were coming home, what work I was going to do before we left and what I’d save for when we got home. I had my plan.

Then Adam called from work.

“Hey,” he said, “Do you want to go to the Mariner’s game tonight after the Pacific Science Center?” After allowing my plan loving mind to wrap around that I said sure.

We went to the Pacific Science Center, saw the dinosaur room...

Kicking back in a dinosaur footprint

played in the water machines outside...



and wandered through the butterfly exhibit.

Emma and her animal magnetism...

Emma got to let bugs crawl on her...


and Mark and I played tic-tac-toe against a robot. He said, “What’s a robot?” I told him it was like a droid. “Ohhh!” I was suddenly speaking his language.

We finished our visit by viewing a movie about Mt. St. Helens erupting in the IMAX theater. Mark said, “Is this going to be a real movie or just a talking movie?”

“Well…”

“A talking movie.” He was disgusted. Since it was only about 20 minutes and pretty impressive, he survived it.

We drove to Adam’s office and I happily scooted over and let him drive. Our plan in the little bit of time we had before the game started was to go to IKEA and get new doors for our armoire. They apparently don’t withstand repeated blows from light saber wielding red heads.

They don’t sell just the doors. What? Are we the only ones whose son attacks furniture? Darn.

I was also—and you aren’t going to believe this—too tired to walk through the store and soak up all the lovely IKEA sights. Too much trying to keep up with children all afternoon. We didn’t really have the time anyway. We had our requisite meatballs and lignonberry sauce fill and headed back to Safeco Field.

Predictably, Adam found a free parking spot. I had told Adam earlier, in case he didn’t find a free spot (what was I thinking?) that I did have cash. Neither of us usually have any. Perhaps that’s why it surprised me so much when Adam approached one of the scalpers on our walk towards the game. He said, “Do you have 5 tickets?” I instinctively gathered my children closer to me. While he didn’t look like the shadiest character on the Seattle streets, it seems a little dodgy to be doing business with a scalper.

Adam struck a deal to get 5 really good seats (normally $65 each) for $60. Wow, I thought…there goes Adam again, surprising me. I didn’t know he had that much cash on him. He didn’t. He turned to me for the $60. I looked in my purse and had $33. We left our friend and continued towards Safeco Field. We met another scalper who’d been lingering near during the first transaction. He said, “I know, you need 5 tickets.” Adam said, “Do you have two?” He traded our $33 for two tickets then went to the box office and bought three more. Braeden and Emma were looking to me to explain their dad and I couldn’t. All I knew was that we’d spent A LOT more than we ever had before for our usual nosebleed section and we weren’t sitting together!? Adam said, “It will be empty, we can probably all sit together.”

Predictably, Adam called it. We all slid into the section with the scalped tickets. They were great seats.

The Mariners set a record two days ago for the first team with a payroll of over $100,000,000 to lose 100 games in a season . They are really one of the worst teams in baseball this year but we had a marvelous time. Along with the other Seattle faithful who were there on a chilly September night, we cheered our team and booed the questionable calls (a.k.a. calls in the other team’s favor) and sang proudly during the 7th inning stretch. I think they should change the words to the song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” though. Maybe instead of “Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks,” it should be “Buy me some breath mints and garlic fries.” Oh how we love those garlic fries!!!

In the eighth inning when it was getting to be 10:00, I started hinting about it being time to go home but the game was tied! There was no way we could leave. They needed us there to cheer.

J.J. Putz, the closer for the Mariners and a personal favorite of Braeden’s came out to much fanfare. The words “Thunderstruck” reverberated on every screen in the field.

J.J. Putz taking the pitcher's mound...

I took one look at Braeden and saw that yes indeed, he was thunderstruck.

Forget what I didn’t accomplish yesterday. Forget how tired and/or grumpy we all are the next day. Forget how much money we paid to watch one of the worst teams in baseball lose (they did eventually despite our cheering efforts). Braeden got to see one of his heroes. How fortunate to be witness to his delight.

Thank you predictable surprising Adam.