Yesterday afternoon we watched our Toronto Blue Jays face the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball’s 2021 Opening Day. Even though our Premier has announced a brand new province-wide lockdown, watching the game opening on schedule made me hopeful for spring and by the way – what a terrific game!

It’s not like I’m a diehard sports fan. I just enjoy the normalcy of following our local teams on TV and in the media, in their regular seasons and hopefully the playoffs. I’m definitely a fairweather fan as my husband says – I’ve given up on our Toronto Raptors for this year even though I was so proud of their 2019 NBA Championship.

The main message opening day gives me this year is to appreciate and take advantage of opportunities when they happen. Two years ago, my husband insisted that we go see the Blue Jay’s opening day in the best tickets that we can. Different from my husband who refuses to do anything halfway, I hesitated, being the cheapskate that I am, and disliking crowds, but then I relented!

Normally, I enjoy seeing a game during warm weather on a sunny afternoon when the retractable roof is open, sipping an ice cold beer, and eating a hot dog. I am so glad that we took the opportunity to watch the game that day though, as I enjoyed every minute of it. It was very interesting to sit with the season ticket holders as they greeted each other like old friends! It was also wonderful to see the game from close up and watch some of the details that I miss seeing from my TV screen, or from farther away in the bleacher seats.

And I still got an ice cold beer and a hot dog!

By the way, my first “big girl job” (as my kids would call it), as an accountant, was to put together the numbers (in the mid 1980s) for a bid for one of the potential builders of that retractable roof (we lost, but that’s OK, it’s still a bit of my history).

That aside, who could imagine that this pandemic would cause us to miss seeing live, not one, but two opening days. This year the Blue Jay’s home opener will be held in Dunedin Florida, as the team is still not able to cross the border into Canada.

I am so glad that we took the opportunity to watch opening day 2019, and I am hopeful to experience events like these in the future. In times like these it reminds me to count our many blessings!

Let’s Go Blue Jays.