Volleyball Game

Last night girl #2, L, started her volleyball career. Even though she is only in 6th grade, she made the A team (7th and 8th grade team) and got her playing time a few minutes into the first of two games.

She was so nervous yesterday before the game she thought she was going to throw up- just like she felt before the first fast pitch softball game she pitched this past spring.

It’s so easy to get worked up before the big…game, meeting, project, anything where others are counting on our performance. I had something similar a few weeks ago where I had to be “on” in a big way, and it was killing me. Then, once it started, it flowed naturally- I had been thinking about it and working on the project for some time, and the practice paid off.

I told that to L, and asked about how she felt during the game- certainly once it started and she made her first few serves (she made all her serves over the net last night) and big plays her nerves settled and she had a great time…right? Nope. She felt like she was going to throw up the entire game.

A Minor Miracle

Once a week or so I turn into pool boy. I collect various test strips, chemicals, additives, a net, a ballcap and head out to turn our pool water into a chemical soup in an effort to keep it appearing to be crystal clear. As I stepped out of the door that leads from our garage to our patio and towards the pool, I set the armful of materials on the ground. I grabbed the net first and made my way towards the pool, and as I did some movement caught my eye.

From a distance it appeared to be some sort of moth or insect climbing the retaining wall on our patio, but it seemed to be moving strangely. I walked over to see it more closely and I was shocked at what I saw.

It was an ant carrying a large grasshopper’s leg.

Now that may not seem very interesting to you, and after I explain why I did, you still may not be impressed. The ant was not one of the bigger breeds- this was a MINI ant. The ones that could stand comfortably on the head of a pin with room to spare. The grasshopper leg, if stretched out, would be about 2 inches. I estimate that to be about 16 times longer than the ant. He held it in his little ant-mouth, and was carrying it up the retaining wall. He was about half-way up the 6 foot portion of the wall and I was mesmerized watching him make his way. After watching for 4 or 5 minutes he had progressed only a short distance. At that rate, he had been at it for a couple hours and had another couple to go.

His progress was hampered by the rough surface of our bricks (we have those irregular clunky, chunky old fashioned bricks), and by the little prickly things on the legs of grasshoppers that allow them to stand sideways on walls like this when they are actually alive…and their legs are attached to their bodies. Every couple of seconds the leg would snag on the brick, the ant would pull and pull (or push and push) and once he (she?) realized the leg was stuck, would let go, scamper around the leg to find the sticking point, bite into it there, lift it back up and continue the journey.

This caused me to ask several questions- just how smart is this ant? Obviously he senses the tension when the leg catches, he pulls a few time to loosen in, and when it can’t be knows he can let go and it will not fall to the ground, finds the snag point, and re-positions himself to get the leg going again. I even saw him check out the lay of the land ahead before he continued, finding the best route for the next inch or two- how could an ant brain work like that? I also wondered if this were a special ant- a champion among his clan who was known to carry giant grasshopper legs from the great stony patio plains beyond the mystical brick mountain...or was he just an average ant?

I decided to help out. I picked the right moment, and grabbed the grasshopper leg lifting it and the ant into the air. I quickly placed it on the top of the retaining wall gently. The ant actually appeared confused. He let go of the leg, ran around the leg several times, ran to the edge of the wall and looked down, ran back to the leg, ran back to the wall, and back-and-forth another few times. He then bit into the leg, and began the journey across the peak of the brick mountain retaining wall and down the short distance on the other side to the grass forest, and home, beyond.

What a little miracle. That ant and his journey witnessed right as I am pondering all that I have to get done at work and home, and worrying I can’t get it all done. Maybe I can’t, but I certainly need to put everything I have into the important things that need to be done.






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Revenge on Red

Tonight was sweet revenge. Orange Crush, my 13 year old daughter’s softball team made it to the finals tonight.

To get here, coming up from the losers bracket because of last weeks loss (A Humbling Defeat), we had to win 3 other games with the threat of getting bumped out of the tournament if we had one more loss. The girls redeemed themselves and did a great job to get us to the finals.

As expected, we met up with the 11 & 12 year old WonderKids known un-affectionately as the Red team.

Two nights ago on Tuesday, we played a semi-final championship game and the Red team coach came to scout us out. He had heard we didn’t have our full team together when his team had beat us and wanted to see how we looked with our full roster. He had his assistant and a clip board with him, taking copious notes on our girls fielding and batting skills. He has been known to use intimidation and tricks to win. Last year during the tournament final he instructed his pitcher to purposely walk the strong hitters on his opponent’s team, and also had the girls tease and taunt liberally. As he scouted our team, one of our parents over heard him talking to his assistant about what they needed to do to beat us. They couldn’t walk our strong hitters (of our 15 girls, 8 of them are home-run hitters), but they would try to intimidate us in other ways. She heard him say that we would leave the field in tears when we met up on Thursday night (tonight).

We did in fact leave in tears. Tears of joy.

One of our girls came up with a great idea- since the enemy coach was taking notes on our players using their jersey numbers, they decided to all switch jerseys. Prior to the championship games every one of our girls switched up with another player in hopes of confusing and confounding Red team.

Because we had lost a game during the tournament and the Red team had not, we had to beat them twice in a row to win the championship. It was a long night. Our girls came out strong and played some of the best softball of their short careers. Our fielding was amazing, our hitting was very strong. We won the first game 10-1 and the second 8-2. The Red team’s coach was actually coming out of his skin- freaking out with every success we had and every error his team made. He was yelling and screaming, the Red team’s parents were yelling and screaming at their own kids, and even the Red team players were yelling and screaming at each other. They came apart at the seams, while the Orange Crush playfully and skillfully dispatched the enemy. The only intimidation that occurred that night was our team’s forceful and overwhelming performance crushing the overly-aggressive Red team coach. It was a great night.






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