Through the perilous fight

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!! The US Men's National Team has made it to the finals of the Gold Cup on Sunday! This is fantastic news because months ago I bought tickets for the final in the hopes of seeing the US play! It was a bit of a gamble, since the men have a history of floundering, but this year they've been on a tear. As it turns out, our head coach was booted out of tonight's game and therefore won't be allowed to coach on Sunday, but none of the players were kicked out, so they'll all be eligible to play!

My first international soccer game! My first tournament final of any sport! My first time at Soldier Field! GO USA SOCCER!

This is my 'sporty' post.

I'm keeping tiny tabs on the NBA game between the Heat and the Celtics this evening. I don't really care who wins. I was really happy to have the Oklahoma City Thunder win the Western Division and head to the NBA Finals. That's the team I'm rooting for, (if I happen to catch any of the games) and I don't know enough about the Heat or the Celtics to know which would be the better opponent for the Thunder.

Lots of sporty things are happening this weekend, apparently. I decided not to watch the Belmont Stakes after I'll Have Another was scratched yesterday. I heard it was a good race, though, with Union Rags winning by a nose. Good job. I didn't think I'll Have Another was exactly a super-horse, but I do admit that I would have watched the Belmont only if that horse had been in the race. Mostly because my sports-watching energy has shifted to soccer, as it usually does in June. I watched the two Euro Cup games that were on today. Denmark beat Netherlands, which was a surprise. Germany beat Portugal, which was not, although it was a tough game. Tomorrow morning my Azzurri take the field against Spain. The Italian national team is yet again in trouble with a betting scandal. It's part of the drama of Italian soccer, I think. Wondering exactly how many laws are being broken each time they play. They are scandalicious, but I love them anyway. It's cool that the Euro Cup is being played in Ukraine and Poland. Today they were playing one game in Lviv, but the commentators were saying the city's name a number of different ways. I finally decided that perhaps the British commentator could be saying it correctly in his own way and forgave him his kind of wonky-way of pronunciation, but the American commentator was so terribly off the mark that you could hardly recognize the name of the the city at all. I wouldn't normally be worked up about the pronunciation of a city I've never been to, except that I've heard all about Lviv for years and years and feel that it deserves respect! My roomie in college (and still my good buddy) was from Lviv. She came to Columbia for graduate school and we were apartment roommates for three years until I graduated. She is from Lviv and she pronounces it "Luh-veev". The commentators today were doing all sorts of things to words, but the worst was the American who kept pronouncing it "El-vivvy". I mean, what the hell? Who failed in their job of making sure the talking heads can pronounce the host cities correctly, ESPN? Get on the ball. I hope tomorrow will be better, but I won't count on it.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've come to be amazed by the number of people I know who don't know how to swim. Adults, that is. I don't know why, but I am completely taken aback when I meet an adult who doesn't know how to swim. It's one thing to simply not like being in the water, but to not know how to swim seems really impractical to me. It's a survival skill and I'm kind of surprised at how many people I know that would probably drown if they fell into a lake. I don't always have the ability to hide my emotions on my face and I am pretty sure I've looked at folks like they suddenly grew another head after learning this about them. They may as well have told me they were born on Saturn. It's unthinkable. I almost feel like parents have somehow failed in their upbringing of a kid if the kid reaches adulthood without being able to tread water if they have to...or if they reach adulthood without ever having tasted macaroni and cheese. It just seems very odd to me. I can't imagine having a kid and not making sure they know how to swim. I don't remember learning to swim. My parents put me in a water babies class that had parents in the pool with their infants, teaching the babies how to hold their breath underwater, etc. I obviously don't remember it, and don't remember learning any of it, but I think that's one of the best things my parents could have ever done. And I don't really believe that if your parents don't like the water, you won't learn to swim. My mom was never all that fond of water, but she didn't let that stop her from getting in the pool and making sure I knew how to swim. I admire her for that. And also for not passing on her fear of the water to me. I never found out why she didn't like the water, but I have very few memories of her + water. A few stand out, like when she fell out of a raft during a white water trip down the Colorado River. If you don't like water, the last place you want to be is out of a raft going through rapids, but she did amazingly well and didn't panic at all unlike another rafter who fell out as well and nearly killed himself and others in his panic-stricken state. My mom was very calm on the outside and I would imagine she was worried while being whisked down the roaring river away from those of us still in the raft. That was the most extreme situation I can ever remember her being involved in where water played a big role. Mostly, when I was really little, she would hop waves with me in the ocean and then go back and read a book in her beach chair. My dad was always the one that would go swimming out in the deeper water, and probably that's another reason the fear didn't get passed on to me. My dad would scuba dive, so I had the example of one parent who preferred to sit on the shore (or boat) and the other who preferred to dive under the water and not surface for an hour or so. I did a middle-of-the-road kind of scenario and tended to snorkle and splash about between the two extremes. As a result, I was never afraid of the water itself. I don't like to go out swimming in the ocean as much anymore, but that's due more to a bad experience I had later in childhood during one of those 'middle of the road' scenarios in the Florida Keys. One bad experience shouldn't put you off something altogether. I'm not afraid of water now, just uneasy about certain animals that live in it. I love pools and water parks and things like that. I can't imagine growing up without going swimming. I imagine I'd look something like this sad little elephant, sitting in the super-shallow end while my playmates swim in the deeper sections of the pool. Sad little elephant.  So, if you happen to not know how to swim, why not learn now? It's never too late to learn something new.

The ole swaparoo.

Already February 15th? I have to renew my license plates this month and that means a trip to the DMV. Apparently, in this state, you can renew online as long as you have the same car as you had the last time you renewed. But if you hit a deer and total that car but salvage the plates by stomping on them to flatten them back out and then put the newly salvaged plates onto a nice and un-crumpled newer car? That requires a face-to-face visit, despite the fact that you were face-to-face with them just about a month ago when you had to transfer the title to your name for this newer car and nobody bothered to tell you to renew your plates at that time. So, the question is: When do you find the time for this second face-to-face visit? I haven't found that answer yet. Sigh.

I am super sleepy. I took some cold medicine earlier after getting to work and it says it's non-drowsy, but my eyelids are saying otherwise. They're pretty certain this medicine is sleep-inducing. Mouth is joining in the argument with lots of yawning, too.

I work in the basement of the campus library, and in this basement there is a large auditorium for classes to use. Last week I was strolling by and the giant class that was in there was taking a test. And I felt a surge of happiness, knowing that for the first time in a really long time I had no tests to study for, no papers to write, nothing to do but work and go home. That I actually am done with school and never have to go back...Ever. And I knew that before, but seeing all of the students taking a test made me realize it fully. I have the terminal degree for my field. It's a completely different phase of life. The 'after college' phase. I need a hobby or something. I've already changed all the furniture around my house once this year and last night I was sitting on the couch watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show on my new favorite channel, "Me-TV", and thinking that I should switch around my living room and music room. The music room is one that I just created last month. I can't actually move the living room furniture by myself, so it would be quite the undertaking and, now that I really think about it, I probably can't fit my couch into the music room. And I don't have the money to buy a sleeper loveseat, which is what I really want for my living room. Although, a sleeper loveseat probably would fit in the back room/music room. Maybe I'll hold off until I get enough money to buy one and then do all this swapping of furniture again? As it is, I'd either have a couch with the record player and stereo in the now-living-room and just a chair and foot rest in with the tv in the now-music-room. I kind of like the idea that when you enter the house, the first thing you see is not the tv, though. I kind of like the idea of a music/conversation area to be the first impression of my home. More thought is needed. More money too, if furniture buying is going to become a part of this scheme. I do plan on buying furniture in the near future, but not living room furniture. Hmm.

March Madness is soon! I like basketball. Basketball is fast and fun. I've been giving thought to trying to find an NBA team to throw my support behind. Not that anybody is missing my support, but you know...just in case I ever get bored of college basketball, I'll have a pro team to focus on. My problem is that there is no NBA team in Missouri. St. Louis used to have one, but they left a long time ago and no team has ever come back. I don't think KC ever had one? Anyway, St. Louis should get one again because trying to decide on which one to support in my extended region is proving to be difficult. My dad suggested that I support Oklahoma City Thunder, but looking at their roster they've got two assholes from KU on the team, and in no way does that sit well with me. My natural choice is the Chicago Bulls because I really like Chicago as a city, and they don't have any KU players on the team currently, although they have in the past. I suppose that's a fact of life in the NBA? Hmm. St. Louis also needs a Major League Soccer team. More than an NBA team, I would support an MLS team in St. Louis. KC has one that's pretty good and that just got a brand new super-nice stadium. A couple of years ago there were talks about expanding MLS and that St. Louis would get a team. Albert Pujols was even a public financial backer of the future MLS team that would be in St. Louis. But there is no expansion team. And Albert is in California now.

I would be happy to trade the NFL and NHL teams in St. Louis for MLS and NBA teams. Just in case anybody with power to make that happen wonders my opinion.

I got my Birchbox earlier this week and opened it last night. It's fun to open those and see what sort of goodies you get each month, but more often than not, I have no clue what the cosmetic doo-dad in the box is for. Luckily, the wonderbrains behind Birchbox always include an info sheet about what exactly they've included. This month was the first month that I've been a little disappointed in what I've gotten. It's not their fault, you can't hit a homerun every time you're up to bat, I guess. I was only a little disappointed when I saw the mineral makeup that's not a color I'll wear, and the overpriced face moisturizer. They struck out with some adhesive eyeliner stickers. I don't do much in the way of makeup, especially eye makeup. I'm kind of low-key on the makeup front ...which makes the fact that I've got this subscription kind of hilarious, I guess. It has introduced me to nice skincare products, hair products, and nail polish. The box this month was makeup heavy, but I think they probably knew that there was a good chance that this box was sub-par because they included a free download of songs from a band that they're kind of digging at the moment. That perked me up. I'm always up for new music. It's an indie pop rock band from Ft. Worth called "Green River Ordinance". After downloading the songs, I'd actually heard one on BXR on the 'What's New For Dinner' segment that they do weekdays at 6 pm. But, it's good stuff I think. If you like bands like Snow Patrol or The Fray or Parachute or something like that? You'd like this band, too. Seven free songs make up for the bizarre eyeliner stickers. Thanks, Birchbox.