Last Monday, my roommate and I were ooing and aaing over the holiday assortment of treats that now grace the display case of Starbucks.
We settled on pumpkin spice lattes and a snowman cookie and then sat down to enjoy them.
It was your regular Monday: Siobhan had just gotten off of work and I had the day off. We were treating ourselves to an afternoon pick me up before our inevitable retire at home and all of a sudden, Siobhan received a text from her fiancee.
Her fiancee Nick, who works at a marketing firm that has NBC Bay Area as a client, had a few extra tickets to the Warriors game that tonight and as Nick also works at Oracle Arena, he had the tickets to spare.
Two tickets to spare to his fiancee and one very animated and fervent basketball fan who just so happened to have the day off from work.
What followed next was a blur. We raced home, threw on some Warriors swag (hard not to own any when you live in the Bay Area of the back to back champions), hopped in the car and drove to meet Nick in Lafayette.
As he works as an employee of Oracle, we scored free parking and despite having to wait a few hours until we were let into the arena, Siobhan and I passed the time excitedly talking about our luck at finding ourselves at Oracle Arena on a Monday night, about to watch a Golden State Warriors basketball game.
We were quite a sight to behold, Siobhan and I. I stood some 6ft6”, and my (shorter) roommate was hobbling next to me on crutches. But we waltzed around like queens, had our happy hour cocktail and then took our seats with hot dogs and fries in hand.
Turns out, our seats were in section 107, which had us down in the lower section near court side behind the basket. It was the closest I had ever been to the court and so I was an excited schoolgirl, drooling over these NBA All-Stars that were so close, beyond happy that my Monday night ended on a note like this.
They played the Memphis Grizzlies and won (naturally).
And it was just such an unexpected evening. There I was, a week away from moving back home, and I stumbled across this lucky opportunity to watch my favorite sport in person, up close and personal.
We had a ball (so to speak), and I’m forever reminded how splendid life really is.
