Do I wake or sleep?

Happy Friday, y'all! Hope everyone has plans for the glorious Memorial Day Weekend now upon us--I'm going home for 3 days, woohoo! Gonna lay out at the pool, gonna cook burgers on Mom's deck, gonna play some soccer and hang with Ryan's and my old roommate, Cami.

Speaking of soccer--so I played quite a bit last weekend. I posted on FB on Friday that I was off to play a league game (i.e., a game with an already-established team that needed subs) and then after the game posted that I'd scored the one goal our team made (we were beaten quite soundly, 8-1). I have to place this in context--the reason I was a little gloaty about it on FB was because I was picking up a weird vibe from one of the other female players, like she didn't think I was very good, certainly not as good as she. It annoyed. I love proving people wrong :) On FB one of my British friends posted "I had no idea you were such a foot!" and I responded with a long-ish analysis of my strengths and weaknesses as a player--basically, I am somewhat slow (especially compared to what I used to be) and I don't really have much in the way of tricks. I am a decent passer and trapper. But my main strength is I am RELENTLESS. I never, ever let the defense rest, I am *constantly* trying to score and guess what? I score. I convert. What I do ain't pretty (pictures of me playing soccer always make me cringe) but goals are how you win the game.

Saturday I went to a regular Meetup group in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx--this is a nice group of people, I've only played with them a couple of times but they're super-chill. One of them even hugged me. Scored a couple there as well, then went on to softball. I also met Tim to watch the Preakness where I cried sad tears because Orb LET US DOWN. Sad, sad, sad, no Triple Crown this year. Orb--boo, you whorse!

My regular league team had a game Sunday evening. It had rained much of the day, but most of us showed up anyway since the games were still on. But our opponents never showed so we got the forfeit. The ref told us we had the field and could scrimmage if we liked, so we ended up playing 6 on 6, and some of the players were extras (not team members, just soccer players who wanted to pick up a game). This is important, as you'll see. The extras, for whatever reason, were all on my team--my team was comprised of 3 regular players and 3 extras. Now, I love my team and we all have a lot of fun together--but I've said before some of the guys are not very good at passing to the girls. One in particular, Zack, rarely does it--I get that he really wants to score but he misses a LOT of opportunities when he never passes to me (I'm usually the girl who plays forward, and therefore in scoring position, the most). Just last week he and I were both driving to the goal--he had the ball and the goalie was confronting him. He should've passed it to me at the last minute (having drawn the goalie away, I had a clear shot)--but he didn't. He never does.

So, the final score was 4-2, and my team won. Guess who scored all four goals for her team? Yep. And it was because the extra players were PASSING the ball. Two of those goals were headers after a player sent a long pass to me over several opposing players--the ball came looping over to me and BAM I headed it in. This happened twice. The guys on my team who were regular players were thrilled and not resentful at all, apparently, and the extra players on my team were asking me things like "going for the hat trick?" Zack however was on the other team and I don't think he was too happy. Admittedly I could be reading into it but--I just had that feeling. He seemed pretty frustrated by the end of the game, was taking a lot of longshots (which we'd agreed we wouldn't do). After the 3rd goal I started playing back a little, to give the other players on my team a chance to play forward and score, and in passing the ball downfield I still scored a goal. I apologized to Vlady "sorry, that was meant to be a pass to you" and with a big grin on his face, he said "hey, don't worry!" Meanwhile I could not wipe the smile off my face. Guys, I've been telling you this. I score. That's what I do. My coach's nickname in high school was Green, Green, the Scoring Machine. Start passing the ball a little. I score.

[And it must be said--I'm considerably older than these guys! I woke up the next morning still grinning--man, FOUR GOALS. Off a bunch of guys in their 20s. Hellz yeah!]