Volleyball, Ice, and Joe Dirt (Not necessarily in that order)

I really hate ice. Ice is yucky. This is exactly the kind of weather that makes me want to turn my cars key in for the winter and hire a driver.

So today was our first day of snow. Oh the joy. I do not like to drive on the wet roads when the temperature is right around the 32 degree mark. Although it may not be slick, you aren’t sure where the ice might be.

And people turn stupid all of the sudden. Some people slow way down. Some people hit the gas and swerve in and out of traffic to show their annoyance. The combination of the two types of drivers equals lots of flashing lights and smoking dented cars. The temperature was 40 degrees when I picked up the kids from school (no ice whatsoever) and some major collision on Highway 2 had traffic backed up as far as the eye could see. People are idiots.

But that’s enough of the ranting. I prefer to move on to much happier topics. This weekend, for instance, was fantastic.

It started with the WELS Lutheran school volleyball tournament Saturday in Waco. Yes, you knew I had to talk about the tournament just a little bit. Both Mandy (8^th grade) and Joe (6^th grade) play on their school’s volleyball team. With only nine kids in grades 5-8, they have to play in order to field a team. The kids played in the B pool against other teams from Gethsemane Omaha, Plymouth, the little Waco team, and Central Lutheran (from the Norfolk area).

The kids have been practicing twice a week for the last month or so at Mandy’s club volleyball facility. I must say that having Mandy on their team (measuring 5’8’’) probably gave the Mustangs some advantage. She is probably several inches taller than any of the girls – and boys – her age. At one time during the tournament Mandy jumped over the net to tip the ball back down on one of the Gethsemane teams. Mandy said the Gethsemane coach just smiled and shook her head. Mandy also had some awesome serves. She was really hitting those back corners (a few even went a little long, which is a real change from the short serves she was making last season). Rick, acting as assistant coach, was giving her signals where to spot serve the ball. He said he regrets that he forgot his black binder so that he could slam the binder down -- Coach Cook style -- whenever the team missed the ball. Oh Rick.

Mandy was the only player on the team with any volleyball experience, so the team played mostly “dump” ball, which means they rarely bump, set, and spiked the ball, like Mandy is used to with her Magic club team. They just dumped the ball back across the net. When you don’t have a lot of players who can bump the ball successfully, you don’t want to waste time setting to someone who is just going to miss it.

However, someone told me that Mandy was a pretty generous player on the court. Several times she set the ball to her friend Braden, or her brother Joe, yelling their name so they could hit or spike it over. It was a great experience to watch Mandy and Joe working together to score points. It almost brings a tear to my eye. All that practice hitting one another has finally paid off.

The kids won all their matches and all their sets the whole day to make it to the championship match. And then things just fell apart. They let their nerves get the better of them and lost the first set of that last game. Things did not look good the second set either. Some of the kids were missing serves. Players were not moving their feet. Mandy was getting frustrated because she couldn’t make it across the court to return every ball. (We tried to tell her ahead of time that one person can’t be the whole team.) And then Joe gets up to serve. The kids’ teacher gets up and yells “Come on Bubblicious,” and promises to call him that all week if he makes his serve. (Joe’s nickname is Bubby, and he likes to call himself Bubblicious. I don’t know. He’s just weird like that. I have no idea where that comes from.) And as my sister Carrie has also mentioned in her blog, it was a turning point moment, just like when Lavonte David stripped the ball and turned the momentum in the Husker/Ohio State football game. Joe kept serving it over and we kept making points. He got the Mustangs back in the game and the crowd went wild. We won the set. There was a lot of yelling and cheering. The kids were jumping around and high-fiving on the court.

Then in the final set the kids started letting their nerves get the better of them again. But they kept fighting for every point and it went right down to the wire. Somehow the Mustangs made it to 25 points first. The kids were jumping up and down and yelling and screaming. The fans were jumping up and down and yelling and screaming. Even my mother was jumping up and down and yelling and screaming. I think my dad might have walked out in the hall. I guess we were loud. Go figure.

So Saturday was pretty fantastic. The kids got together with their friends after the game to hang out. Rick and I went out with the other coach and her husband and kept the pitchers and nachos coming at Grandmother’s. We watched the Husker lady’s lose their volleyball match and listened to some karaoke performers. I don’t think the bell curve was mentioned once. We had plenty to talk about that didn’t involve the long-distant past.

Sunday included even more sports. Joe played in a three-on-three basketball tournament with a few boys from his basketball team. It lasted the better part of the day and their record was 1-2-1. The game they tied was against a bunch of the players from Joe’s Spirit basketball team. I guess only one player threw one tantrum on the court. There are some serious characters on that Spirit team. That is a blog all of its own. Every game is worth watching just for the sheer entertainment value.

I painted myself just short of becoming silly with my sister and aunt Sunday afternoon. They painted Christmas ornaments and Carrie made a gnome. She wants to create her own little gnome colony so she can be hanging with her gnomies. She is so funny. Or else the whole Lincoln library culture is starting to get to her. As Joe likes to ask, isn’t there a pill for that?

On Monday we were stupid enough to agree to host most of the same kids from the volleyball team for some trick-or-treating. The boys tore up the basement beforehand, playing Wii and foosball. Joe dressed as a ‘70s police officer, with black afro and mustache. Mandy went out separately with her friend Megan. Mandy dressed as a vampire, complete with black mini-skirt and fish-net stockings. I said no to the bustiere, although I guess they got some whistles from a few neighborhood boys, none-the-less. But the real looker was Rick. He put on his Joe Dirt wig, cut-off t-shirt, Bass hat, and flannel shirt. He carried a beer can that he quickly chugged before they headed out. He carried it in his pocket hoping that someone would offer him another beer when they gave the boys Halloween candy. But he got no offers. Imagine that. What can I say, you can take the boy away from the rednecks, but you can’t take the redneck out of the boy.

Once Rick and the kids hit the streets, Carrie, my friend Melissa and I turned on the movies and broke out the wine. This year we watched “Clue.” Favorite lines: “To make a long story short…too late.” And, “Men should be like Kleenex, soft, strong, and disposable.”

We had very few trick-or-treaters. Most kids now seem to go to the big events, such as the ones at the mall or the zoo. I think parents think this is safer, and in some cases, warmer. The kids that do come around travel in huge packs. And they seem to be getting older and older. In a few years Rick might not be the oldest kid out there.

But that means more candy for me. The kids aren’t as easily tricked into giving me the stuff they don’t like. I guess I have to fend for myself.

So in spite of the crappy weather today, it’s been a pretty good week. I can’t complain, or at the least, I shouldn’t. I’ve got loads of leftover candy. The Bubblicious is ruling the school. And we are done with all the extra volleyball practices. Things are looking up. So I guess I should wrap this up and make a long story short…too late.

                                                                         Go Mustangs.

                                                                   I'm just a lucky girl.