Go Dogs!

“Is that a Portland Sea Dogs cap?”

I”m standing in line at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market bank machine. Forgot to bring money this Saturday.

Winter is a strange time at the market. We”re looking at winter vegetables and stuff that stores well – beets, carrots, cabbage and the like — not the most exciting selection. Of course there is always meat and cheese and eggs and citrus. Way fewer farmers show up, there are no tourists and only the most die-hard shoppers, like me, bother to show up.

“It is,” I said.

“I spent one of the most pleasant games of my life, watching the Sea Dogs at Portland,” he said. “That was back in the day when they were a farm team of the Mets, before the Red Sox took them over.”

“I haven”t been,” I said, “my son, living in Maine, sent me this cap; I like it, cool logo.”

“You”ve got to get up there to a game sometime. There’s nothing like it.” He went on about his shopping and I stuck my card in the machine.

My routine gets all screwed up in the winter. I drive the car if it’s raining or threatening, or if the temperature is below 50 °. This is one of those days. Driving, I have to worry about a place to park, but with fewer shoppers, there’s often parking on the street, shorter walk than from the lot and I don”t have to bother getting my ticket validated. And although the meters give a whopping six minutes for a quarter, I can get by with six quarters, versus two dollars in the lot.

In the car, it’s difficult to swing by the bank machine on Polk Street since there’s no left turn from Union onto Polk. When I”m riding my scooter, it’s easy, I just turn right on Polk and whip a U-ie (or maybe I could spell that eweie).

If I had ridden my scooter, I wouldn”t be wearing the Sea Dogs cap, I would be wearing my black Giants Xtreme Rewards cap that I wear under my helmet.

So the cap and the guy and the bank machine and the car are all intertwined.

Go Dogs!