#2 Team Sports

I’ve never been good at team sports. I always wondered why. I’m not completely un-athletic in build, although my height is a hindrance (I’m a whopping 5’2”), I always tried hard when asked to compete in a team sport and always fell short (pardon the pun) of the task.

This was a mystery to me…until last night.

My co-workers and I have an intramural volleyball team that we play on every Monday night. We’ve been doing so for about a year. The team consists of 6 players ranging in age from 25 (me) to around 50. Needless to say…we suck. In our entire record, we can only count 5 wins, for a whole years worth of playing two games…every Monday night.

Last night was our final single elimination tournament for the season. We were really pumped and determined to make it past our first game. We were holding up decently, until they put me in.

I walk out on the court and it is my turn to serve. I take the ball focusing on aiming the ball at the weak link on the other team who is standing on the left side; a young girl about my age and build.

“Alright, as soon as the whistle sounds, take to steps and hit the ball…you can do this…focus.”

TTTWWWEEEEEEEEEETTTTTT

“Ok there is the whistle….one, two, three-hit! Oh!!! Good over the net!!! Hey that girl kinda looks like Christina Aguilera….man she really screwed up the national anthem…how embarrassing…not as embarrassing as that time I said brain spasm on stage at the Miss Lindsay pageant, well there were a lot more people at the Super Bowl…man can you imagine the traffic in Dallas, it must have been awful…all those cars…I wish I could get a new car….I really like his…maybe I can get him to let me drive it…he’s so cute…we would have beautiful little olive skinned babies…….”

!!!!!BAM!!!!!

In my train of, what started off as focused, thought I had forgotten to watch the ball, and just as a smile alighted my lips the volleyball crashed into the side of my head.

As I thought back through my experiences throughout grade school, middle school, and high school they always seemed to end the same way; with me getting hit in the head with some sort of ball (With the exception of track, where I just fell down.)

Oh well, I'm good at other things…

#1: The Puppy Pool

Last summer, my friend and neighbor Ashley, went on a trip to the Caribbean and asked me to watch her four legged children while she was away.

She has two dogs: A rescued beagle mix, Noel and a Pomeranian called Mojo.

Noel is a little brown, black, and white spotted angel with huge, soft brown eyes and ears so long you swear that once, just once, you are going to see her trip on them. She’s very cuddly and in the absence of her mother refuses to leave her caretaker’s side and looks up at you with such a sad yet sweet little face, you can almost see a small golden halo resting above those ears you can “tie’em in a knot.”

Mojo is bravado. That’s all there is to it. If he could speak, I have no doubt that he would sound exactly like either Antonio Banderas or Vincent Cassel. I imagine Mojo’s inner dialog to be something like this:

“Oh chèrie, I love you so much, let me kiss you, oh you taste like bacon, it’s so intoxicating….what?....Is that you under the chair, squeaky toy?...I must run to you…there is no time to waste…. I must be with ‘er…”

Or

“hmmm…I must guard your ‘ead, evil forces are among us, chèrie….I will lay on your pillow on top of your *yyyaaawwwnnnnn* ‘ead to prote…..zzzzzzzzzz…..zzzzzzzzz”

I love watching these two kiddos. They provide me with endless entertainment and provide me with my dog fix without actually having to own one.

So anyway, while I was watching Noel and Mojo, my parents decided to go on vacation as well. I was asked to house sit for them one weekend while they were away.

So with 8 little legs in tow, I decided to go to my parent’s house for the weekend.

Keep in mind, this was July….in Oklahoma. Which means the temperature was in the 100-degree-plus range.  So I decided to give the dogs a treat and stopped at the tiny little “Walmart Express” which is in my hometown and bought them a little blow up pool. Ashley had mentioned once that the dogs enjoyed her parents’ pool, so I immediately registered this as a stroke of brilliance on my part.

My parents’ house is completely surrounded by a 4-foot-high fence, but it’s not made out of traditional picket material, but out of metal panels which consist of 6"x6" squares. Definitely large enough for my wards to go through…

As soon as I got outside, I imagined the pups  jumping in the pool and then lounging peacefully in the hot sun, leaving me alone with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So, bikini on and book in hand, I went to lay “pool side” while the puppies played.

I was mistaken.

To my consternation, Noel’s innate beagle-ness took over and she ran off like a shot sniffing after the bunny that had left behind a vague trail of scent.

I throw down my book, and run after Noel yelling “NOEL!!! GET BACK HERE!!!” to no avail. She was going to catch “that wraskily wrabbit” if it was the last thing she did. I finally caught up to her and got her back, only to realize MOJO had taken off to the back yard. With Noel held in both arms I ran after Mojo.  Needless to say, I was sweating buckets and decided to put their leashes on in order to save myself the hassle of running in 100-degree-plus heat and dying of heat stroke.

Again we go to the pool. I put the pups in the pool this time, trying to tempt them with the cool water. Noel jumps out immediately. I put her back in…she jumps out again.  “Fine stay out of the pool.” Meanwhile, Mojo just sat in the water not moving with a look of loathing on his little furry face.

“I do not like this chèrie, this is completely uncalled for…I am wet and my fur does not look ‘andsome when it iz wet”

So finally, I decided I really wanted to get some sun. So I got my second brilliant idea of the day.

I noticed my parents’ had a 20 foot rope sitting on the porch. So I took the rope and tied one end to Noel and the other end to Mojo. I figured chances of them escaping through the exact same hole in the fence was slim to none, and if one went through, the other would hold them close to the fence until I could go get either him or her, and if they both went through, the fence itself would keep them from wondering too far.

Having done this…I sat down in the little inflatable pool and commenced reading “Love in the Time of Cholera” for an hour. Worked like a charm.