I played basketball for several years in junior high and high school. By "played", I mean that I went to practice, had my parents install a basketball hoop on the edge of the garage, spent a lot of time shooting through that hoop, went to basketball camp in the summer, and then, when it came time to actually play in a real game (which I did almost every game because I was tall), I spent a lot of time freaking out and getting totally spastic whenever the ball wound up in my hands (which it didn't often, because of the aforementioned freakouts). I swear to God one time I got a rebound, and I excitedly dribbled it out of bounds to where my coach was sitting on the sideline, to point out that I had, in fact, caught a rebound, and I wanted to know what she thought I should do with it. She just put her head in her hands and lamented the day she ever thought it would be a good idea to coach junior high school girls' basketball.
I like watching March Madness, though. I like watching stories like the one from Florida Gulf Coast University unfolding. I like watching the commentators on the first day get all punchy and silly after twelve hours of broadcasting. I like watching Charles Barkley pretend that he's watched more than five minutes of college basketball before the tournament started.
Speaking of Charles Barkley, I had a little brush with him when I was in high school. The 76ers used to have their training camp at F&M College in Lancaster, and they'd have exhibition games where you could go watch them. During one of these games Charles Barkley fell right in front of me, and I got his sweat on my legs.
So tonight I asked Jonathan to make dinner for me because I was feeling tired and pregnant. He was watching the SDSU game against that magic Florida team, and he didn't want to pause the game. So I got to pretend I was a radio commentator and called the game for 20 minutes. Here's a sampling of how it went.
"The guy in blue with the dreadlock ponytail has the ball and he's tossing it to some other guy who has green shoes, but it looks like somebody's trying to wrestle him, so I think that's a foul; I guess so, they're inbounding now, and there's a shot, and it looks like it's going to miss, so now the white team has it and they're going back down and the guy who looks like he's wearing Timberland's is going to take a shot, and the fans are on their feet, and the blue team sure looks like they have a lot of energy, and now they're passing it around the edge of the three point line looking for a shot, but there doesn't seem to be an easy shot, so now they're trying to drive it to the basket, and they get it, so now the blue guys are bringing it back..."
And it went on like this for a while until Jonathan finally said, "you're doing great, and you're really energetic, but the thing that's really important to me is what the score is, and how much time is left." Duh. I guess there goes my career as a basketball commentator.
Oh, and on a completely different note, it was Weird People at the Lake Day today. There was an old guy with a big belly and lots of gray hair on his chest (but none on his head)in the parking lot sitting next to his car in a folding canvas chair wearing, I kid you not, a green speedo, and that's it. I don't know if he was sunbathing, or a wannabe nudist, or what, but I was not amused that I needed to look at that just to go for my walk. People, if you feel the need to show off your beer belly in a speedo in a public parking lot, can you at least put up a warning sign or something so that those of us who don't want to see it can avert our eyes? #NudistManners
