The Triple Header

My highlight of the week continues to be watching the girls play soccer. This weekend was great because Stef's game was on Sunday so I got to watch both girls play. Saturday, Jess had 2 games; we had to leave at 6:30 am to make it to the tournament by 7:30, but we had fun listening to radio Disney on the way there. Her team has some awesome players, including herself. Unfortunately, they have yet to win a game.

The coach sent a note to the parents this week saying that the girls have caught onto the fact that they haven't won a game. He didn't mention if they've caught onto the fact that they've been outscored by a googleplex. I was told during the sign-up period in July that every team should win 5 and lose 5 games, not including tournament play, although every team should play .500 ball there as well. Without questioning his sincerity, I guess I'm looking forward to the 12 week winning streak over the next four weeks.

The first game Saturday was a close one. Jess scored the first goal of the game on a great shot, and her team led 1-0 at the half, the first time all year they have led a game at any point. Five minutes into the second half, her team had given up two quick goals, and they lost 2-1.

There was a 2 1/2 hour break between games, and in true seven year-old fashion, rather than head to a diner or a Dunkin' Donuts to relax, Jess stayed and played with some of her teammates on the playground. I spoke to a lot of the parents and parent-coaches between games, and we all agreed that the girls have amazingly talent (the roster is made up of girls who basically scored at will last year on the smaller, goalie-less fields) but they are still learning how to play on a field that's ten times larger than last year, and on teams that now have goalies.

Game two was expected to be much tougher because the girls they were playing were older. Jess's team was outshot 20-0 in the first ten minutes; our goalie should have been wearing hockey goalie pads based on the speed of the shots. Corner kicks flew in across the mouth of the goal, two on ones quickly became four on ones, but because of the outstanding goalie play and the fact that goalposts can stop shots the score was only 4-0 by halftime. In the second half Jess drew the short straw and played goalie. She played well, giving up only two goals on shots that would have been over my head. Jess still had fun, the weather was great, and I put Mr. "the goal is that every team play .500 ball" out of my mind until this post.

Stef's game on Sunday was great. She played the most aggressive soccer I've ever seen her play. She scored a great goal from about ten yards out, and nearly had another one. In the second half she switched to playing defense. At one point she ran across the field to chase down another player and knock the ball out of bounds. She also knocked the ball out of the box a few times when the other team threatened to score. Stef has always been able to excel at whatever she puts her mind to, and it is great to see her play so well this year.

Thanks girls.

Distressed

The other night Jess and I were sitting on the couch and I noticed she had these cool jeans (for a seven year old) that had some beads in the shape of a heart, some torn threads on one leg and a small hole in the other leg around the knee. "Those are cool, they call them distressed jeans," I said. Jess replied, "No, these just have a hole in them."

I was never a clothes horse.

Friendship

I was raking leaves the other morning and found a quarter half-buried in the ground. I handed it to Jessica and said, "Look, I found a quarter, put it in your bank." She looked at me pensively, so I said, "It's okay, I found it next to my car; it probably fell out of my pocket."

She replied, "Well, my friend lost some quarters when we had our lemonade stand, so I think it's hers." We gave her friend the quarter today. I found out that the lemonade stand was in August.

What a good friend!

The Competition

I got home early enough tonight to play the Wii with Jessica. We are like McEnroe vs. Borg on Wii tennis. She still doesn't understand the scoring but we will rally for quite a while over each point. Tonight she beat me in tennis, we tied in baseball, and I barely beat her in bowling and in mini-golf. I like that she's competitive but the whole time we will make jokes to make each other laugh. She also threw out a golfism during mini-golf. Hitting a putt short, she admonished herself, "C'mon, hit the ball." I've only said that 10 times a round for 25 years.

After a couple hours of Wii, we pretty much called it a night, but not before she beat me in two games of Mancala. I've never been able to figure that game out.

Power Shower

According to a consumer survey from the U.K., men and women spend roughly equal time in the shower each day - a woman spends about 10 minutes, 40 seconds in the shower, while men average 10 minutes, 1 second.

According to an informal observation by me, the men and women of this household would average 10 minutes in the shower per day as well, provided I cut my shower down to 14 seconds.

The point is the girls tend to linger in the shower, particularly Jess. Tonight I was lost in thought reading the latest issue of Rolling Stone when I noticed 15 minutes had slipped away. "Jess, it's time to finish up," I told her. "Okay," she replied. "I just need to wash my body and rinse my hair."

On second thought, let's cut that to 6 seconds.

Beliefs

Every once in a while I think about how the girls will view the world when they get older. Specifically, I wonder if they will someday consider themselves a liberal or a conservative. I don't care, except being a liberal means setting yourself up for a lifetime of frustration and disappointment. The entire Democratic party needs a fireside chat from FDR, stat.

I bring this up because of what Stef wrote for us to read at the back to school night for parents. In writing about herself, she mentioned the following beliefs:

- people should be treated equally
- teenagers shouldn't litter
- she believes in giving food to the food bank
- trees shouldn't be cut down

Well at least she didn't mention taxing the rich.

Hockey

Last weekend the girls and I were invited to see the Rangers play the Devils at the Rock. At one time hockey was a popular sport, particularly in the late 80s and early 90s. Today, it's on nobody's radar. If hockey were a celebrity, it would be Ian Ziering. Yes, I know, who indeed.

Anyway, hockey is still a great sport to see live, the tickets were free, and Jess was happy to be going with one of her friends. The last time I went to a hockey game the girls weren't even born, and Ian Ziering was enjoying a comfortable career on 90210. It's been so long that I forgot about the atmosphere associated with a hockey game, namely:

1) The fighting: There were at least five fights during the game, including one in which a Ranger player ducked and covered his head to avoid a further beatdown. During the first fight, I glanced at Steffi, who looked like someone witnessing the ice turning into a burning ring of fire. I told her that hockey is one of the few endeavors, other than boxing, mixed martial arts, or being a Real World cast member, where fighting is condoned, if not encouraged. By the end of the third fight, Jess and her friend were slow motion fighting with each other.

2) The Cursing: In 1979, when I was a hockey fanatic, Denis Potvin of the Islanders broke Ranger Ulf Nilsson's ankle with a hip check. To this day, when a fan finishes whistling a short tune, the crowd will chant "POTVIN SUCKS!!!" What does this have to do with last Saturday's game? Well, the Devils fans have taken over that chant by following the whistling tune with "RANGERS SUCK!!!" Stef was intrigued by the clear, distinct whistling preceding this fairly frequent chant.

3) The Scoring (and Cursing): Since the mid-90s, scoring has been way down in hockey. On the positive side, Saturday's game had lots of scoring, with the Rangers winning 5-4 in OT. On the negative side, each Devils score was followed by Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll" playing full blast, which included the fans chanting, "HEY...YOU SUCK" after every goal. I assumed this was aimed at the Rangers, not Gary Glitter.

4) The Chanting (and Cursing): I loved going to hockey games when I was younger. Ranger fans would yell "Let's go Rangers", which in turn led Islander fans to yell "1940" (which prior to 1994 was the last Ranger's Stanley Cup win). Since "1940" is no longer in play, the Devils fans reacted to each "Let's Go Rangers" chant with, "RANGERS SUCK!!" It should be noted here that the Devils play a very predictable, vanilla form of hockey. Evidently their fans use the same approach to berating an opponent.

All in all, the girls had a blast and are interested in going to another game. I'm not sure if they could understand what was happening down on the ice, but I had no doubt by the end of the night they knew who sucked.