World Cup

In 2002, the World Cup was barely on my radar. It had, quite frankly, never been on my radar prior to that.

I went to five high school soccer matches when I was in high school, which is more than the number of football games I attended (four, all homecoming games, and only because I was doing something related to the parade). But I wasn't there for the game, I was there for the players, a couple of whom I thought were hot and one of whom I had a secret crush on for about five years (if you're out there, Paul, I hope you're doing well, although even if I told you my real name, you'd probably still have no idea who I am).

But I wouldn't come to appreciate the fluidity, the athleticism, the energy of soccer until Zander introduced me to it. I'm still learning the finer points, but I know enough to enjoy watching the games and to curse and cheer at the appropriate points.

I've been fascinated by this World Cup event. I don't know who most of the players are, and world soccer doesn't hold much meaning for me, personally, although I certainly appreciate the import of the game in other countries. As I said, I only paid a little attention to the Cup in 2002, but I'm surprised and pleased at the media coverage and the excitement about it in 2006. People are talking about it. A poll on ESPN last week asked, "Which one do you find the most compelling, the World Cup, the US Open, or the NBA finals?" The World Cup was the overwhelming winner.

I'm willing to admit that part of the difference may be in location, location, location...in 2002, I was in a much smaller city with a much less diverse population. The DC Metro Area is nothing if not a melting pot. When I took my car in for its emissions inspection this week, the little garage had a TV hooked up, and while my car revved, the mechanics and I stood watching the fuzzy picture, and listening to the commentary in Spanish (although I was probably the only one in the garage who couldn't understand it). It was the Ghana-Brazil game. "Who do you want to win?" they asked me, expectantly. I looked around at my audience. "Oh. Um. Brazil, definitely Brazil." They smiled. My car passed.

There's a sports bar in the UberComplex where my office is, and last Thursday, I made my way over (by myself) at a little after 11 a.m. to get what would turn out to be one of the last seats in the place for the second half of the USA-Ghana game. The turnout didn't surprise me all that much -- after all, it was the home team.

But today, I walked into the same bar at noon to try to catch the second half of the Germany-Argentina game, and it was already packed, standing room only, nearly every eye in the place riveted on the screens. The woman ahead of me was trying to get a table for herself and two friends, and was told the wait would be about an hour. She was astonished, and complained that some of the people she saw were done eating and should be leaving soon, so couldn't The Girls have THAT table? "They won't be leaving," the host explained, " 'cuz of the game."

The customer ahead of me was quite put out and was spluttering, "It's ridiculous. I mean, it's soccer, for god's sake. It's not like it's...it's....it's the NBA draft, or something."

Um. For one thing, watching the NBA draft is less exciting than watching the last coat of "Whispering Eggshell" dry on the walls (particularly this year). For another, it's not just soccer, it's the World fucking Cup. And for another, if you don't know either of these things, why the hell are you choosing to come to a sports bar for lunch, you stupid bitch?

Anyway. The crowd was even larger and louder than the one for the USA game; I hadn't expected that. It was also evenly divided between Germany fans and Argentina fans, judging from the reactions. I had to leave after the end of regulation, so I missed the overtime and the penalty kicks. I went back to my desk and hit "refresh" on my browser about every 25 seconds (we're not allowed to get streaming audio or video) to keep up with the score.

I went to Best Buy one day a couple of weeks ago to buy a gift for Father's Day, and wound up spending an hour watching whatever game was being played at the time on HDTV.

I really need to start planning ahead so that by 2010, I have a job where I can work at home for a month during the summer.

Damn you, Zander.

Didn't we bomb them?

So, after another long hiatus, I'm back.

So far the big news is that, after begging to be tested, I've been diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease, an autoimmune disorder in which your body makes antibodies against your thyroid gland. I think this explains why I've had a slightly swollen lymph node in my neck for the last six months. I've been on thyroid replacement drugs since DataBoy was born, but the docs just figured it was an aftereffect of pregnancy and would go away at some point. Guess not.

So it's back to experimenting with drug doses until we find the one that works without making me an insomniac heart patient.

In other news, it's raining. It's been raining since Friday. In the last five days, we've picked up over a foot of rain, which is more than we usually get over the course of a typical summer. It took me nearly 2 hours yesterday to get from work to daycare (a trip that usually takes 45 minutes) because of the number of road closures and accidents.

In other other news, the move is impending. The task of decluttering my apartment in preparation to pack is both exciting and daunting. My darling husband was, last weekend, making fun of my methodology of placing furniture: scale drawings of the rooms on graph paper, along with little cutouts of the general footprints of the furniture (also to scale, of course). I can't be the only who does this, can I?