On to things you might not already know: I weeded my garden over the weekend. I'm in the process of wrestling control back from nature in my front yard's gardens. Driving home one night last week I was noticing other people's flower beds and casting judgments here and there as I passed, like, "Oh, pretty." " That's nice." "I wonder what that plan was?" "Oh, wow." "That's really pretty." and then I pulled up in front of my house and thought "Oh God. That is hideous." I knew it was overgrown, but somehow I had put blinders on for the last few months and didn't realize just how terrible it had gotten. I decided to get immediately to work and dropped my purse off in the house and went back out and attacked the flower bed, ripping out things right and left. After about three large-ish piles of weeds, trees, various flowers that I may or may not have planted there at some point, and some dead foliage, I have a decent looking front yard again. Actually...it looks good, if I can toot my own horn for a second. Not beautiful, but good. It looks organized and kind of like there is someone living at the house that takes some pride in keeping her yard in check. Dad even gave me three solar lights to put in the front garden to light up at night and they look suh-weeet. Just need to put some mulch down again tonight and boom: I'm done. As I was riding with dad in his truck to dump the weed pile at the city's recycling area, I found myself casting judgments again on houses we passed, only this time it was more like, "Hmm, they need to weed that garden." and "That could use some work." It's interesting how an evening of frenetic weeding can go to your head and for a brief instant, you feel like a gardener. The feeling has passed and if you live in my town, I promise that I won't cast any aspersions on your yard.
Over the weekend I also got a new haircut and watched a lot of soccer. If you aren't on the soccer news wave, I'll let you in on the fact that there's a Women's World Cup going on in Germany right now. It's been exciting. The host country of Germany was knocked out by Japan, who everyone seemed to have counted out, although I don't understand why because they're ranked 4th in the world. They're really good, too. Against a team that averaged about 4 or 5 inches taller than them, they kept their cool and are now on to the semifinals to face Sweden. A lot of Americans don't seem to "get" soccer. Which is weird to me, since it's an easy sport and a lot of Americans seem to "get" hockey, and really...it's a similar concept. The game of the weekend though for the entire tournament so far, not just Americans, was the game yesterday of Brazil v. United States. It was sort of expected to be perhaps the Final for the actual World Cup, but it turned out to be a quarterfinal game because the US lost to Sweden last week. It totally was super exciting, filled with drama and craziness and shouting and red cards and yellow cards and terrible referee calls that actually changed the game (the players should win or lose the game themselves in any sport... having a referee make HUGE calls that alter the game is never good). So there were terrible calls and it enraged the Americans and the fans in the stadium, many of whom were Germans and had really no stake in the game at all, but the calls made the decision for them and soon enough the crowds were whistling and booing Brazil (it wasn't really their fault, but at the end, they were playing kind of dirty and I supported the jeers being thrown Brazil's way). So the Americans played nearly half the game one person down and still managed to keep Brazil from scoring again in regular play. It was still tied 1-1 by the end of 90 minutes; then we went to overtime and Brazil scored and we played and played and the overtime was actually over and they added on 4 minutes of stoppage time. Stoppage time is additional time added on at the end of each half due to people flopping on the ground in fake pain, or the goalie taking a long time to get a ball out on the field, etc. That time adds up and they add a certain amount of time to the end of each half. So, in the last 20 seconds of stoppage time, after playing for nearly 125 minutes, the Americans scored the equalizer goal by heading it into the net and it was 2-2.
That was the very last chance they had to score and take the game to penalty kicks and they did it. I don't think I've ever been so shocked and amazed and jubilant at anything. It was AMAZING and everyone erupted and couldn't believe what was happening. It was made even better because those minutes of stoppage time were there mostly because of Brazil's games to waste time. In essence, Brazil's games of fake injuries and wasting time by tying shoes and slowly throwing in the ball to the field came back to get them in the end. So it went to penalty kicks, which played right into the USA's hands. We have the best goalie in the world in Hope Solo and none of the other women's teams are going to beat the U.S. if the Americans can take it to PKs. And sure enough, Solo stopped one of the PKs by Brazil and we hit all five of ours and now we go on to the semifinals to play France on Wednesday (who also got to the semifinals through penalty kicks over England). It's been really exciting to watch.I always get excited about soccer. I wish I had friends that got as excited about it as I do, but I don't. I have a couple who like it who were in Italy with me in '04, but they're not actually here nearby to watch with me. I was telling Dad the other day that I need a little checklist when I meet people because I need friends that like certain things so that I have someone to do them with. Like watch soccer games and go to the horserace track with. I have no friends that are into those things at all. Maybe I could just whip out my list when I meet people and say, "Do you like soccer?" "Do you like horse racing?" And if the answer is no to both, kindly say, 'Well, you seem like a great person, but I'm looking to supplement my friends group with someone who likes at least one of these two sports...' That's not too harsh, right? I figure if I find a job in a place with an MLS team, I might at least meet my soccer friend because I'd probably go to games and maybe even join those crazy major fan area things and paint my face and lose my voice screaming.
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