My "triumphant" return to the soccer field (if you take the word triumphant to mean "I survived")

I went back to playing soccer this past weekend after a year-and-a-half hiatus to gestate, deliver and start raising FunnyKid. When I got the email that the league was going to be starting to play soon, I knew I had a little work to do to get into my previous fighting shape (and A LOT of work to do to get into even better shape than that). I didn't want to injure myself so I packed FunnyKid into his jogging stroller and decided I would do an easy one-mile jog.

I think I made it about a quarter of a mile before my lungs and legs gave out. It was then that I realized all those month of packing on the pounds, eating whatever I wanted (because, of course, it was "for the baby") and doing little more than walking had actually taken a toll. I've never been the fastest person on the field, but at least I was able to run from one end to the other without stopping for a drink of water.

Over the next few weeks, FunnyKid and I went out for walk/runs where I slowly went from mostly walking to mostly running. Still, I was worried about being able to keep up when I got to my first game.

Forget about keeping up, I should have been worried about keeping my own teeth. The first play of the game that involved me included me knocking the ball away from a girl, but ending up flat-out on the ground after bumping bodies. The second play was even more spectacular as she kicked the ball as hard as she could and I stopped it-- with my face.

After checking to make sure I didn't have any loose teeth, I kept playing-- and kept ending up on the ground. I blame the amount of time I spent eating dirt on how rough my opponent was rather than a lack of skill on my part (I firmly believe I lost my endurance during my hiatus, but not my skills). All in all, it was a fun game and I'm grateful that I'm not as sore this week as I thought I would be. I'm a little bruised, but I'm proud I was able to keep up whenever I was on the field. I think I'll go back and do it again this weekend.

The PH: loving, caring and oh-so-sensitive

Yesterday's soccer game was a little rough on my-- ahem-- "older" body. I took a ball to the back of the thigh that was almost hard enough to leave the manufacturer's name imprinted back there. Then, with only a few minutes to go in the game, I was defending this woman who tried to take a shot on goal. I have a habit of turning my head at the last second when this happens in order to protect my face. And this time, it paid off. Instead of breaking my nose, the ball whacked me in the back of the head hard enough to send me to my knees and have me shaking my head to get those cartoon birds from flying around it.

On the way home from the game, I was telling the Pretend Husband that I felt fine, but what if it was just a delayed reaction... like the one that killed actress Natasha Richardson when she fell while skiing? And could he please tell my family I love them? And perhaps wake me up every hour overnight to make sure I was OK?

The PH-- tired of my dramatics, I'm sure-- said, "Maybe we should stop at the hospital on our way by and have them take a look at you."

"That's nice of you to say," I replied. "But what about your family's picnic we have to attend this afternoon?"

"No problem," the PH said, "I'll just drop you off at the hospital and go to the picnic by myself."

Go ahead, dear readers. Remind me again why I am so lucky to have him...

The PH's sudden interest in soccer, explained

OK, enough about my weird dreams about politicians. Let's talk about the Pretend Husband and just one of the things he did to make me laugh this weekend (seriously, he was on some kind of roll... I wish I had followed him around with a video camera to capture his comedy act).

Last night, the PH was in the car with me on the way to my soccer game. I casually mentioned that we were playing a team that, for some unexplained reason, was named after an-- ahem-- adult entertainment establishment in the state.

The PH's eyes got wide. "You're playing a team of strippers?!?"

I didn't even respond before he was off on a litany of jokes about playing a team of strippers (apparently, from my perspective).

"Wow, PH, you're sure eager to come to my games these days."

"Um, PH, you can't be on the field during the game. You're going to have to go back to the bleachers."

"PH? Why the sudden interest in coaching... the other team?"

Well, at least SJ will have someone to wait with at the ER...

I don't know if it's from getting older or hanging out with SJ too much or what, but my lack of coordination has been increasing lately (although it probably says something that I just searched our blog for "fell off chair" and three posts came up, including this oh-so-coordinated moment when I fell off my office chair).

Well, yesterday was a good example of why I maybe need to be wrapped up in bubble wrap and made to sit on the couch with SJ instead of, say, playing soccer or, you know, walking. It started when I not once, but twice, smashed my ankle against a chair while trying to stand up. The Pretend Husband just shook his head as I writhed in pain.

But it was even better (and in public!) when I lost all coordination at my soccer game last night. The first incident was while I was on the field and got tripped by a woman from the other team. It was one of those slow-motion times when you try to catch yourself, almost do, start to fall over again, writhe around trying to keep yourself from falling, start to stand up and then fall flat on your face (or, in my case, right on the ball). It felt like it took a full 20 seconds for all this to happen, although I'm sure it wasn't quite that much of a show. 

Then, while standing on the side of the field, the ball was kicked toward me and instead of scooping it up like a normal person, I took a step back to get out of the way. Except my soccer bag was right behind me and I fell backward over onto my butt. Well, except there was a huge net behind me that caught me and left me in an awkward crouch flailing around trying to stand back up. It would have been fine with me if no one noticed, but of course everyone was looking toward the ball at the time (and the dude from the other team coming over to get the ball had to ask me if I was OK, drawing even more attention to the flopping fish of a woman trying to de-tangle herself from the net).

I sat on my office chair verrrrrry carefully this morning and plan on staying here, without trying to walk or move around, for the rest of the day. I think it's safest for us all that way.

Rug burn and groping-- just another night on the soccer field!

What's this? The knee of a 10-year-old boy?


Oh no, my friends. That's actually the knee of a 30-something-year-old woman who is too old for skinned knees. But I have one anyway.

An exciting night on the soccer field this week-- I was trying to stop a guy from shooting the ball and we hit the ball at the same time, then hit the ground at about the same time.

It was bad enough that I scraped my knee on the artificial turf as I went down, but I realized as we landed that I had my hand on a very high place on the guy's thigh. It was one of those things where I realized where my hand was, but could do nothing about it for a few seconds because we were both still kind of landing and then trying to get up.

I moved my hand as quickly as I could and I don't know if the guy realized what was happening (i.e. he was being felt up by a girl from the other team), but it was a little embarrassing nonetheless.

And for my next post, I will try to find a topic that DOESN'T make me sound like a whore!

Just in case you didn't think I was weird enough...

Some people have a rabbit's foot they carry for good luck, others have four leaf clovers. My high school soccer team had a good luck braid. That had once belonged to me.

Growing up, I always had long hair. Like to my waist. Very long hair. That tangled very easily and caused shouting matches between my mom and I whenever she had to comb it out for me. Looking back, it's hard to imagine that I carried that much hair around and I can only guess at how many hours were spent trying to keep it under control.

Anyway, in high school, I wore it in a French braid a lot, especially when playing soccer. My soccer coach, who was also a teacher at the school, would often pick up a pair of scissors, grab my braid and threaten to cut it off. Which hatched a plan...

The day before the first game of my senior year, I went to the hair salon with one of the other team captains and had my hair cut from my waist to above my shoulders. But first we had the hairdresser braid the hair into one long braid and cut it off. We tied ribbons to it, each with the name of someone on the team. Then we wrapped it up.

The day of the game, I kept a sweatshirt hood on until we presented the coach with our gift. Somewhere there is a photo of him holding up the braid and laughing once he realized what it was (imagine being presented with a box of hair... it does take a minute to figure out what it is).

I'm not sure what I expected to happen to the braid, but someone had the idea that we should all touch it before the game for good luck. Then we won and it became the tradition for the season. Seriously... for each game, we brought a bag of soccer balls, a container of water and a box with the braid in it.

When it wasn't called into service on the soccer field, the braid hung in the coach's classroom. I don't know how anyone else felt about it, but I was always weirded out that something that had been on my head was now hanging on the wall. And it was a little strange to touch before the games.

This story popped into my head this morning for no reason at all. Although I do have to admit that over the years, I have wondered what the coach did with the braid. I know he's retired now, so did he throw it out? Donate it to Locks of Love? Take it home and hang it on his wall? I guess some things are best not to think about.

Marching into March

Wow. March already. I feel like February flew by in an aching-back, coercing your friends to help you move, hauling everything you own up and down stairs, new home kind of way. I failed to keep up my journal during February… which happened for the first time since I began keeping a journal about five years ago. That’s how busy it was.

Some highlights:
– We took the pre-marriage classes at my church this month. A weekend of fun teachings, such as “Contraception is evil!” “If you are having pre-marital sex with your future spouse, that makes you adulterers. Do you really want to marry an adulterer?” and “Contraception is the reason for increased crime, poverty, single parent families, homosexuality and abortions.” And this was at a fairly liberal church… I can’t imagine what the conservative ones are saying!

– The debate rages on about whether the new wall color in our dining room more closely resembles “Brown Blanket” (its cheesy name given by the paint company) or “poop” (the name given by the Pretend Husband). I prefer to think of it as “Hot Chocolate” or something else that will make me actually want to be in the room! I’ll let you decide for yourself (but please ignore the ladder and the terrible finish in the hallway. I'm hoping both are gone soon)



– I got kicked at soccer last weekend and have been limping around on a slightly sprained ankle all week. It happened to coincide with a snowstorm (“Sorry I can’t help shovel, honey. It’s this darn sprained ankle!”) Two neighborhood boys have been bugging us to hire them to shovel our driveway (one actually came over and did it anyway… I’m not sure if he was being neighborly, was being punished by his mom or was looking for payment…) and my ankle was a perfect excuse to throw some cash their way. Now if I can just convince the PH my injury lasts long enough to get out of mowing…

– The story about… um, someone who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons (but it wasn’t me!) getting locked out of her car. She has one of those remote opener thingies, which apparently stopped working (I think the batteries died). Well, she went to a neighbor’s house and waited two hours for a locksmith to arrive to get her into the vehicle… not realizing the key attached to the remote would have worked just as well!

I’ve been bad at posting lately, but am trying to make it my March resolution to post more often. I predict plenty of posts about house stuff, getting back into my life after taking a month off to demo and decorate, house stuff and perhaps a photo or two of the cutest dog on earth. But why wait?

My life in a nutshell

* The renovating gods are working hard against us, it seems. For Sunday, we lined up not one, not two, but four of our friends to come help us rip up carpeting (and the eleventy billion tacks holding it down) and slap some paint on the walls. Well, two of them had to cancel pretty early when their vet told them to stay home and keep an eye on their dog. That was OK because the two remaining ones are our super friends… now with added home improvement skills! One came with– no lie– at least eight bags of tools to fix electrical, plumbing and lots of other stuff I know nothing about (the other came with doughnuts, so he was my favorite).
In any case, we were so excited to put our super friends to work on our house. It went pretty well in spite of them sending the least-qualified person (that would be me) to the store to buy the correct wood to build pantry shelves. I don’t know how much time you spend in Home Depot, but you should know that they sell many different kinds of wood. And many of them are appropriate for pantry shelves, so don’t think you’re going to be narrowing down your options without a panicked call to the fiancé and super friends. Just sayin’…
Anyway, the super friends were there for less than two hours when one got a call from his wife that their cat knocked a bottle onto one of the pipes in the bathroom, which was then spraying water everywhere and the shut-off valve didn’t work and for-the-love-of-God, where is the main water shut-off?!? So they finished what they were working on, but then had to leave to deal with bigger issues.
The Pretend Husband and I? We’re good workers and all, but we could have used the super friends for more than 45 minutes.

* A girl on my soccer team twisted her knee the other night during a game. While we were comforting her, a girl from the other team (wearing short shorts and with very questionable soccer skills…) came over, picked up the player’s leg and started trying to figure out what happened. She asked her where it hurt, had her press her foot different ways, told her to make sure she goes to a doctor even if it begins to feel better, told her it wasn’t a torn ligament, etc. Then someone asked her a question and her reply? “Oh, I’m not a doctor, I just played Division 1 soccer and saw a lot of this.”
Excuse me?!? I’ve seen a lot of car accidents, but that doesn’t make me qualified to estimate the damage to your car!

* My brother called on Sunday (I think he was answering my message asking if he perhaps wanted to come work on our house) to say he was in the emergency room. He ended up getting admitted to the hospital with tonsils that are so swollen, they’re touching (I know because I used that little light thingy doctors have to check them out) and some other aches and pains. Turns out the guy went out and got himself Mono. He’s actually still in the hospital while they try to get the swelling down and get him back on solid foods. All very depressing and kind of gross.
The first night, I was with him in the E.R. when my dad called for an update. I explained what was going on and then said to my bro, “Anything else?”
“No, that’s it in a nutshell,” he rasped.
“And this is me in a nutshell,” he said, pantomiming being trapped inside… well, a nutshell. And that's when I knew he was going to be OK.