Big Day, Already (Dave Finishes a Book, Installs a Ceiling Fan, and Prepares to Be a Soccer Fan)

 

I woke up early this morning and finished a massive tome (900-plus pages) I've been reading for two years: Reaganland: America's Right Turn (1976-1980) . . . this is the final installment in historian Rick Perlstein's series on the rise of the American conservative movement and while the books are exhaustive (and exhausting) they do remind you that there's nothing new under the sun— the playbook was the same: savvy conservative politicians harnessed anxieties about women and race and sexuality and crime and the lack of Christianity and family values in America . . . and the same tropes: scandals such as Hunter Biden and Billy Carter; optimism (make America great again!) instead of tightening your belt (and wearing a sweater) and absurdities—Carter's killer rabbit!-- and pretty much everything Reagan said about pollution (trees cause more pollution than automobiles?) and nuclear weapons (nuclear proliferation is none of our business? all the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk?) but despite Reagan's lack of policy and factual knowledge, Carter was no match for "the Teflon President," who could really deliver a speech and galvanize the corporate elites, the Southern whites, the evangelical Christians, and generally disaffected voters who were sick of inflation, high gas prices, the hostage crisis, and how the counterculture movement was bleeding into the suburbs . . . and not only did I finish that epic history, but I also finished the third Thursday Murder Club  Mystery (The Bullet That Missed) and I successfully installed a ceiling fan—alone! -- which is a crazy procedure; for a decent amount of time the fan housing and blades were hanging from a thin metal cable while I connected all the electrical wires and the remote receiver . . . but, unlike my plumbing debacle, the fan and the light now work like a charm (and neither leaks water) and really, my day has just started . . . now I'm off to play pickleball, then I'm going to acupuncture, and then we're headed out to watch the USA play Bosnia AND Herzegovina—it seems ridiculous that they have to play two countries at the same time.

The Method

At my age and fitness level, the rules of the game seem to be: no impact sports (pickleball, basketball, soccer, tennis) two days in a row-- and try not to play pickleball for much more than two hours-- and then right after playing an impact sport, go swimming at the YMCA in the colder, full-length competition pool-- just a few laps and some stretching and then a hot shower . . . and then you can actually walk into New Brunswick for the USA vs. Australia World Cup game and not look like a limping geezer.

Addendum: the method did NOT work today; I got a hamstring cramp at Destination Dogs while watching the game . . . not incapacitating, but maybe I shouldn't always swim after impact sports.

Saturday Stuff

I just refereed a soccer match on a very large turf field, and the center ref-- Carlo-- is seventy-five years old! . . . I hate the phrase "seventy-five years young" but in this case, it might actually apply . . . and then I took the cash I made from the game and pretty much fed it into my car and then I returned home for a break between games, and my son Ian, who I woke up this morning because I couldn't find any water bottles-- after searching and searching in the cabinets and the dishwasher-- my son Ian showed me that the two bottles I was looking for were sitting right in plain view on the counter-- pretty embarrassing-- but meanwhile, he's dealing with some sort of situation where he threw his blanket into his cactus, and now his hands and his blanket are covered in cactus quills, so we're all idiots (but I hope I can ref for another twenty years).

Knicks!

I am still basking in the glow of last night's epic Knicks victory over the Hawks-- the Knicks were up 51 points at halftime-- a margin large enough for us to watch an episode of West Wing before returning to the game--. I should tell you that West Wing is a very good show that we missed and still feels quite relevant (although also totally dated because it's a bunch of smart, talented, dedicated, clever, wonky folks running the White House) and this enormous early lead also assuaged my anxiety about missing game seven because I am scheduled to referee a soccer match on Saturday evening (also a fantastic Sixers win to stretch the Boston/Philadelphia series to seven games . . . things are looking up for the Knicks!)

Rocco Knows Best

Under the tutelage of Rocco the Assessor . . . The Assessor of Soccer Refs, I worked my first center, which I found quite enjoyable: the time goes fast, you have to really lock in and focus, you get plenty of cardio, and you have to realize that ten-year-olds fall down a lot, even when there is no foul . . . this was also my first time dealing with a build-out line, which is an excellent rule but does require a lot of reminding the offensive team to retreat on goal kicks and goalie possessions-- but it does encourage some passing and possession . . . and I got the hang of it, and the parents were well behaved, perhaps because I was in Metuchen, not North Brunswick.

Go Knicks!

My wife returns from Florida tomorrow morning, and then life will regain its usual rhythm-- not that I did anything wild while she was gone, it was mainly business as usual-- but I tried to do a bit of socializing even though my instinct when I am left to my own devices is to hole up and read and get high and strum my guitar: I went to Happy Hour yesterday at B2 Bistro, but I only had one beer (and then a Coke, which Cunningham roundly insulted for drinking) because I had pickleball practice at 7 PM and needed my wits about me (Terry also only had one beer because he was reffing a soccer match at 7 PM but he had a Diet Coke after his beer) and pickleball practice was fun-- my calf is healed and my new paddle seems to be functional (Vatic Pro V-sol Power) but because my friend Ann wasn't there-- her knee hurt-- there was only one other non-Mandarin speaker at practice and so I really did not understand exactly what was happening-- and then this morning I substituted for Catherine and had coffee at her friend Johanna's house (Connell and Adrian were there too, so I wasn't the only guy crashing) and I talked to my neighbor Pernille quite a bit about the state of education and AI (she's a Rutgers professor) and tonight I'm hanging out with Ian and his friend (and possibly Alex) for the Knicks game-- I'm buying sandwiches so that the youngsters will socialize with me-- but I will be very glad when Cat is back in Jersey.

Fan Fistfight in My First Game . . .

I refereed my first  soccer match today-- a U-15 game in North Brunswick-- and I was certainly nervous before I left the house-- checking my equipment, reviewing all the rules, making a cheat sheet of various fouls, but my wife said not to worry, that the assignor wouldn't "throw me to the wolves" for my first game, he'd put me with some experienced refs . . . and then I arrived and met one of the other refs and he was technically experienced—but not very-- he had done five games so far-- and then we waited for the third ref to show up, hoping it was someone with more experience than us-- and luckily the third ref, though only 21 years old, was more experienced than us-- he had been reffing for six years-- and then we ran into a hitch checking players and coaches in-- the coach for one team didn't have a game card and the coach and all the players need to have a game card-- but, after some doing, he was able to produce one electronically-- and then the game was fairly slow-paced for the most part, the players weren't that big and it was very windy and the field was kind of bumpy and lousy, so there weren't that many fast-paced attacks or brutal contact-- but with about ten minutes left, something happened in the far corner, so I couldn't see or hear it but I guess a mom claimed that a player grabbed his crotch or something similar, and then parents started chirping at each other and before we knew it, there was a fistfight on the sideline and other altercations were brewing and so the young center ref crossed his arms and ended the game-- and he was really out of sorts and upset-- he said nothing quite like this had ever happened to him before and he'd never had to end the game early-- so it was quite a mess and hopefully not indicative of future games (tomorrow I do a U-9 game, so it should be chillaxed).

Referee Imposter Syndrome

I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down to write something, but I'm too distracted to focus: apparently, I'm refereeing my first soccer matches this weekend, and I took the course back in November, so I need to review my notes, my pre-game checklist, practice my flag-pointing techniques, and check my whistle.

If Only My Right Knee Felt as Mediocre as My Left Knee

Another visit to Dr. Navia (and yet another cute young intern) for my right knee, which has been hurting pretty much whenever I'm not moving, so now I am headed for an X-ray on Wednesday, and then as soon as our insurance sees the X-ray and approves them, some hyaluronic acid gel shots that will hopefully lubricate this fucked up, worn out, overused leg hinge that I rely on for important and essential activities, e.g. basketball, soccer, snowboarding, and pickleball.

Betty When You Call Me, You Can Call Me Sir

I am proud to say that I have completed my soccer referee training, and I am now a licensed referee-- today I had to drive to Newark and do the field training, and I learned plenty: 

1) there are a LOT of nuanced flag signals for Assistant Referees to master;

2) do NOT blow the whistle when a goal is scored-- because you don't want to draw attention to yourself at a time when the players should be in the spotlight . . . just point to the center of the field, indicating that's where the restart will occur;

3) hold your yellow card straight up in the air, as you are warning the entire field of play what will and will not be tolerated;

4) do not wear your whistle around your neck; keep it in your hand, so as (and I quote) NOT to look like a "seventy-year-old-lesbian-gym-teacher."

Dave's Brain is Crushed with a Metaphorical Falling Goal

I endured seven hours of a soccer referee certification course today-- we viewed hundreds of slides, I took many pages of notes, we watched many videos of entertaining fouls, and now my head is swimming-- I am realizing it's really hard to make the correct call in real time (it's even fairly hard when you can replay a video several times) and one of the teachers -- a British fellow-- was a real stickler for using the proper terminology, which is tough because all kinds of Americanisms have crept into our parlance-- it's properly called the "penalty area" not the "penalty box" and it's a yellow card for "unsporting behavior" not "unsportsmanlike conduct"-- unsportsmanlike conduct is a fifteen year penalty in American football . . . and here's a situation the entire class got wrong:  if the goalie has possession of the ball and one of his own teammates punches him in the face, then because this is a striking foul during the course of play, the other team is awarded a Penalty Kick . . . so the moral here is don't punch your own goalie in the face when he has possession of the ball-- no matter what he said about your girlfriend (or whatever prompted this hypothetical insanity) and I also learned when to downgrade a DOGSO red card to a SPA yellow card (and a PK) and other such technical issues, such as the difference between SFP and VC . . . SFP is serious foul play and VC is Violent Conduct-- SFP occurs when there was some attempt to play the ball but the foul is excessive, VC occurs when there is no attempt to play the ball . . . both are red card/sending off fouls but VC is a worse suspension-- you also need to check the five S's-- shirt, shorts, shinguards, shoes and socks . . . and most importantly, make sure the goals are secured with sandbags or spikes, because occasionally players get crushed by falling goals . . . so that's priority number one-- and I'm sure this is a job like teaching, where you need a lot of experience and practice before you start to get things right-- I feel like I'm starting this path a bit late in life (there were lots of teenagers at the course!) but I think i'll get a better idea of what it takes tomorrow when I go to Newark for my field session.

There's No Offside on the Battlefield (but there should be)

No Civil War-related material today, as we drove home from Gettysburg this morning, and now I am slogging through my soccer referee modules-- which must be completed before my referee training next Saturday . . . perhaps I'll understand Law 11 by then (Offside).

A Well-behaved Toddler?

Stacey and I drove up to Morristown today to visit our buddy Cunningham and her incredibly well-behaved two-year son Quinn-- this was nothing like I remembered parenting a toddler . . . this kid listened (even when I told him not to kick this soccer ball, no matter what, and I was going to walk away . . . and you better not kick it when I walk over here . . . and he actually didn't kick it-- Cunningham was like "he listens to adults" and I was like "that's crazy") and didn't grab things in stores or run into the street or throw his food when he ate-- he's a lovely little observant dude . . . and I hope when he turns thirteen he gets into vandalism, petty theft, graffitti, parkour, and loitering, so Cunningham has to do some challenging parenting.

Pickleball Initiates the Severance Procedure?

During these troubled times, certain subjects are hard to bring up in social settings because of the controversy and awkwardness these topics engender-- for instance, I play a lot of pickleball with my friends Ann and Craig but we are NOT allowed to bring up pickleball in mixed company because everyone else gets annoyed, so Ann refers to it as "the game that shall not be named" and we do our best to keep our pickleball gossip on the DL . . . it's also hard to discuss current TV shows because of the general fragmentation of media-- no one is watching the same show at the same time and so you don't want to spoil anything, or talk about a show that no one has seen-- I truly miss Fridays at work the day after a new Seinfeld aired on Thursday night . . . there was something for everyone to discuss-- anyway, my wife is away in Savannah and so I hitched a ride to the brewery with Ann and Craig yesterday, so during the car ride, we were able to talk about pickleball and a TV show without being chastised-- we have all been watching Severance (but we had to curtail the conversation once we got to Flounder because we were meeting people) and then, at the end of the ride, Ann articulated her theory that synthesizes pickleball and Severance . . . she said that playing pickleball with all these various groups of people we've met, is like going to work in Severance . . . it's kind of wonderful, you just show up, you have these fleeting relationships with these people, but you really don't care that much about them because they're not part of you're "outie" life-- or that's not exactly true, your pickleball self cares about them quite a bit during the session and you see them quite often, yet you know nothing about their childhoods or outside lives and you don't think about them during your outie life and they don't think about you, you only know if they have a good backhand or fast hands at the net-- there's really no time or space to chat, it's not like golf-- it's a fast-paced game with lots of switching partners-- and then once the session is over, you barely remember what happened-- that's the nature of the game . . . it's not soccer or basketball where you might remember two critical plays, instead you hit the ball a zillion times, and you often felt like a hero and you also often felt like an idiot, so it all evens out and you remember nothing except it was a time-- but there are glitches in the severance, of course, because after Ann revealed her theory during the car ride, we saw a pickleball guy at the brewery!-- and we had a brief but awkward conversation about when and where we would next be playing pickleball and then he wandered away and we did not pursue further interaction, for fear of reprisal from Lumon.

Spring: Time to Shed Some Clothes (and Some Body Fat)

As usual, with the end of winter comes the annual "it's time to shed a few pounds and get in shape" portion of the year-- my wife and I are going to stop eating dessert after dinner while watching TV . . . which was perfectly acceptable behavior this winter because it was dark and cold and bleak-- but now the dark-times are over and it's time to shed the fat-- and my wife listened to some lady on a podcast (who might be an orthopedist? I would ask her, but she's in Savannah on a ladies' weekend) and this lady doctor on the podcast said it's all about various types of movement and that during the course of each week you should:

1) do four 45-minute walks-- you don't need to do crazy amounts of cardio;

2) lift weights twice a week but lift heavier than you might normally lift . . . 3-5 sets of weight you can put up 4-6 times;

3) twice a week, do four repetitions where you run "as fast as you can" for 30 seconds, then let your heart return to normal and do it again-- so four sets of these each session for a total of eight sprints a week;

and I like this routine as I can work this stuff in around pickleball, basketball, and soccer, but I did the fast running on Wednesday, at the park, and while it was fun and not all that hard while I was doing it, it was a longer sprint than I've run in a while-- full court basketball requires sprints but they are three or four second sprints-- same with indoor soccer-- and on Thursday and Friday my right quad was occasionally cramping up, maybe every eleventh step-- which made for some humorour walking around-- but my leg recovered and I felt great at pickleball this morning . . . I did the heavy lifting Thursday and my shoulder is a bit sore, but again, I survived at pickleball today, although my shoulder started to hurt when I was hitting into the wind, there was a stiff breeze today, and you had to whale the ball . . . so we will see how this new routine goes-- my guess is I will either get injured soon and be a total disaster or I won't get injured and get super-jacked and super-fit and everyone will be so impressed by my physique that they will put a statue of me next to Rocky at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Dave is Declared a Hero (of a particular sort)

I think for future generations-- so they understand what is happening around here-- I should describe just how much pickleball is being played . . . normally on a Friday afternoon, I would have already ingested several beers and be getting logy, but instead, I took a nap and I'm about to don my compression socks, visor, and knee-brace and head out with my buddy to the 7 -10 PM open play at Pickleball HQ . . . and then on Sunday, instead of playing in my normal indoor soccer game, I agreed to drive down to the Mercer Bucks Pickleball Club and was declared a "hero" for doing so-- it's a 35-minute drive-- because my brother desperately needs an eighth player in his game-- he plays with an elite bunch and most of them are playing in a tournament, so they needed an extra body . . . I was really trying to avoid getting involved in indoor pickleball, but they keep building places and my friends (and brother) keep getting involved in various games and it's honestly not the worst way to spend the winter because the weather is fucking awful.

Leverage Works the Same, Even If You Are Old (Mass is Mass, and I've Got Big Ass)

I really hustled today at indoor soccer-- and it paid off, I scored a goal and had a huge assist to keep our team on the floor-- but I am realizing that my only weapon against younger, quicker players is my substantial mass . . . in the open field, all I can do is contain you young motherfuckers, but if you get caught near the boards, I am winning that battle-- and it's too embarrassing to call foul on someone my age.

End of an Era

My dad passed away last night, down here in Naples, Florida-- a place he loved-- and he will be missed, by his friends, family, wife, and colleagues . . . he truly led an illustrious life-- a distinguished career in corrections and as a criminology professor . . . his progressive ideas, consultant work, jail design, prison educational implementation with football great and activist Jim Brown, and his work as an expert witness in prison logistics and best practices-- I often helped him with the writing of the expert culpability report and wow, you want to stay out of prison if you can help it, some wacky shit goes on in there-- but my dad did his best to allay those awful prison stereotypes and make prison a safe place for rehabilitation, not mayhem . . . my dad was also a great athlete-- a star-swimmer, a lifeguard, and a baseball, basketball, and football player and he taught me and my brothers to catch, throw, bat, shoot, and hit a golf ball . . . he loved family vacations at the beach, Cape Cod and Sea Isle City in particular and he was a patient and supportive father and the same as a grandfather, and always such a fan of my boys Alex and Ian, always at their tennis and soccer matches, and supporting them in all their endeavors-- he always expressed how proud he was of his family, he had a wonderful relationship with all my cousins, and he had a plethora of friends in both Naples and Monroe-- he made the best of the rare form of parkinsonism that plagued the last five years of his life, and even while suffering through all that bullshit, he was larger-than-life and his attitude and sense-of-humor were exceptional . . . we were lucky he passed the way he did, without becoming a tragic figure and truly burdening my mom beyond her cababilities, and instead he will remembered fondly as the legendary "Guy" from New Brunswick, who went a long way . . . I will truly miss you Dad and I couldn't have asked for a better father, and as my son Ian texted me: "he was the best Poppy I could have asked for."

Dave Keeps Overdoing It (Physically and Literarily)

I woke up feeling much better this morning-- I definitely had some kind of stomach/body-ache/low fever viral bug yesterday-- in fact, I felt so good that I went and played indoor soccer-- and my knee felt better than it has in a while, I was actually playing serviceable balls with both feet-- but then after soccer, I started feeling shitty again, and I think I'm running a low fever-- and the sci-fi novel I'm reading is not helping: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis . . . the narrative switches between a time-traveling historian who was mistakenly sent back to the year The Black Death ravaged England, instead of an earlier, plague free year-- there was some "slippage"-- and 21st-century epidemic in Oxford, caused by a dormant, ancient virus unearthed from a medieval archaeological dig-- it's a compelling book but there are a great many descriptions of buboes and fevers and bodily fluids and sickness in general, not ideal.

Friday Potpourri

Today felt marginally better than yesterday-- the sun was out and it warmed up to 40 degrees-- but we were still fairly chilly when we had an unexpected and rather lengthy fire evacuation because something started burning in a cooking class-- I was about to call it a fire "drill" but it wasn't a drill, it was an actual fire-- albeit a very small one-- which interrupted an important discussion in Creative Writing where I was informing my students that The Beatles were not fro the midwest, they were from England . . . seriously . . and I today also introduced my sophomores to the idea of a "very special episode"-- a concept from the 1980s and 90s where a normally humorous TV program tackles a delicate or controversial event with the appropriate gravity . . . the one I'll never forget is the WKRP in Cincinnati episode about the Who concert where 11 people got crushed to death . . . a total bummer . . . we had a very special episode of class today about the LA fires-- and it is to be continued next class!-- perfect . . . I'm going to try to make the lesson into a very special podcast because it would take too long to describe here and I've got no time to sit and write because I'm about to finish my week-long triathlon of old man sports on a bad knee-- I played indoor soccer on Sunday, morning basketball on Tuesday, and now I'm about to go play some indoor pickleball-- if my knee holds up, I'll be very pleased.