Sad play, sad day

So Saturday was my second appearance on a volleyball court in 2009.  Our first effort way back in April did not go well at all. I was hoping for better results this time around.  I originally was concerned about the weather.  The forecast I saw showed temps in the 50’s in the morning.  I came prepared with a full set of sweats in tow.  I didn’t need them at all, by the time I got to Lauderdale it was relatively warm.  The weather was actually close to perfect for volleyball, overcast skies, mild temps and minimal wind. 

There was a light turnout for the event, so light that they wound up merging the A and BB pools.  Of course doing so put a big dent in any hopes of advancing very far but at the time I didn’t really care.  I just wanted to play half decent.  There were three pools of four.  We caught another break being the number three team on the net.  We were the only team that did not have to play a back to back game on the net.  Things were falling into place for what could be a strong showing.  All that was left to do was to take care of business on the court.  We failed miserably.

We established very early on how the day was going to go.  We were going to commit tons of unforced errors and the other team would just keep the ball in play until we did so.  Ball after ball sailed out of bounds, it was almost like we never played before.  All facets of our game were bad, serving, setting and hitting, we were equal opportunity suck.  At first I let the bad play roll off my back, eventually it really got under my skin.  After Randall would hit a ball out I would pray the serve came to me so I would have a chance to drill a ball to turn the momentum.  The problem was when those serves did come to me I couldn’t do shit with them.  I am still 0 for 2009 as far as delivering what I would call a clean hit.  It was just incredibly frustrating.

So after losing our last game to a hispanic guy wearing a marijuana hat and some young 16 year old that did nothing but poke the ball our day of volleyball futility was done.  Sometimes in the past when Randall and I have played poorly we would discuss the specific areas where we had problems.  In this case the problems were so massive there was no discussion, there was no point. 

Jeremy had talked about coming down to watch us play.  By the time he called us it was getting close to noon. We had already been eliminated so we decided to instead meet up with him for lunch.  I was quite anxious to forget the atrocity on the vball court.  When we got to the Ale House Jeremy, his wife and their little boy were there.  I never met Connor in person but had seen plenty of pictures of him.  He’s a cute little kid.

Hoping to drown my sorrows I dug into the buckets of Bud Lights.  Jeremy’s wife and little boy left before we ordered food so it was just the three of us left to act stupid.  Jeremy pulled out his expensive camera with it’s massive zoom lens to show us.  He planned to use it on us at the beach.  Well since that obviously didn’t happen he instead started pointing it around the restaurant at people/objects.  I’m sure people were like WTF??

After we finished our second bucket of beers we somehow got back on to the subject of physical challenges.  Jeremy once again brought up our 300 face off and once again started whining about the terms of it.  Well somehow that discussion morphed into us being in the parking lot standing behind Randall’s Dodge Ram with the tail gate down.

The challenge was to see if we could jump up on to the tailgate of the truck which was probably a good 3 + feet high.  We decided to let Randall go first, especially since he confessed his rather large current fighting weight.  Both Jeremy and I had severe doubts that Randall would be able to propel his fullback size body upward.  On his first attempt Jeremy and I looked like prophets as Randall came up short, banging his shin violently in the process. All of this went down while Jeremy was shooting video of the event with his camera.

Undaunted, Randall was ready to try again.  He jumped and got his feet up on the edge but was unable to stand on the tailgate, instead bouncing right back to the ground.  Jeremy and I both said this still was not an “official” jump although we knew Randall was extremely close to pulling off the stunt.  On his third try Randall finally sealed the deal, winding up on top of the tail gate cleanly, standing upright as he triumphantly shot us both the finger while shouting obscenities, his normal celebration antics.

So now the gauntlet had been thrown, Jeremy and I HAD to do it as well.  Jeremy went first.  Jeremy was concerned about slipping on the plastic covered tailgate so he opted to cover it with a towel.  He did some in place jumps to gauge if he had the height necessary to get on the gate.  It didn’t look like he did.  After some funny looking warm up moves Jeremy launched himself upward and got on the tailgate but put his hand down en route, disqualifying the jump.  He returned to the ground, reset and tried again, this time he made it.  He waved his hands around in an emo manner that Randall and I immediately chastised.  But hey, he did it.

That only left me to complete the stunt.  To be honest I was quite skeptical if I would be able to pull it off, especially after playing three games of sand volleyball, poorly.  Like Jeremy I did some in place jumps as a test to see if I had the height and like Jeremy, it didn’t look or feel like I was high enough.  Oh well I had enough alcohol in me to throw caution to the wind, I was ready to go.  I swing my arms, bend my knees and find myself standing on the tail gate moments later!  I made it on my first attempt!

My celebration was immediately cut short by shouts from the crowd saying I stepped into the jump!  I could have sworn I took no steps but the judges insisted I took a baby step with my left foot before I jumped.  Ok, ok fine, I’ll do it again.  I get down, wind up and again jump successfully on to the tail gate.  Again I am accused of cheat stepping and again I swear I’m not doing it.  Ok fine, I hop down and get ready again.  I move slightly closer to the tailgate this time, jump and finally no foot fault is called, the jump was clean!

I can only imagine what restaurant patrons were thinking as they saw us three numbskulls jumping on and off the back of Randall’s truck as we filmed every moment.  It had to look ridiculous.  Things got even crazier when Jeremy encouraged me to do a another jump shirtless, followed by a ridiculous impromptu posing session afterward.  Yes there are pictures of all of this. 

Well the competition was just what I needed to to forget the volleyball nightmare of a few hours prior.  After dropping off Jeremy at his in-laws Randall took me back to pick up my truck.  I’ll be seeing him in a few days as he is coming over next weekend.

So for some reason I gave no thought of my gas gauge before starting the trip back, I always fill up on the east coast before driving back across the state.  Well it didn’t enter my mind until the gas light came on just as I turned on to Oil Well Road.  I had planned to stop at the Publix grocery store in Ave Maria to get a few items Ali asked me to get.  My thoughts were I could get gas there as well.  As I drove on the light was getting brighter and brighter and the gauge was dropping quickly.  I have never run out of gas.

As I pulled into Ave Maria I was looking around for a gas station.  None were to be seen anywhere.  I was listening to the Stern show on Sirius as I drove along.  I almost felt dirty for doing so.  I turned down the volume so the show wouldn’t be broadcast out the open windows to offend a town christian.

 I headed into the Publix.  Ave Maria opened a few years ago right as the building boom had started going bust.  As a result the town surrounding the brand new catholic university is damn near abandoned.  The last time I heard they had sold about 10% of the housing.  Well this was very evident when I went into the store.  Every row was perfectly faced, stocked to the brim with products.  There were literally more employees than customers, many more.  It was very weird walking the aisles, feeling like I was shopping in my own personal store.

When I checked out I asked the clerk if Ave Maria had any gas stations.  As I feared the answer was no.  I had no choice but to hope I could get to the gas station some 10 miles away at the corner of Immokalee Rd and Oil Well.  I went in to extreme gas conservation mode.  The AC was off, the windows which were all the way down went almost fully closed to reduce air drag, all gas pedal movements were slow and steady.  I applied the minimal pressure to maintain 50 mph.  At this point the fuel gauge was far lower than I had ever seen it before.  The warning light was going from yellow to orange.  I had nightmares running through my head of having to call Ali to come bring me some gas.

Finally I saw the lights of the intersection in the distance.  I continued to baby the truck, watching the tachometer, hoping I wouldn’t see it suddenly drop to zero.  I breathed a big sigh of relief as I turned into the station, I made it barely.  I put 16.5 gallons into the truck, a full gallon and a half more than I have ever used previously.  It had to be running on just about fumes.

So I got home and walked into Ali in the middle of a cookie baking frenzy.  She had been baking cookies for the majority of the day.  Pretty much as soon as I was done unpacking from the tournament I jumped into dish clean up duty.  I was not in a great mood after stinking up the court in volleyball and almost running out of gas on the way home.  I also had ideas in my head about all of the shit I had to cram into the following day, it didn’t make me happy.   

So I woke up Sunday around 6:30 even though my body could have certainly used some more rest.  I began my normal pet maintenance routine which starts off with emptying the bin in the automatic litter box.  I pull back the cover and see there is nothing in there.  Instantly I knew this wasn’t good.  Spook has still been eating and drinking regularly and the box always has something in it each day.  Well when I walked to the front of the house I was whacked in the face with the smell of ammonia. After using my nose to follow the trail it took me to a spot next to the Christmas tree which also had several nice pieces of cat shit as confirmation.

Ok well that pretty much sealed the deal.  As I began the wonderful process of cleaning up the area I knew that this was it.  I was ok with dealing with the other symptoms of Spooks declining health but using the rest of the house as a toilet is a game breaker.  When Ali woke up I told her of the incident and she already knew what I was thinking.  Before Ali left for her run I had pulled the tree to the side and soaked the area with the carpet cleaner to try to get the stink up.  The cat could have very well gone other places in the area as well, who knows.  I formed a barricade of chairs, a child gate and some storage cubes to prevent Spook from reentering the area to relieve herself.

As soon as I saw the shit a wave of sadness hit me.  I knew it was time to have her put to sleep yet the anxiety over the actual event weighed a ton on my mind.  The rest of the day it clouded my mood.

Ali had a big 8 mile training run Sunday morning so I got busy on the things I wanted to do.  Staying busy was the best way I could think of to not dwell on the cat situation.  One of the things I wanted to do was get gas in the motorcycle.  Sure I could have just filled up a 5 gallon container at the gas station and used it to fill the bike at home but what fun would that be?  I backed the bike down out of the shed and fired it up.  I had not driven a motorcycle for over a decade so I decided to take a few laps around the back yard.  The first thing I noticed was I didn’t fit on this bike very well.

Dad had a different seat put on the bike.  My long legs felt very cramped and my knees wanted to naturally rest on the cylinder heads instead of the gas tank, not a good thing.  The awkward leg position also put my feet in a less than ideal angle to work the shift and rear braking levers.  I did some slow loops around the yard as Sadie chased behind me excitedly.  Nicki watched at a distance safely on the hill by the pool.  After several laps I felt acclimated enough to hit the road.

Now yea I know I don’t have a motorcycle license yet.  But I figured it was a short 2 mile ride to to get gas, my risk level was low enough in my mind, it wasn’t like I was going to be popping wheelies along the way.  I strapped on my helmet and off I went.  It was cool outside so the jeans and sweatshirt I had on was definitely proper attire for the conditions.  Other than a brief burst of speed to accelerate to the 45 speed limit, the ride was totally mundane.  I did have some issues shifting with my foot position.  A couple times when I thought I was hitting third gear I instead popped it into neutral.  It was nice to only spend $7 to fill the tank though.  I returned home in one piece.  Yes I fessed up to Ali that I took the bike out.

I also worked on getting some stuff out of the garage and into the new shed.  Doing so really opened up some space in the garage which will hopefully sometime be utilized housing a new Camaro. 

The Eagles put a beating on the Falcons.  Both Ali and I fell asleep for a good portion of the game though.  The Falcons seem like a shell of the team they were last year, of course having Ryan and Turner out hurts them a lot.  Michael Vick had his best day as an Eagle by far, running for one TD and throwing for another in his first return to the Georgia Dome since he was thrown in jail.  He was visibly thrilled to perform well in front of the fans that supported him for years.  I heard him breaking up in a post game press conference when he tried to describe his feelings.  Yea Vick has been pretty much a bust as far as the Eagles offense goes but I really do think he is a changed person which is good to see.

Coupled with the Cowboys going down to the Giants, the Eagles now share first place in the NFC East.  I guess I need to hold on for the roller coaster that is sure to be the last few games of the season.

Wow I would hate to be a Redskins fan.  I saw the last part of their game with the Saints where they basically went from having the game wrapped up to instead losing in overtime.  I hope they had a suicide watch on the Redskins kicker.  To blow a chip shot field goal like that which would have sealed the game has to be devastating.  If he isn’t on the waiver wire this week I’ll be amazed.

Like I mentioned before the entire day sort of had a shadow cast over it because of the Spook deal.  Just thinking about the putting to sleep process was enough to make me emotional and it hadn’t even happened yet.  It is in some ways worse because I now know what to expect since we went through it with Buttons last year.  We are supposed to meet at the vet today at 1:30 for it to go down.  I don’t know if “dread” is a strong enough word to describe what I am feeling right now.

I do realize that once it is over with I will be relieved in more ways than one. It’s just the mountains of sadness you have to go through first to get to that point.