US v China

As usual, there are many things that have happened since I last blogged (graduating massage school, working as a massage therapist, my girlfriend graduating with her masters - congratulations honey, working on a comic book, working on a novella) that I could now blog about, but instead I'm going to talk about soccer. After admiring the US WNT from a distance for many months, last night I got to see them in action live and in person as they took on the Chinese National Team at PPL Park, and it was a beautiful sight. As soon as my girlfriend and I went to find our seats, we found Nicole Barnhart and Hope Solo mere yards away, warming up. Like many fans, we were instantly mesmerized -not only are they both even more beautiful in person, they project POWER- and stood for a long time snapping pictures. Unlike several fans, we did not catcall Hope Solo (more on rude fans later, unfortunately). After a while the rest of the team came out to warm up, to much applause. It was kind of surreal to see all of these people, many of which I've only seen on tv or online before, in person. The Chinese team was warming up on the opposite side of the field, so sadly we never got a close look at them.

The game itself was pretty excellent, 4-1 to the US, with China coming on especially strong in the first half. There was some incredible play on both sides (as well as some pretty rough play, but I guess that's no shock), and though our seats weren't as close to the field as would have been ideal, we still had a great view from behind the goal. And since the US scored twice in the second half, we got to see those goals up pretty close, which was awesome.

Really my only qualm with the game had nothing to do with the game itself. Though shortlived, there was a point when a row of young women were chanting "Go home, China, go home," which I guess might be considered an acceptable (though rude) chant during most sporting events but comes off sounding pretty racist when the team is from another country. Of course I don't know if those girls were actually racist, or if they were just used to chanting for rival teams to go home and stopped when they realized that it sounded racist when used against an entire country. There was also someone holding up a sign that said "More like Chino," which was not only confusing (aren't "chino"s a kind of pants?) but also came off sounding kind of racist. As I've said before, I'm pretty new to being a sports fan. But personally, I don't think it's necessary to be rude to the opposing team, whether they're representing a specific country, a specific city, or what-have-you. I believe in strongly supporting your team while maintaining a level of respect for the opponent. China played a great game and are obviously a strong team, and I don't think me saying that makes me any less a fan of the US team than the people who booed the Chinese players for falling down when our players fouled them. I've been told that fans in the Philadelphia area are notorious for being rude, to the point that one stadium had to have jail cells built, but I don't remember that from any of the Independence games I went to, including the one in PPL Park. If I heard people yelling for the magicjack players to go home, it may have bothered me (slightly) less when these girls chanted at the Chinese team. But I don't remember hearing anything like that.

Okay, one other qualm. Not that I was crazy about the last uniform our team had, but at least they were legible. The new uniforms are a step in the right direction in that at least they have the colors of our flag on them, but I'm amazed that at no point in the design phase did anyone notice that you cannot read the names or numbers. Obviously, at this point they've already been produced and distributed, so there's not anything that can be done, but it's definitely something they should remember when they design the next uniform. Fortunately, that seems to happen pretty frequently.

Apart from that, great game, great day. Stopped and got a fantastic Philly cheesesteak on the way home, just like old times. With the dissolution of the WPS, we probably won't be able to see too many more games this summer. But despite my grousing about fans and uniforms, I'm genuinely glad we were able to see this one.

How to Recognize an Awesome Girlfriend

This weekend, the only thing I really felt like doing was watching How to Steal a Million. It was one of the first movies I grabbed when I was helping my mom's library dispose of its VHS collection. We have two VCRs in my house, one of which is very reliable, and the other of which is total crap that is constantly malfunctioning and has a history of eating tapes. So obviously, I chose to watch it on the crap VCR, and it was instantly sucked in, chewed up, and spit out in a tangled mess. Being all PMSed up, and really loving that movie and wanting to see it, I was very upset. Two days later, I get a dvd copy in the mail, ordered by my girlfriend :)

Last Night

Last night, when I went to say goodnight to Buzzy (he was sleeping on the porch), I noticed his breathing was a little labored. This continued on and off during the night. For an hour or two I couldn't sleep, just watching him breathe on the blanket next to the couch and trying to decide if it was bad enough that he needed to go to the vet. When my parents got up, they gave him a dose of antibiotics and he seems to be doing well enough. I decided I wouldn't be able to get any more sleep on the couch, and he didn't really need me there if my parents were up, so I went upstairs and konked out.

because it was late, either nine or midnight, and I really wanted to sleep and I knew they would be loud.Whereupon I had a horrible dream. I don't really follow the plot, but I think I was playing/living video games with my girlfriend Amanda, and we spilled cherries on the sheets and the blue robe she gave me, and they left violent red stains that were sometimes cherry and sometimes blood that we had to wash out. Then I was going all around the house locking the doors over and over because there was someone I didn't want to come in, and I had to keep unlocking them to let the cats in and then relock them. The doors were essentially like the ones at my real house, but the locks were strange and different, and I had to lock some windows as well as they were like doors. He got in anyway (I think he was the one I was trying to keep out; it's hard to tell in dreams sometimes), along with a bunch of his friends carrying amps and speakers, and I was upset because it was late, either nine or midnight, and I knew they were going to be loud no matter what they said, and I really wanted to sleep. I guess none of this sounds too nightmarish, but the really horrible part was that in the dream, not only was Buster still sick, but Amanda had the same condition.

I guess that's about the only way this situation could possibly be worse right now.

Good News!

Three months ago, my girlfriend had an incident at work. She was performing a "finger stick" on a recent mother and the mechanism malfunctioned, causing the strange woman's blood to splatter on my girlfriend's face. Yesterday morning, my girlfriend got over the big three-month hurdle and passed her blood test with flying colours.

Congratulations, baby!