Sunday
soccer
Last Practice of the Season
Volleyball and Soccer
Fall Soccer
Game Day
Saturday
Fall 2024 Soccer Season Starts
Anniversary
It’s been five years now since Nana passed. E is the same age now that L was then, and now L is only a few short months from being a legal adult.
A common theme in my writing is the suddenness and recurrence of my realization o f just how much time has passed since a certain event, and using that realization to project into the future with the realization that it will come just as quickly as this moment has arrived. Almost thirty years ago, for example, I left for Poland for the first time; project those same nearly-thirty years into the future, and I’m almost eighty, the age Papa died two years after Nana, now three years ago. See? I just did it again: created a loop of time.
In those five years since Nana’s passing, the GIrl has grown almost an entire foot; the Boy has reached a point that we just barely have to look down while talking to him. In those dunce years since Nana’s passing, the Girl has become a volleyball star and broken then re-broken high school track and field records; the Boy has picked up guitar and trombone as well as becoming a confident soccer player.
In another five years, the Girl will be finishing up college, lining up graduate school (with her interests, she will likely end up getting a doctorate straight away), and firmly established in a life of her own, a life without (to some degree) K and me. In another five years, the Boy will be almost done with high school, thinking about college, and probably still playing trombone and Fortnite. I’ll be creeping ever-nearer my sixties; K will be in her fifties.
With all this in my head, we go to Polish mass in the afternoon, and while everyone is getting the pot luck afterward read, the Boy heads out to the playground and it’s clear how much he’s changed…
Spring 2024 Tournament Day 2
Today was the final day of our short spring tournament. They boys played their hearts out, and they had a good time — the results (0-1-2) weren’t as important.
It was a bittersweet afternoon, though: it will be the last season this team is together. There are always some new members each season, but this team has had a little core for the last three seasons, and now it’s all over. Several of the boys (E included) will be too old to play on the fall team, and the coach won’t be working with U12s anymore: he’s moving up to the 18s travel team.
Coach M was a great coach, the only coach the Boy really wanted to play for, and we’re going to miss him.
In the evening, we went on our first ride of the season.
Except for L: she doesn’t like cycling, which is a shame.
Tournament 2024 Day 1
Last Practice Walk
Yesterday was E’s final practice of the season before this weekend’s tournament, so I went for my customary walk. When E started playing at this complex, the vew below was impossible: it was nothing but forest. For a year or more, the grading was done, and it sat empty. Now they’re finally building homes here.
I wonder how much development will take place over the summer. We’ll find out when fall soccer begins, but at the rate they’re going, I’ll bet it will be done.
More evidence that our area is growing too fast: they keep adding dwellings (primarily apartments) without upgrading the infrastructure.
In a few years, traffic will be an utter nightmare…
Soccer Hearts
Soccer in the Front Yard
It’s been a while since we had any sports in the front yard. Lately, though, the Boy has been asking to head out to play soccer in the front yard a little. With the time change, this is likely to increase — at least I hope so.
It, too, will be gone before we know it.
Saturday
K talked with Babcia again.
The Boy had another soccer game, which they won 6-2.
And spring is everywhere.
Soccer
A 2-0 win, so now the team is 1-1-1.
Spring 2024 Soccer Season
We’ve begun yet another season of soccer. We managed to get the Boy with the same coach he had last season, which made his day; several of the same boys rejoined the team as well, which made his day even more.
Soccer
Today was the first day of the end-of-the-season tournament for E’s soccer team. He didn’t participate last year because his team didn’t participate: it’s an additional event, with additional fees.
We went into the first game hopeful: the boys had beaten them a couple of times in scrimmages, but this, I believe, was the first time they played an actual game. It was tied 2-2 when the referee made an awful call, calling a foul on our goalie when it was clearly a legal play. He’d dropped to the ground to reach out and stop the ball, and the attacker fell on him. How that was a foul I’ll never know. No one will ever know. But the ref awarded the other team a penalty kick, and that put them over: our boys lost 2-3. Technically, they didn’t. But technically doesn’t count.
The Boy was devastated. For the first time this year, he was on the verge of tears about the game. “We tied them!” he insisted, and I agreed. Still, what’s done is done: refs make awful calls all the time.
The boys’ second game went much better, with a stunning 6-1 win. They’d played that team twice before, beating them both times. So we go into tomorrow’s games 1-1. We’ll see how it goes.
Autumn Soccer Practice
Evening Walk
While the Boy was at soccer practice, I took my normal walk…
Soccer Evening
