Victorious…a couple times, mall madness, Eagles scrape by

It was a busy, exhausting, but rewarding weekend. Saturday was my holiday volleyball tournament over in Fort Lauderdale. I came into it with zero expectations and a determination to relax and not get so bent out of shape if things go wrong. It just isn’t worth it. The weather was quite different from what I am accustomed to playing in. Instead of 90 degrees and 90% humidity it was in the lower 70’s and low humidity. Ali was along and she was actually cool enough to be under towels throughout the day. However it was great weather to play in. The last time I played at Lauderdale it was a mess. The sand is deep and I played like shit. There were 2 nets in the BB division. I had not even looked at a volleyball since South Beach so I knew there would be issues with being out of practice.

Our first match was against 2 asian young guys. Historically, every Asian player I play is lighting quick, can jump like mad and generally frustrate the hell out of me. We were a bit lucky as they were out of practice as well, just like us. I guess we were a little less out of practice as we won the game 15-7. Our play was not flashy with bullet serves and rocket hits. It was more hustle around, save a ball here, place a shot there, make smart serves, kind of play.

Our second game was against some guys we have played before. It was back and forth for a little while but then we took control of that game and won 15-8. Our 3rd game was against 2 tall, lanky, high school kids that were very good indoor players. We had a marathon game with them that drug on forever. We wound up losing the game 15-13 or 16-14 (I can’t quite remember) Even though it was still relatively cool, we were both very tired. Even with the loss, our 2-1 record and point differential was enough to get us a first round bye.

I had been drinking a lot of energy drinks through out the day. They help wake me up and concentrate. As our first playoff game approached I just got finished with a huge Monster energy drink. Although I drank a lot of these, I didn’t eat a lot of food as well. As a result, during that first playoff game, I had a very odd feeling of being hyper yet feeling like I was totally out of gas. I needed food badly. So during side changes I would run over to the cooler and inhale a cereal bar to try to give me some much needed fuel. Eventually I felt better and it came in time to help us pull out the playoff win. The team we beat was another pair of youngsters (early 20’s) that had beaten us in Clearwater. It felt good to exact some revenge and beat the young guys with some more hustle and grit. They were a very fast team. We beat them by somewhere around 11-8.

All that was left were the finals. We were playing the kids that beat us in pool play. They had beaten their 2 playoff opponents rather handily and were ready for more. They played a number of long games all day yet didn’t seem any worse for wear. This game was even longer than the pool play match. They got up 7-3, then we came back and were up 12-8. They came back and we were only up 13-12. These kids made some unbelievable saves. There were several times that Randall and I thought we won the point and were ready to celebrate, when the kids would make a leaping save and keep the play going. Randall was beyond tired. I was tired too but had a little left in the tank yet. We finally got to game point. Randall passed the kid’s hit and it was up close to the net so I made a flash decision to take a whack at it and end it. I hit it off the one kid and it went out of bounds, we win. It was beyond sweet to win. It took all season but we finally came out on top, it felt good. It’s ironic that the tournament that I had the least expectations of, had the best result. I guess it set a good example for me to follow in the future. Getting bent out of shape is not very productive for anyone. The prizes for first place left much to be desired but it was the win that mattered most. We had a celebratory dinner at a cool place across the street and then scooted back across Alligator alley. On the drive back I had a brief period where my peripheral vision had some weird distortion in it. Then that night, I woke up briefly to a freaky feeling of my body weighing 500 lbs. Almost like instead of your arm being asleep, your entire body was asleep. When I relayed these things to Ali she expressed concern about my overuse of the energy drinks along with me taking a vioxx in the morning to combat knee swelling. I’ll cut back on the Red Bull.

Sunday morning we invited our neighbors over for a brunch like thing. After they left we decided to go out and do some xmas shopping we couldn’t get done online and then go to the movies. Sounds innocent enough. I gave it little thought even though the plan was to go to the mall. Go to the mall a couple weeks before Xmas on a Sunday. It hit me as we turned into the jammed parking lot. Cars were circling the lot like sharks, hoping to snake a spot. I preferred to avoid that crap and instead wound up parking in the grass out along the border of the parking lot. Oh well, I thought to myself, I can take it, we have a limited list, we’ll get in, get out, it will be fine. I took a deep breath and stepped inside the mall. Immediately the noise and hoardes of people make my blood pressure jump a few points. I hold onto Ali’s hand and we begin to weave our way through the crowds. At first I was fine, this isn’t so bad, just relax. We picked up our first few items without major drama. Then we went into Bath & Body works. The BBW store at our mall is not very big but it was packed with people. Evidently their stuff is a favorite gift item. Well I too needed some of their stuff to round out my list so we ventured in. Only small steps could be taken and you couldn’t pause for very long at any one item because the backlog behind you kept pushing you forward. If you saw something you wanted to look at closer, you had to go into a holding pattern and circle back around. It was ridiculous. I started to lose it. We picked up our items and managed to get in a line. The checkout girl was pleasant enough. We gave her our items and told her we also wanted to get a gift card. “Fine, I just have to call it in” I didn’t say anything, but exchanged “WTF” glances with Ali. Call in a gift card…. It took awhile. Finally she completed the gift card part of it. Ok, here is your total… I hand her my CC. “I just have to call this in, our lines are busy” What the??? Now my glances with Ali are more prolonged and aggravated. This process takes even longer. As we are standing there, I am watching people on either side of us paying with their credit cards and going on their merry way. While the girl was waiting on the phone, I asked her what the deal was. Why were others paying with CC and I was the lucky one who had to get his verified circa 1973 style? She said the lines were busy and it randomly makes certain registers verify this way. I grumbled a bit and waited for the phone approval to complete. F’in stupid. That incident ruined any chance I had of escaping the mall with my good mood intact. After that I was grumpy. There were a few things that were a bit vague as to what we were going to get and going in one swarming store after another to try to find stuff just sucked. Finally we got our last item and left. The fresh air felt wonderful. I hadn’t been in a mall during an Xmas weekend in years, I don’t plan to do it again. I noticed that pretty much every retailer we dealt with wanted our home phone number, what is up with this? They pass it off as fraud protection but I’m sure it just another way to do customer profiling. Grrrrr.

We got done with the mall misery in time to do the tentative part two of our plan, go see National Treasure finally at a matinee. It still was rather full but we got good seats. It was a good flick, nice action, interesting plot with lots of twists. The bad guy in the movie seemed to either have ESP or the best luck any human being on the planet has ever had with some of the things he managed to figure out but other than that, it was enjoyable. I’d recommend it. Makes you think about the Masons in a different way.

When we got home I made myself pay the bills so I could see first hand the horrendous cc recipts from the holiday gift buying. It really needs to get under control. We spend way too much money at Christmas. By the time the bills got done it was time for the Eagles game. One of the down sides to rooting for a good team is they get a lot of primetime games which equal late nights. The game was a close, hard hitting affair. I was too tired to be very animated through most of it. My most angry moment came in the 4th quarter when the Birds had the Redskinds dead to rights, 3rd and 15. But instead of sending pressure, they drop into a pillow soft zone and leave a guy wide open who picks up the first down easily. It really pissed me off. The Skins qb isn’t great but if you apply no pressure he eventually will find an open man. The Eagles got lucky and managed to squeak it out in the end when the defense got smart and applied some pressure, causing Ramsey to fail miserably on their last gasp effort. The Bird’s defense got hammered with injuries. I hope they aren’t as serious as they looked. The need to be healthy going into the playoffs. What was up with Jevon Kearse acting like someone shot him one second and then be fine 2 minutes later? He did this 3 or 4 times. Weird.