Yankees 4, Orioles 2

Well, I was out all last night, and so missed the game.

My recovery from that 24-hour Alien-in-John-Hurt's-stomach-thing has gone well . . . straight into my birthday, which was today.

The first sign was a phone call from one of my brothers: "I saw the Indy 500, and it reminded me your birthday was coming up. So happy birthday."

Then, on my cell phone duet, Mom and Dad from Scottsdale, singing happy birthday to me. Sweet. I played in on speaker to Astro-Girl.

And: from Astro-Girl:

1) Dinner out last night (steak you could cut with a fork); dinner in tonight (take-out sushi, to which of course SunDevil Joe always responds, "Well, you know, the only real sushi is in Tokyo." Yeah, yeah. Gotcha.)

2) Some Mad Money for my birthday trek to the poker tables of Lake Charles with my brother-in-law (he, Alpha Male Complete, always plays No Limit with Teddy KGB; I, an English teacher, play 3-6-12 with the other tourists, and such is the difference between our games that once my table lost complete interest in a heads-up match, and instead concentrated on game at my BOL's table, during which the mound of red chips formed a pile approximating the dimensions of a pitcher's mound).


3) The gift to end all gifts: Box and Club-Level seats to the New York Yankees-Houston Astros series in June. The Yankees have played twice before in Houston, both times in an exhibition appearance, both times celebrating the opening of a new ballpark: the Astrodome in 1965 (it is drilled into Houston schoolchildren that Mickey Mantle hit the first Astrodome home run, in a 1-0 game), and the (ahem) as-was Enron Field in 2000 (not so dramatic: Yankee Ricky Ledee hit the first home run, and the Astros won 6-4, in a sloppy game. I was there.). However, this is the first Astros-Yankees game in Houston that will count. With the Astros giving the Cubs and Cards chase in the NL Central, and Yankees . . . oh, just never mind . . . these games may count a lot.