This weekend was filled with two of my favorite things: soccer and owl cookies! I played Friday night (we lost horribly, and I was extremely frustrated with my team) and Saturday morning (we lost, but only slightly, and the extremely hot Brazilian subbing for my team made everything better).
Last night I played my first game with my new women’s team, and it went pretty well. We lost the game 3-1 after losing two players at halftime and having to play the second half short a player, but I personally had a great game at right fullback. I miss playing sweeper, but maybe I’ll get to fill in there occasionally. In the meantime, I’ll be content at fullback. I was glad I played well, because I wanted to make a good first impression! I love playing in the women’s league — I feel like I can be so much more competitive when I don’t have to try to out-sprint speedy boys.
On Saturday afternoon I made the dough for my owl cookies, and that night I didn’t play soccer, but watched it instead. The US Women’s National Team was in town for an exhibition against Ireland as part of their “yay we won the gold medal and now some of our best players are retiring” tour. It was a really fun game to watch, even if Ireland was completely overmatched. I’m constantly amazed at the skill level of professional soccer players — they way their passes always go right where they’re intended to go, their trapping skills, and especially the way they seem to intuitively know where their teammates are. They have such incredible awareness of what’s happening on the field, where to place the ball so that their teammate can rush in. There’s no hoarding the ball, and good passing is of utmost importance. It was awesome to watch.
When I started playing soccer again a year and a half ago, I rediscovered how much I like the sport. It’s such a great game, and unlike most other sports, I love watching women play even more than men. Women soccer players seem so much more real to me; I feel like I understand them a bit. What they do is something that I feel like I might have been able to do if I’d followed a different path. Once upon a time, with lots of dedication and practice, I feel like playing pro soccer could have been a realistic goal for me.
Of course, today I’m a mediocre player (at best), but I guess I feel like at one point in my life, playing pro soccer might have been attainable. And that makes it much more interesting to me.
Did I mention how cool my new camera is? I took it to the game Saturday and got the above shots, plus a few more good ones. Later that night, Nick accidentally dropped my camera — but only about 6 inches, and it was ok, just scratched. I momentarily freaked out, but calmed down once I realized that nothing was irreparably damaged. I even colored in the scratch with black sharpie, and you can hardly see it. Crisis averted, but Nick felt so bad that he surprised me last night with gifts of a tripod, lens cloth, lens cap leash, and remote controller. Nick is awesome. I told him that he can drop my stuff anytime. 😉
Yesterday I had a lovely lazy day in which I made owl cookies, watched my new Aladdin DVD, and finally went to the grocery store — my first real grocery trip since September 8. Yes, September 8. I discovered that when I went to enter the money I spent into my money software. Now, grocery shopping is one of my least favorite chores, but I can’t believe I went a month and a half without a major grocery store trip. I knew I was seriously low on food (as Katie and Joel can attest to), but geez. I have no idea what I’ve been eating for the past month!
Did you say “Thank you Mia”?