I Still Can't Believe It

I scored two goals in last night's soccer game! I totally rock. Just try and tell me I don't. I read today that only 6% of Americans are tuning into the World Cup. That's pathetic! I'm sitting here wondering what to do until Saturday when there's another match - I have absolutely loved watching the games. Those guys make it look so easy and have sick skills. I contribute my recent goal-scoring prowess to watching the games, but it's probably because the goalie had an eye patch and a third leg. I just don't get where soccer is losing mass appeal here. Growing up, at least in this corner of the midwest, almost every grade schooler plays soccer at some point. I mean, they have to or the "Soccer Mom" breed would die out, right? And god knows there's a truckload of soccer mom's piloting their mini-vans to practices and games at all hours. You can spot them with a keen eye - they're the ones with the subtle giant soccer ball sticker...

The most dreaded time in any pet owner's life is upon us. Cassady had some tissue/cells drawn from a lump and the results "strongly suggest sarcoma". We'll have a full-on biopsy done this week to determine the type of cancer and hopefully, give us a clearer idea of what stage the cancer is in. I can barely bring myself to consider the options. Each time I start to think about what we'll do or how we'll handle it, I find myself changing the subject in my head. Avoidance! It's my friend. Denial! It's the first stage. Or so they tell me. How in the hell am I supposed to make a decision? I find myself asking how much this or that will cost as if it matters. I don't care how much it costs - I just don't want to put him through the trauma of surgery and chemo and all of that without a guarantee that it will work. And of course there are no guarantees - I know this, but it doesn't help to know it. It's like the price tag is the onl...

Bah! I'd have to give the US team a D grade overall. They didn't really show up against the Czech's or Ghana and it was a pretty mediocre attempt all-around. As much as I'd like to complain about some of the calls the refs made, I won't because we still would have needed to score again against Ghana and who knows what might have happened in the second half if we had a tie going into it, but we didn't score again anyway. One lousy goal was all they could manage? Sad! So now, I am firmly a supporter of Mighty Mighty England. Go Lions! I might be rooting for Germany a wee bit considering my heritage is almost 100% German and I was conceived there. But I'm all England, all the time as far as the World Cup goes from here on out. I will root for England, but I will NOT, I repeat NOT eat a full English breakfast. Beans? For breakfast? Whaddya nuts?

Futbol Corn Dog Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . This is our sad attempt at turning Corn Dog into a soccer, I mean football. Why DO Americans call it soccer when the rest of the world calls it football? Could we not concede this one small thing and convert to calling it football? We could call American football something appropriately tough so as not to offend any of the delicate egos. Something like...Pigskinning. You know, they call the football the pigskin and the American Pigskinning League has a nice ring to it. Or maybe something less PETA-offensive. How about we just switch them up - soccer will be Am. football and football will be soccer. We could go with the short and sweet footie. I just don't think that word carries enough testosterone in it for American football players. It'll never fly. Dave suggests Cheeseball. Now that, I could go for. The American Cheeseball League. I think it's rather jingly! I guess we're left on the fringe on this one....

A few of my more loyal readers may remember a story I told a few months ago about The Great Squirrel Attack of 2006 . And either something is very wrong with my karma or I've had a bout of wrong-place-wrong-time situations with animals this year because the story I'm about to tell you is 100% true. Believe it or not. The Scene: I sat in the middle orange chair this Saturday. Minding my own business. Drinking cappucino and smoking cigarettes (man, I need to quit - I despise the habit and am ashamed to smoke sometimes.). Anyway, I was sitting here enjoying the sun and the weekend when I felt something land on the top of my head. Now, I'm sitting under a peach tree. A peach tree that has a LOT of peaches on it. Granted, they're not ripe and you wouldn't expect them to fall, but I've seen some on the ground already. Those that aren't making the grade are already being cut and tossed aside like yesterday's rotten rice. But whatever landed on my head bounced o...

I always thought it was "Aux Etats-Unis", but I guess if Babel Fish says it's Les, then fine. So. That was some World Cup game, eh? The positives: we played WAY better than we did against the Czechs and we scored a draw and not a loss. The negatives: what were those ref's thinking? That was, dare I say, an abomination of refereeing. Whatever. Maybe I'm overreacting, but damn, when Beas scored that goal that was wiped off by goalie interference hoo-ha, I jumped out of my seat. That would have been a gem! One sporting event down. Two to go. Go Cards! Go Oilers!

So far today, I've drank approximately 2 oz. of water and eaten four french fries and one bite of chicken sandwich and it's 2:30 in the afternoon. You could say I'm hungover and I would not argue. Blech. I'm sitting there last night, drinking bottle after bottle of wine and suddenly, it occurs to me that I'm drunk. Not just drunk, but if I had to walk very far? I'd be falling over drunk. Had I needed to drive? Uh, no. I'd have been sleeping on Kimblahg's couch - or floor since I'd probably have to fight the Nigerian Night Nurse From Hell for couch space. I guess I haven't been properly wine drunk in a while, so I've got that quota for the year covered. It's just amazing to me that the realization of being way over the loony line was so sudden. If thoughts made noises, that one would have been a thunderclap. Why am I such a moron sometimes? Is anyone else looking forward to a full weekend o' sports? I sure am. There's ...

I've been wanting to write this post for a few days now, but damn it's been a busy week all of a sudden. So yes, the birthday brou-haha was festive and fun. Friday, my actual birthday but just the beginning of the "birthday weekend", I skipped out on work, had lunch with my Mom and little brother D and went to the Cardinals-Cubs game. Lunch was interesting - first they sat us in a booth with a picture of a Cubs player hanging on the wall. I promptly covered him up with my placemat. Then as our food was being delivered, the waitress set down my plate and then proceeded to throw my Mom and Little D's food all over the floor in front of us. The poor girl about freaked out, but I told her it was OK because it was MY birthday and I had MY food. She started to cry. Hmmm. The game was a disaster. Not the whole game, just the part where our closer managed to walk the bases loaded and then our perennial gold glove 3rd baseman let a ball GO THROUGH HIS LEGS to send ...

Because I said so. Just do it. I didn't want anyone to worry so much as just know where I was at that time, I guess. I felt like I needed to explode, metaphorically and literally - I think it's a typical existential crisis that people have from time to time. Whether anything has been solved or not is not important - when does anything really get solved anyway? I mean yeah, the TV is broken and now it's fixed is one thing...my life is living me instead of me living my life is something altogether different and I don't know if any answer is the right one yet. I'm sure it's out there, but maybe I'm not asking the right questions to get to the answer I need. So I'm still learning and figuring things out. I really didn't expect so many people to be so concerned because of that post, but it warms my heart that y'all cared so much. My personal crisis counselors came to the rescue right quick and I appreciate it. Next up, a recap of the Big Bad ...

How I will celebrate my birthday: sleep in (check) check email (check) pick my nose and fling the boogs wherever I want dress the dogs up like hansel and gretel and make them do tricks for candy dress myself up like Jackie O and pretend to wave have lunch with my Mom Oops, I need to shower before number 6, obviously call the in-laws in California to thank them for the lovely birthday gifts and congratulate them for getting them here on time. show offs. not sure not sure go to the cardinals game in my sassy new jersey! (thanks Hundo!) go to a bar downtown (look at me! hanging out across the river!) pick my nose some more pass out Any ideas on what I should do for numbers 9 & 10? The more outrageous the better.