“If we are going to win, you all have to be shooters. That means if you have the ball, shoot. If someone is covering you, then pass. Only as an absolute last resort are you to
dribble.” Now, this might be good advice
for Manute Bol, but you do not teach this to 3rd-5th
grade beginning basketball players. You
also don’t teach them to do reverse lay ups.
And you absolutely absolutely absolutely absolutely absolutely
absolutely absolutely absolutely (it should be noted here that my strong
opinion here is such that I refused to cut and paste) do not fail to even talk
about defense in the first practice (and only practice before the first
game). You don’t put them on the spot to
shoot from any distance outside of 10 feet as an “introduction.”
I vowed long ago never to yell at any of my kids’ coaches (exceptions
include safety concerns and abuse….well no still no yelling. Just take him out back and “explain” that it
is unacceptable), but within he first .023984320482309 seconds of Cole’s first
practice, I almost staged a coup.
I am afraid that if I write more about it I will lose the
last vestiges of self control that I have left, so I will move on to other
rantings, namely the universe.
First off, I bought some new shoes yesterday, and I must say
that they are wonderful. Finding that
pair of shoes that fits just right is kind of like when Harry Potter finds the
right wand, or after sniffing and walking in circles my dog find the perfect
place to crap, or finding that place that makes the perfect burger.
Now I have developed a deep and sincere love for these new
shoes. The overblown (I mean come on,
they are just normal running shoes that look like every other pair of shoes
that I have ever owned) happiness that I have felt must have somehow screwed up
the universe, and the universe does not like to be screwed up by me. The universe only likes to be screwed up by
Ms. Universe. The universe has a little
quote from the bible that it likes to tell in situations like this.
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the
inequities of the selfish and the tyranny
of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds
the weak through the
valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost
children. And I will strike down
upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison
and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my
vengeance upon you.
So just sit right back and hear a tale, a tale of a fateful
trip that started in San Mateo aboard a tiny little VW Jetta ship. The mate was a mighty sailing kid. The skipper always on time. Two passengers set sail that day for a 2 hour
tour, a 2 hour tour.
The weather started getting rough, the timetable was
tossed. If not for the courage of the
fearless crew, the day would have been ruined, the day would have been ruined.
The crew set ground on the middle chair of this uncharted
UCSF floor with Cole, and Nurse Sarah too, the guy who bought a lottery ticket
and hopes to be a millionaire but not his wife(who was working). The doctor dude. The case manager and other patients here at
UCSF (for 6 bleeping hours).
I had it in writing that today was supposed to take 2 hours,
but noooooooooooooooooooo. We (while
reading this section you should have kind of a whiny, nasaly, annoying voice to
do the paragraph justice) want you to stay for 6 hours. We think that doing more testing that could
potentially help to cure you from cancer and save the lives of countless other
kids is important. (Back to normal (or
in the alternative a husky valley girl) voice) WHATEVER!! (What I just did
there was AH-MAZING…SO AH-MAZING.
The UCSF visit was fine, nothing noteworthy. After we were done, I drove so fast the
hounds couldn’t catch me. Down the 280
to the San Mateo. Got home. Grabbed Logan while Cole did a superman
change into his gear. We piled into the
car and broke a section or two of the California Vehicle Code, arriving at the
practice facility precisely 7 minutes before practice is scheduled to
start.
Hello universe (I bet you forgot that this whole story is
about how the universe tried to make me his gimp today). Thanks for coming by.
Practice does not actually start at 5. Noooooooo(start normal voice, then slightly
raise the pitch until the closest person to you smacks you for being
annoying.), it starts at 5:15 because there are girls playing volleyball on the
court. Really, volleyball is not even a
sport. First off there are 6 girls on a
side but you only get to hit the ball a maximum of 3 times. That means that each volley will, by rule
exclude half of the team. I saw that
movie and it was called mean girls. No
thanks. 2) There is a codified
do-over. There is even a hand signal for
it. Lame-o Blame-o C) the only good thing about volleyball is
the spiking. Spiking is an integral part
of volleyball and spiking should be done all the time. In fact you have my permission to go up to
any volleyball person and ask them to teach you how to properly spike. Make sure you use the word spike a lot so
that they know that you are serious about your craft.
Some of you are thinking that the universe threw me a bone by
giving me a 15 minute cushion. My answer
is two fold. 1. Did not need it. Crackerjack timing, that’s me. 2.
Pushing the start of practice back 15 minutes, necessarily (that is a
really hard word to use without the “not.”
Only other example I can think of is “Playing volleyball, while not a
sport, necessarily requires all persons involved to spike all the time.),
pushed the end of practice back 15 minutes.
Normally I don’t care because more time in the gym usually = more
awesome time. However, (see above), also
it pushed dinner back 15 minutes, and homie don’t play dat.
Today is February 4, 2014.
For those of you counting, we have eclipsed the three year mark since
diagnosis. Personally my anniversary
date is February 11th, because that is the day that we started the
first treatment of chemo. That is the
day that we started kicking Cancer’s ass.
That is my birthday. That was the
worst day of my life (kinda strange that getting the initial diagnosis was not
as bad, but for me chemo day 1 was the worst because it was not real until the
nurse hung that bag of fucking poison and pushed the button).
Peace out yo.
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