Today was the final game of AD's basketball season. Given that everyone on her team - the Phoenix (a name that the girls came up with and voted on together, marking the first time in recorded history that a group of 8-year-olds participated in the democratic process without tears and/or revocation of birthday party invitations) is a full year younger than almost everyone else in their league, they did pretty well. This was the first year most of the girls had ever played at all, so it was a bit of a slow start but they got the hang of it and improved pretty quickly. Overall it's been a hilarious watching AD play, if that's what you could call what she does. She seems to have learned two things this season: 1. the basketball is made of actual snakes and herpes and should be disposed of immediately, to anyone at all, and 2. when she does screw up her courage enough to dribble it somehow activates a magnetic connection between the ball and her toe because she will almost always immediately bounce it off her foot. Play has often been a secondary concern at best; I think she spent more time dealing with a recently loosened tooth than she did on what was happening on the court. Last week in particular she obsessively wiggled it throughout the whole game. The only reason I didn't run out there and yank that thing out of her head myself was because the RM kept wedging herself under the bleachers which was awesome. It's a great group of girls (and parents) and she really did have so much fun, which is as we're always told "the most important thing". For AD it appears that the having fun component may always be the most important thing; I have a sneaking suspicion that athletics just may not be her strong suit. I am totally down with this because as far as I'm concerned the less cool she is, the better. Let me preface this by saying that the only thing I know about the business of being cool is either from reading or observation of others, but it has always seemed to me that excelling in a sport can help put you on the road to popularity. This is something I am totally unequipped for.
A little background is in order: I have always been a hardcore, enormous nerd. It irritates the hell out of me when some beautiful celebrity will go on Letterman or whatever and confess that they were "such a dork! I mean, I was soooo skinny and gawky!" Nice try, Ms. Diaz, but you're bringing a knife to a gun fight. I wore knickers to school. With a vest I made myself out of purple felt. I had a Dorothy Hamill haircut ten years too late, and to add insult to injury I permed that shit. In middle school I started a neighborhood newspaper which I would hand-deliver on my tennis shoe roller skates. During soccer games I would tuck a book into the back of my shorts so I could read when the ball was down field (that one particularly kills my parents and sister, to this day). I had a pet tarantula named Alfred. I was the one hiding behind those Foster Grants. "The Lawrence Welk Show" was appointment television. I actually was NOT, surprisingly, the recipient of a petition a group of MUS boys signed pledging to never ask one particular girl out on a date (no formal notification was needed in my case; the consensus was evidently so unanimous that ratification was unnecessary) but I did correct their spelling once I saw it. I once concussed myself by pogo-sticking into a country ham we had hanging in our basement. That might be more redneck than dork, but you get the idea. I've got bona fides. So when I see AD poke herself in the eye with her tennis racket, or try and make a basket on her own team's goal or do anything that's just awkward in general, there is a primal part of me that says aaah, yes, that is my child.
To be clear, it's not like I've peed in the pristine gene pool that JHP brings to the mix. Make no mistake, he has his own strong background in nerdery and I've got the DVD of his moving interpretation of "The Mikado" to prove it. So really, AD doesn't stand much of a chance. It's because of this that we've been more than happy to steer her towards the less glamorous pursuits, like science camp. Fields that she's probably genetically more inclined to enjoy. We're running a long con, too, because once those horrible teenage years rear their slutty head, who's more likely to be snorting coke off the quarterback's penis, the bendy head cheerleader or the kid from Robotics class with the encyclopedic knowledge of Harry Potter who has to be home by 8:30 to take care of her terrarium? I don't know for sure since I was never actually invited to those kinds of parties, but I'm banking on the cheerleader. Don't think that's going to be AD. And just so you know, I say that with clear eyes and no judgement; we're not yet emotionally able to speculate where the RM going to fall on the spectrum, but I will say that leading indicators point to high-fives all around if she's not incarcerated or pregnant by the 9th grade.
So, basketball. It really was a great season with a great group of people, no injuries and only one referee who may or may not have been on the take and you know who I'm talking about. I'm happy to say that at the end of the day, the mighty Phoenix rose from the ashes to finish in fourth place in the league. And that AD is co-captain of the 2nd grade math team.
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