UT Soccer

The UT Woman's Soccer team has had several successful seasons and Mom and I had remarked several times over the past few years that we ought to go to a game. We went to a game many years ago - back when the kids were small and the team was playing at a level just above Intermurals. It was free, played on a PE field and we sat on the grass - until it started raining.

These days, it is an official NCAA sport, and they play at the Mike Myers stadium on the campus - a facility used solely for track and soccer (and bigger than 90% of the University and College stadia in the country). Friday night's opponent was arch-rival A&M, it was a pleasant evening, and Senior Citizens got in for four bucks, so we went.

Now if you know me well, you know that I am not fond of crowds and traffic jams, and we live in a Primo crowd and traffic jam city (as I write this there are 65,000 people at the ACL Music Fest in Zilker Park and 100,000 up the road at the UT-Arkansas game). Stay at home, stay at home! The traffic was manageable because after all these years of attending Woman's Basketball at UT we have worked out a back-road route to get down to the campus. In the evening, there is ample parking, so everything was cool there. We were there with only about 4,000 of our closest friends, but the traffic patterns aren't too hot at Myers, so it got a little confining for my taste.

They are working hard to make UT Soccer family-friendly. There were blow-up bouncing castles and slides and such in one end zone for the kiddos, tricycle races and youth team scrimmages at half-time. It looked a lot like minor-league baseball. Bring the kids and everybody have a good time.

Oh, and the game itself was okay. UT appeared to be the better team - though the game ended nil - nil (notice the clever use of soccer talk) after regulation and two overtimes. No shoot-outs at this level. But frankly you can see a lot better on TV. So perhaps the most interesting aspect of the evening was sitting in the (hard, hard) stands, listening to all the socializing going on around us. Parents in front of us explaining that they were not going to pay $7.50 for hamburgers and $4.00 for cokes (got to make up those Senior discounts somehow); the guy to our right hitting on four young ladies, explaining why they should join him and his three buddies; the women behind us who had no clue about soccer, but it was a good chance to catch up on the latest gossip.

And yes, we did leave at half-time. It was fun, but one half is about my limit of crowd and traffic events for a while. We'll do it again in 2012 or so.

Me - back to school?

Back when I was really retired, I got this idea that I could use some of this surfeit of time to study Spanish. Sounded like a good idea, right? I mean it is the minority in the majority these days, and besides, maybe I could understand what Mom says about me in Spanish, so I signed up for classes at Austin Community College.

Of the choices, the closet venue was the ACC building by Highland Mall - but only on Tuesday nights, 6pm to 9pm. Okay, that's not so bad - no football on TV on Tuesday. I can handle this. So here I go, brand-new student off to 1st day (night) of school. People, I can't even remember as far back as when I was in school; I would need a bigger calculator to figure it out! I've got my textbook, I have sharpened pencils, I have a notebook. I've even read the 1st chapter - "El mosquito es chiquito." "El elefante es grande." I can't believe I'm doing this.

Twenty-two of us, waiting patiently for la maestra and in walks Aunt Bea. You know, from Mayberry? A little old lady, gray hair up in a bun, with the notable Hispanic surname of Walsh. Oh-kay. Turns out Senora Walsh moved to Mexico City when she was ten and lived there most of her life. Teaching English. Now she's here, teaching Spanish, and she's very, very good. I learned a lot.

The most important thing I learned is to sit by someone who speaks English. The person next to me, with whom I was paired (this is conversational Spanish, after all), was fresh off the boat. Literally. She was born and raised in Scotland and has been in the States a very short time. I could not understand a word she said. Okay, we were supposed to be speaking Spanish, but I'm not sure she was. It didn't sound like what Senora Walsh was saying. It didn't sound like what I was saying. I just didn't know. And she was fairly fluent in whatever she was saying. She said a lot of it.

I think there's going to be a lot of blog material from this class.

Conversation in the car

Barbara: "Watch out for the cat."

Me: "The cat better watch out for himself. He doesn't belong in our driveway."

Barbara: "Stop! You're going to hit the cat!"

Me: "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty..."

Barbara: "I'll tell your daughter."

Me: (screech)

I swear, it was not me!

A confession before getting caught

Time: One morning this week

Location: Fran’s (our favorite breakfast place)

Characters: Mary, the little Hispanic lady who is always at the same table and Me (Barbara/Mom)

Mary: "You came by yourself this morning!"

Me: "Yes. And when my husband and I come this weekend, please don’t mention that I was here by myself."