Catching Fire

11-25-13

Soccer is done until at least January!!

Ok, that probably makes me a bad person to be excited about this. If perhaps it was Dax’s team, I would be less enthusiastic about the loss. A lot of that is because I also think Dax would want it to keep going. Bobby is pretty indifferent. I mean, there were kids on our team crying after the hard loss, and Bobby says to me all proud, “I am the only one on the kid not crying. I know we lost, but hey, we had fun!” Mind you, the same kid burst into tears when he thought he lost his soccer ball. I suppose everyone has a different break down point.

Dax actually burst into tears after the first loss. He isn’t even on the team, but it bummed him out hard!

What really makes me happy, aside from that whole having my weeknights and weekends back, is that I am done with the parents. I was so embarrassed to be a part of the team this weekend. Sunday morning in particular was brutal. I am used to the coach acting the fool, but to hear parents actually yelling at the ref and yelling to their kids to push back was appalling. The ref was fine. It was a tough match that resulted in a shoot out, which in itself is hard, but the parents on our side were actually yelling at their own kids and making them feel bad when they missed a kick on the field. It was awful. The kids were crying on the field. They were already sad, yet there was nothing positive to help them out. It was absurd. This isn’t professional soccer, for fuck’s sake. It is 9 year olds playing soccer. Ken was the side ref on our side and there were actually multiple times in which not only our coach, but our parents were asking Ken who’s side he was actually on. I was livid. The center ref actually had contemplated clearing our side. I would have happily left the field. At one point, the coach was threatened with the next warning to be a yellow, and he actually didn’t care. He said it isn’t red so it didn’t matter. The parents actually encouraged him to keep yelling at the ref. Holy fuck!

After the game, I mentioned it to the RC and others that were there for just these reasons. I told them that it was horrid and how embarrassed I was. The next game certainly brought out more of the upper folks, but the second game was less heated. It was one of those times in which I am certainly glad I don’t live in places like Texas where there is even more pressure on kids and sports.

Although one would think 3 games would eat up the entire weekend (which it mostly did), I did manage to do some other things. Friday night I got to go see Catching Fire!!!!!! YAY!! It was quite good. I enjoyed it and am anxious to see it again. It certainly wasn’t as great as the first, but it held up. The issue, which is what most adaptations suffer from, was that one could not give quite enough depth to each character. All of it almost should have been broken up into two films. It would have certainly been doable, with half before the arena and the other one in the arena. Oh well.

We were supposed to meet up with Jenni Friday night, but with Dan catching a nasty cold, they had to opt out. We ended up going to Ralphs at 10 at night and did our Thanksgiving shopping. LOL! It was cool since we had no kids with us and the place was empty. I did feel kind of bad, though, since when we got home and found that we ended up with our groceries along with another person’s. Oops.

I also was able to get over to the JFK Bidet to place my rose, which made me happy. I cleaned out a bit of the leaves in the bowl itself and took some time to reflect. It was nice. We probably looked odd, hanging out at this fountain in the middle of the night, but I didn’t really care.

Saturday afternoon was a whirlwind of activity. After the game, the boys and I managed to go through a huge box of their packed clothing and all of their toys and stuffed animals. We cut down everything by two thirds and all of the items we opted on getting rid of was put into the van and we took it all over to Savers. There are now actually spots open in the garage! Plus, the toys are put away and the boys have nice shirts hung up ready for any occasion.

We also ended up going by Eydie and picked up several things, including the vacuum cleaner. This allowed me to get some of the crud up off the carpet. Ken also was able to bring over the final Brenan family members. The fish now reside in our living room next to the tv.

Jenni and Dan came by in the afternoon on Saturday so it allowed me to show off Steve and to catch up a bit. It was really cool to have them over and be all hostesy and stuff! It is a shame they don’t live closer.

This morning I am hoping today goes by quickly. I have reports tomorrow, so today is just gearing up to that. I have Dax’s team party tonight, so that will be fun since I adore those boys, and those are the kind of parents I want to be associated with when it comes to soccer. Hopefully I can get over to Target, too.