Hoo-boy! Another chockety-block weekend. Friday: Home from work, packing, and then Q and I hit the road, with lingering hugs for Mami and T, headed for our hotel, the Marriott at the intersection of 95 and 90, some three hours away. We were headed for the Needham Soccer Explosion or whatever the heck it’s called – here’s their website:

  www.Needhamsoccer.com 

And here's one of the banners from the tournament:

I let Q sit in the front seat on this trip. I’m not supposed to yet, I know – but three hours in the car with conversation shouted over the seat back just sounded too ugly. And it was an absolute blast. We talked like we haven’t talked in months. Not about anything earth-shattering – just soccer, and family, and education…Great stuff. We took the scenic route, too, up over 116. It may have taken us a titch longer than it would have if we’d just gone 7 down to 90, but it was a lot nicer to look at. Ashfield, Plainfield…I even saw a barn with an airplane in it. What the heck, man.

 Arrived at the hotel and were very impressed. Nice, nice place – Q is always wanting to put a number of stars on the hotels we stay in. I can’t say what it had, but it wasn’t 5, I’ll tell you that. Still, we had absolutely no complaints. I will say this, though: The place was positively mobbed with soccer families. This Needham tournament has something like 700 teams playing in it. Every soccer pitch for thirty miles in any direction was going to be in use. Our two fields would be in Needham itself, and in Wellesley, which I was looking forward to, having worked there in the Explo days. Q’s team, Berkshire Ajax, would have to win its group of 4 to advance to the semi-finals in the U-13 division. He was excited.

 Sleepy, too, turns out – we’d eaten already, at Dunkin Donuts just as you get to Highway 91 (right across from a discount store called “The Final Markdown”), so we had no eating to do. Q just wanted to watch some TV and hit the hay, which is what we did.

 Up at 6:00 AM to go find breakfast. I wanted to get to the field in plenty of time, so we just picked up breakfast items – juice and trail mix; that’s all Q wanted – at the gas station, and headed over. After almost no difficulty in finding the place, we were the very first folks to arrive – it was 6:55 or so, and we were supposed to meet the team at 7:15. The game was at 8:00. Q’s friends and their families tricked in one by one:

...and before you knew it, we were settle in to watch some soccer. For some reason, all 4 of the 7th graders on the team had to miss that first game, leaving only the 6th graders and Luke, 5th, to contend with a team that looked to be predominantly 7th-graders. And the result, in the end, was probably predictable: a loss, 1-4. But it could have been a lot closer – there were some good chances to be had by our boys, and the ref gave a PK for an inadvertent handball in the box (Rob, our local expert and president of the Williamstown Soccer Club, thought it was a bogus call) and a direct kick for our goalie fumbling the ball and picking it up (another bogus call, according to Rob, who let the ref know about it). Those resulted in goals. But they had fun. Q, though, caught the ankle of another boy as they both fought for the ball, right against his own ankle, and both went down; Q returned in the second half, which made my heart glad. But I suspected he would need to do some icing.

 We picked up Q’s friend Colton after the game. We had originally gotten the room thinking it would be all 4 of us in it, but T would have had to miss a birthday party, and because I’m going to be in Cincinnati for another weekend tournament in June up in Burlington, T will absolutely have to spend at least one whole weekend watching Q play soccer. So we decided to let her beg off this weekend, and she stayed home with Janneke. And since it was too late to cancel the room, we were stuck with a big one. Meanwhile, Colin, Colton’s dad, had decided not to stay over, but to drive back each day. So we invited Colton to come do a sleepover with us Saturday night. And toward that end, we loaded his stuff into the car and headed to the hotel. No more games Saturday, you see – we were stuck with an empty schedule until Sunday morning. The kids weren’t complaining: The Marriott has a pool. I worked out a bit while they splashed, and then around 11:00 we got dressed, took the hotel shuttle to the T stop, and rode the train in to Boston.

 It was slow going on the way in, but I, for one, had a blast, watching the towns and town centers change as we headed into the center of Boston. What a beautiful city, from the outside in – we went from the Riverside station in, through Waban, Eliot, Newton, Chestnut Hill, Beaconsfield, Brookline…Gorgeous towns. Then the underground portion, until we arose from the depths of the earth at Government Center.

 Although, before we arose, we walked through the station, which I think is the niftiest subway station I’ve been in. Something about its odd shape, the way the trains bend around it…I loved it. My favorite subway station ever.

 Above, not so much. The Boston city hall rises out of the wobbly paving stones like Stalin’s ghost made manifest in concrete and glass. That little portion of Boston has got to be the ugliest meant-to-be-grandiose monstrosity in any major American city. Still, it’s clean. And from there it’s a quick jog over to Faneuil Hall, another unimpressive (but, I’m told, quite historic) piece of patrimony, and thence on to Quincy Market, which the boys recalled from some field trip or other. “I can’t wait! They have every kind of food there you could ever want!”, they both said, and capered and pranced with anticipation. 

And when we got there, they had pepperoni pizza.

 Thence to stroll about the city center. I imagine it’s the Big Dig that’s taken all the traffic out of the downtown, and it certainly was easy to get around, what with such thinly-populated streets. Populated by cars, I stipulate – there were people absolutely everywhere. It was lovely – down to the wharf, back again…Actually, that’s kind of it. Watched some street performers:

...and headed back to the train stop. Hotelward, and to the room! Where the kids watched some Disney and played a game on Colton’s ipod, and I napped. Chased them out of the room at 4:00 or so so they could go swimming again and I could reconnoiter dinner and a pharmacy. Q’s ankle was stiffening up, so I got directions and we headed out. Bought an Ace bandage (not really – a self-adhesive sports bandage) and tied a bag of ice to his ankle, then went in to Newton, I believe, and hit a long street with many, many options for eating all along both sides. Opted for a Korean-and-sushi joint, which was all but empty, and parallel parked like you would not believe.

I have often bragged about my parking prowess, and asked Colton, when it was done, if he had felt any jarring or jerking when I stopped. “Nope,” he replied. “How many times did I go backward?” “Once.” “Did I go forward after going backward?” “Nope.” Right. Now, open the door, please, and check how far the wheel is from the curb in back. He complied. “It’s almost touching.” “And in front?” He looked. “It’s exactly the same.” “What you have just seen,” I said, “is the greatest parallel park ever. It is impossible to do it better. Impossible!”

 Colton took all this in stride. He’s been around our family quite a bit over the years, and he knows how I roll. Humor me, and move on. It’s the only way I’ll stop.

 We went into the restaurant and settled in. The boys split a sampler platter and a side of chicken wings, and I had one of their iterations of duck. Great meal. Tipped well and hit the street to look for dessert. We passed an Indian grocer with a sign in the door that I had to get a picture of:

(If you speak Spanish, and don't find this hilarious...we should pretty much call things off right here and now. Because you and I are just not going to get along.)

So I went back for the camera and the boys went ahead to find the ice cream store where all these people seemed to be getting their comestibles. They found it while I was doing the photography, and we all enjoyed something sweet – Colton, a vanilla waffle cone (I must be rubbing off on him), Q, a coffee-based ice cream flavor of some sort (he spends altogether too much time with his mother), and myself, a banana strawberry smoothie. Good times. Home, and to bed! Although on the way, I described these two videos to the boys, and sang them the songs:





 And Colton told me that that was the hardest he had ever laughed from a mere description of a video, rather than from the video itself. Which I was sort of proud of.

 I take what I can get.

 Q talked in his sleep. Yelled, more like. “Send it forward! Forward! Hit me!” Stressing, I guess.

 Breakfast in the hotel. Pricey, but convenient, and delicious. 11:30 game time. Handed Colton off to his dad with no harm done. Hard-fought contest; Q had some great runs and created a goal, but did not himself score. Colton was a virtual wall on defense. It ended 2-2. Could’ve won, probably should’ve. The 7th-graders were there, so the team’s true spirit came shining through a bit more. Lunch with several teammates at an Italian place; then Rick’s mom took Q and some other boys back to their hotel for some swimming before the 5:20 game, which left me with some time to go check out the campus at Wellesley College, where, you’ll recall, I used to work in the summer.

That was fun – it’s harder to drive around that campus than I remembered. But I eventually found my old haunts. No one was around, classes being out, and I strolled freely. Freeman, McAfee – all the old dorms where I used to herd kids and try to teach them a thing or two. Funny how everything you used to know seems smaller when you go and see it again.

 Back to the field. I napped under a tree while another game was played, and then Q and the boys returned. Q had managed to get Silly Putty into his shorts somehow, so Rick’s mom had given him another pair of game shorts (have to remember to get those back to her…), and they took the field for their final contest. This team had beaten the team that Q’s team had lost to on Saturday, and was currently in first in the group. The tie in the morning game meant that Q’s team had virtually no shot of advancing itself, but it could make things messy for the rest of them.

 Q had a fantastic game, with some deep runs, aggressive play, and a one-on-one with the goalie that should have been a goal. He just shot it straight into the goalie’s gut as he slid at him. After the game Q was pretty PO’d at himself, but he vowed never to let it happen again. In the end, our boys won, 1-0, though they had a number of shots go off the post. And so the team that had beaten us wound up going on to the semis.

 Into the car, where we hit the first rest stop on Highway 90 – as did two other families, including Colton’s. So we all had our evening meal together, and then drove home. 90 all the way this time – too dark for sight-seeing – and Q fell asleep in the front seat, where I let him sit again.

(That's my forearm in the picture. Not Q's grotesque and monstrous super arm.)

Home and to bed. And today? Slept in, walked the dog, took T down so she could march in the parade with the Youth Center. Walked the parade route with her. Saw a lot of people I know, of course, which I didn’t really enjoy for some reason. Not sure why – didn’t feel like talking to any of them, sort of felt out of pace today. Just feeling off. T and I walked back along the parade route and drove home. I then took a run; we ate lunch, I mowed the lawn, and then took the kids to the Williams Inn so they could swim. (It was very hot.) Home, sushi, reading, and to bed.

 Man – Not a very well-written or artsy entry, I have to say. I’m kind of just cranking this out. But beggars can’t be choosers – you want to know what went on? This is what you get. Don’t want to know? Good luck. This is the only source. Take it or leave it.

 (Please take it.)

Recreation As Deathmarch

Man. I need a week to recover from my weekends these days.

 Friday night we all went out to see “The Avengers” in 3D, on my neighbor, Ann-Marie’s dime. She got us a gift certificate to the Beacon (the only movie theater I have an interest in patronizing around here) in thanks for me driving her to work for a couple of weeks when her foot was injured. (She and I both work at LMMHS.) It was great, but a late night. And then Saturday, we got up for a full day.

 Q had a soccer game at noon, for which we had to arrive at 11:15. I brought the ladder, the tripod, the camera, and extra batteries, and I filmed the whole thing. Q’s coach asked for a copy of the film, which I was glad of – it made me feel official there, recording. Strange – considering the dedication with which Pam and Ken filmed all our athletic endeavors back in 1987, I would think there would be far more parents with whirring cameras at these things. But I was the only one. And as I’ve previously learned, keeping the camera trained on the action keeps my mouth shut.

 Thereafter, T went to a birthday party, while Q went to Bennett’s house for a playdate, where Owen and Jude were already paying, and by the time we had a chance to catch our breath, Q had organized a sleepover. He asked us first, of course, but it was hard to say no. And what a nice bunch of guys – we warned Q, and through him the boys, that the plan had been to play the new game that T had bought for the family (“Guesstures”), which all the boys played with enormous enthusiasm. And by the time they went to bed, around 11:00, we were all wiped out. Back at it this morning – but not before Q and T, with help from all Q’s buddies, whipped up a breakfast of cereal, eggs, toast, jam, and juice, and Q and T carried it in to present Janneke with their mother’s day cards. She was tickled. But the day was already in motion, with T going to a birthday party at 10:00 AM or so, and me trying to figure out whether I really want to put a tire swing (I’m coming around to that as opposed to a regular swing) in the front yard, which Q and T are lobbying hard for.

I climbed the tree to cut – pull down the cords T and Q had tossed up there in their crude attempts at building the swing themselves, and got a little cocky on the way down – my foot was pressed into a crook in the tree, and I figured I could just swing my body down below the branch I was lying on, and thence to the ground. They body cooperated in swingting down, but the right foot stayed jammed at a very uncomfortable angle. Imagine planting your foot on a slight incline, toes pointing up at about a 45 degree angle, then freezing it while your whole body swings down below the level of the ground. That ankle jst ain’t gonna cooperate. I struggled to pull myself back up, but it quicky became clear that that wa s impossible; then I started yanking myself toward the far end of the branch, away from the trunk, trying to change the angle. That wasn’t working either. I contemplated calling for help, but I figured they wouldn’t get there before my arms gave out and I swung all the way perpendicular to the ground, foot still jammed in the crook of the branch, ankle tearing and breaking. I panicked a bit and thrashed and jerked and kicked – and it came loose. The cool tingle of adrenaline shook me, and I dropped to the ground, unhurt.

Man. That could have given the day such an ugly turn. But it didn’t. So then all of us piled into the car to go to T’s soccer game in Dalton. (We (I am coaching) got pounded, but it was competitive in the first half, and all of our girls are 2nd-graders, while all theirs are third and fourth. So we felt good about it.) T left the game with the father of her friend Ava, who was having ANOTHER birthday party. Home again, where most of us slipped into catatonia. Fetched T from her birthday party around 5:00, and when I got back Janneke declared she was too tired to cook. So it was Chopsticks tonight, eaten out on the deck. T lobbied to get some practice in goal after supper, and it went fantastically well – I taught her how to punt, which she was doing quite effectively by the end of the lesson, making her the first girl on any of the teams I’ve seen who can do it.

She was in goal for about a quarter of the game today, and had some really nice moments back there – she knows what to do as well as anyone, and prefers it to the clearly dangerous business of running out there anong all those towering third and fourth-graders. And this, even after having played a bit of a game in goal a couple of weeks ago, and having gotten absolutely pegged in the thigh by a powerful shot. She came off he field crying then, but had a blast at it today, and I’m glad of it, because out in the field, she is a very timid player. Much like her brother often is, I have to say – like him, she has great foot skills, but just doesn’t want to mix it up.

 We all showered, and then T came over to lie on my lap and let me rub the vitamin E oil into her scar. (In case you don’t know, she cut her face on some barbed wire in WI on our April trip. It was a very traumatic experience, but at the same time, it wasn’t traumatic at all – my sister Jayne was there to keep us all calm (she’s an emergency room nurse), and T was an incredible trooper. We have a whole collection of pictures of her cuts and her scars – just on her left cheek, and only on the lower part, apart form one up near the middle of the cheek, about an inch long. Here's a pic from just after she got the stitches out:)

This is becoming one of my favorite moments with T – she les there and we speak gobbledygook languages back and forth, pretending to get angry with each other, apologize, laugh at our jokes, all while saying “P’te k’a no-oalita, ganghitsa-pu a-ookilow.” Massage is apparently good for keeping the scar tissue from getting too bad, so I do that for a good while. She likes it, and can take pretty heavy kneading of the area – another piece of evidence that she is definitely my daughter. T to bed, and the rest of us to pile onto the couch and stare at “Avatar” on TV until we can’t take it any more and pile into bed. A long and awesome weekend. Punctuated, by the way, with the production of many copies of the DVD of Quinn in “Aladdin”, as well as three of his soccer game for his coach. It turned out better than I would have thought with the Flip video camera. I’m definitely going to keep doing that.

 I’ll leave you with a picture or three, I suppose. Take care - Oh: One more thing - This picture, of Q and the other three main actors from the musical, is just too awesome not to include, even though this post wasn't about the musical so much. So here it is:

Coping with Fame

Yeah. So…Lots going on lately. First things first: Q just starred in “Aladdin”, and T got in as a bit player, too. She was adorable – very serious, very dedicated, but sprite-like (she played a sprite at one point) and radiant. And Q was phenomenal. That boy is such a great actor. He just pain felt the role, top to bottom, and exuded it effortlessly. He gave no indication at all of being nervous – then again, neither did any of the rest of them. They were supremely well prepared. Our beloved Mae was the Genie, which is really the role of the whole play, and played it to perfection. It’s hard to say too much about it now – I feel like I’ve said so much to so many people already, and had them say so much to me. One of the interesting moments, though, was when it was all over, and the whole cast and crew went outside to the playground for the post-production cookies and juice. While the adults stood around and chatted, a huge swarm of sixth-graders played this sort of short-range, small-scale game of soccer, all standing in front of the goal and just barely resembling anything truly soccer-like – mostly, it was a flirt-fest. And I kept looking around while it was happening, wondering where Q was. Finally, though, we were made aware – by Amy Backiel, I think – that he was up in a tree with Alex and Sam C, two boys who are probably also, from what I know of their personalities and their spot on the adolescence spectrum, had no interest whatsoever in flirting or in being flirted with. Just not into it yet, thank you. Not that they could always avoid it. Q got pseudo-cornered in the tree by Hannah, who played Jasmine (wonderfully). T, at some later point, supper, I think, asked Q if he liked Hannah. Probably brought on by all the romantic stuff in the play. “No.” “Does she like you?” “Yep.” Oh – Now I recal: Auntie Jayne, who deserves a medal for driving all the way out here from Wisconsin to see the play (and to present in T’s class), asked which girl he did like, and he declined to respond. It’s all very gooey and complicated for the Gru right now, and he’s dealing and coping in his own way, at his own speed. It’s wonderful to watch, if a bit painful. Not that he appears to be suffering at all, outwardly. You just know what’s coming. These are not easy years. There were a lot of compliments going around, and we had to coach Q on how to handle them. Look people in the eye, be honest and appreciative, etc. Something he wasn’t really used to. Who is, at that age? But the compliments came from strangers, from friends, from friends’ parents… It was a constant barrage. Very much deserved. A bloody exhausting weekend, though. Three performances, two soccer games on Sunday prior to the matinee performance, and Auntie Jayne in the house, who is an easy guest, but is still a guest. Jeepers. She was wondering how parents do it, since it’s such a whirlwind, but it isn’t like that all the time. Just most of the time. T’s soccer game was a lot of fun – she played goal for the first few minutes, and stopped a couple of balls, let a couple others go through. She really has a good sense of space, and a tremendous control on the ball, I think – plus the ability to absolutely power a shot. All the tools. But much like her older brother, she does not like to mix it up. Everyone on her team is a second-grader, but they have played two games so far, and both have been against teams of third- and forth-grade girls. It’s U10, and T is all of 8. As are her teammates. So they’re getting pounded, but in a nice way, and the skills are really building up fast. T sets up cones and weaves in and out of them on the days she can (it’s often raining lately), and I can’t stress it enough: She is physically very graceful and coordinated. Fast? No. But smart, and pretty strong. It’ll come. Or it won’t – who knows? She’s having a great time and learning a lot. Q’s game was similar, really. Most of his teammates are 6th-graders, and they pay U-14, so he, who is 11, was often guarding / being guarded by someone close to six feet tall. They lost 3-1, though Q knocked in a lovely long ball that he lofted over the goalie’s head, only to hear the ref declare him to have been offsides. He claims he wasn’t , and claims that Blair (his coach) claims he wasn’t, but I’ve seen the kid play for years and he lives offsides. I guess we’l never know because I didn’t film it. I don’t know – it may be that at this level they play 11-a-side, but he’s so far away from me at any given point that yelling instruction or encouragement would be utterly futile, so I wasn’t tempted to. Last fall I discovered that videotaping the game kept me from getting too involved emotionally, and it’s something I’d resolved to continue this spring. But I’ve only made it to the one game, and since I was also going to be filming Aladdin that afternoon, I didn’t want to have the camera filled up. (It’s slow to upload to the computer.) So I didn’t film it – and it turns out, I may not need to. Still, they’re nifty documents to have. OK, it’s getting late, and this latest DVD is about to finish burning. (I’ve burned six or seven this evening already.) Looks like I can get to bed a titch early, as I have to be up early in the morning to take the car in to Flynn Motors. Beth Gray from work is going to follow me in, and she likes to get there god-awful early. So it’s off to dreamland. Good to be back. Posterity awaits!

Resuming Production....Now.

Wow…It has been a long, long time. What the frig? The explanation, turns out, is simple: All my computer-based family-update time has been dominated by Facebook now for…Jesus – Years? Could well be. And the thing that got me back to doing this, was that Autie Jayne came out to see Quinn (and Tess!) in “Aladdin”. And T had had some stitches on her face while we were out in Wisconsin, and she and Auntie Jayne had agreed to use their emergency room visit as grist for the presentation to the class that Auntie Jayne had already agreed to give, and Jayne wanted to also show the photo from T’s first ER visit, which was the one with the lego in the nose, so I googled the photo, knowing it would show up on an old blog post. And up it popped, and suddenly I couldn’t stop reading, and all this stuff came back to me – the many, many details I had recorded back then for the blog, and that were preserved because of it. And what do I have to show for all that Facebook time? Zilch. Could this be the end of Facebook? Man, let’s hope so. It’s pretty late now, and I’m not sure I’ll do much more than pop this “watch this space” blurb onto the blog – whose password I’m not entirely sure I can recall – but I do want to start doing it again. Be warned: There will be postings here again. It is a worthy way to spend my time.