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.)