So Much Fun

There was so much fun to be had last weekend ( the 10th and 11th) - and I made sure to get in on as much of it as I could.

Sunday was the World Cup final in South Africa, where Spain and the Netherlands faced off to see who would win the World Cup. I decided that for this game, I would break my "no sports on Sunday" rule and indulge (hey, once every four years isn't TOO bad). Also, since the internet streaming sites I had been using just weren't going to cut it this time (they worked, but Arabic is not my language of choice) I messaged another soccer-freak friend of mine, and plead to be included in her game watching party. So, it was me and three other couples (all coaches and wives) gathering around with plates of yummy food and watching together as we learned/observed some interesting things.

1. Spain plays a pretty darn good game whenever they're not rolling on the pitch in 'agony' (can we say flop?)

2. The difference between great teams and very good teams is the ability to finish at the goal, and defend; a lot of teams look pretty similar when the ball's at midfield.

3. The biggest new star to arise from these games was an octopus that outperformed the pro's at picking the winners.

4. Yeah, the ref's called a tight game (14 yellow cards and a send off is a record for the final) but the Netherlands were playing a pretty brutal game.

5. Man of the Match (for me) is Spain's keeper, who took some REAL hits, and kept playing for his team.

6. Humans can adapt to almost anything - including vuvuzelas.

And in the end, Spain became the 8th team to ever win a world cup, the first ever team to win the final after losing their opening game, and the first European team to win a World Cup hosted outside of a European nation. But the real winner here (in my opinion) is South Africa. Why? Read this. If I tried to explain it, I would end up plagiarizing it anyhow, and that wouldn't be good.

But, even better than the World Cup was the day I had BEFORE the World Cup.

After taking my mum to that AMAZING play at the end of June, I wanted nothing more than to be able to share it with the rest of my family too. It killed me that tickets were so gall-durn expensive (cheapest were $100). Even worse, when my mum and I were there, there were empty seats scattered all throughout the audience, 3 right in front of us! How could people let these seats sit empty??

So last Wednesday, after checking and finding that Saturday's matinée still had 100+ empty seats, I called the theater in desperate hopes that I might be able to finangle a discount of sorts and take my da and sister to experience the magic. (Sadly, my brother didn't come visit till the next weekend, or I would have made him come too!) Come to find out, any tickets that remain unsold an hour before the performance starts become standby tickets, and are then sold for $25. So I did some calling, twisted some arms and freed up schedules for Dad and 'nae and arranged to meet for the Saturday matinée.

I wanted to get there a few hours early because I figured the line might get long later on. Da and I drove down together, and unfortunately wound up getting stuck in traffic, :( I was right. People started lining up for that show at 8 in the morning, and when I arrived, there were only 47 tickets left, and I was ~48th in line. Talk about tragedy and lots of almost-tears! That was a long hot drive and a lot of cancelled plans, all for naught!

I was on the verge of walking into the box office and buying two tickets at full price in order to make SURE that they got in at least - I had already seen it, and could kill time elsewhere - when lo and behold! a really nice girl (wearing the blue shirt) walked up to me with an offer I couldn't refuse. She had heard me mention that we had driven all the way down from Idaho and felt terrible that we wouldn't get tickets. Turns out some of her friends weren't going to be able to make it, and I could have their place in line if I liked. That jumped me from 48th to 5th, and miracle of miracles, we got our three tickets.

Again, of course, it was a fantastic performance. It was the second to last performance featuring Audra McDonald and Will Swenson - and it was so amazing to be able to share it with those I love.