Keeping It Real

After my mother died, we worried that my father wasn't doing the things he should do to take care of himself: you know, eat the right things, get the proper amount of exercise, see people, those kinds of things. Well, with the girls gone and LawyerBoy in the midst of a crazy summer, I have also exhibited those same signs of craziness.

I have slummed around here like I am a hermit. I should probably be worried about myself, especially after I did get dressed yesterday and treated myself to a Heath Bar blizzard for lunch. But after Angie informed the folks that Staples was having their back to school sale (kill me now), I had to get out and buy 50 million folders for 1 cent apiece. (Thank you, Staples Guy, for not making me go back and forth a hundred times to honor the 10 folder limit, 25 for teachers!!)

I am having an especially hard time keeping up with all the cheerleading paperwork this year. Ask me why? I couldn't tell you. First off, I don't know why the parents of a junior should have to do anything with cheerleading paperwork. I'm not cheering - I don't care what the point system for penalties is - I don't care if you chew gum or not and I certainly don't care if you wear your hair in a ponytail for practice. However, I have neither signed the form nor returned the unsigned form and you would have thought that the axis of the earth had shifted. Now, all this drama has not come from the coach, but from the cheermom (OMG, the cheermom - again, kill me). I never would have taken on this responsibility, but then again, I have real responsibilities - home, hearth, family, education.

When I was a high school athlete, my parents wished me well and I bicycled to practice. (Can you imagine?) We then ran laps and had two a day practices for tennis. I had more tape on blistered parts of my body than you can imagine. But did my mother stress over signed forms? I don't think there were forms to be signed. It was good luck and Godspeed, John Glenn. Did we have a team mom? Uh, no. We had a coach and she coached the hell out of us. Did we have snacks and cuddles and parents waiting and watching our every move? Uh, hell no. We got to buy a coke from the coaches' locker room every Friday after practice.

I remember one Friday afternoon when the coach was letting us into the locker room with the Coke machine and all of a sudden, she threw up her arms to kind of block the door and said, "Uh oh, girls!" Being right behind her, I kind of plowed right on into her back and into the locker room. And there, completely naked was the football coach who was, of course, my biology teacher. My coach and I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I think we stumbled over each other. And I believe she called my parents that night to explain why their daughter got to experience some biology up close and personal.

Everyone laughed. And I got an A that year.