Chelsea, Chelsea

It’s frustrating to love Chelsea. 

Not because they do things wrong or play unfairly.  In fact, when the whole squad is up and running, they are a beautiful team to watch in action.

It’s getting the whole squad (or even a majority of them) healthy that becomes so frustrating. Injuries happen. Of course they do. You can’t love football without a very real knowledge of that. But sometimes it seems like they happen more often to Chelsea, doesn’t it?

As unexciting as the Newcastle game may have been on Saturday, I was just happy we won.

Given that Lampard and JT are injured, Cech pulled himself out of the Blackburn game (always a frightening thing to witness, as the man does not go down easily), Cudicini is injured and Drogba is playing for his country right now…it feels like we lost the heart of the team with these players being out.

On an upbeat note (I’m trying here), it was nice to see Sean Wright-Phillips out there doing a good job. And Joe Cole is still out there giving it his best. All is not lost. We are in third. Drawing against Aston Villa was abyssmal. But we are still in third.

An we will play on. We will persevere. 

Because this is what it is sometimes to love the Blues. 

Christmas Mother

My mom came over for Christmas. As far as I was concerned, things went pretty much as I expected they would. She came over for a nice dinner and to get her gifts. I know she probably believes she came over to spend some quality time with her youngest daughter, but in the real world, it’s not that Norman Rockwell painting.

 For the first time though, while I was pretty accepting of what I consider to be her typical behavior, Phil seemed to really see it for what it is. My brother (Erik) called when she was there. She grabbed her phone and proceeded to chat with him for about 30 minutes.  Chatting on the phone while at someone else’s house seems fundamentally rude to me, but it’s nothing unexpected, so I didn’t think much of it.

It was the content of the conversation that really disturbed Phil.

As Phil states it, she couldn’t stop gushing  about Sonja to Erik. How much like herself Sonja is. How great Sonja is. How great the times were when Sonja was first born and she took her in a stroller down to the beach. She then threw in a trite line that “of course, we had good times once Erika came along too.” I just let it slide off. I have always known Sonja was the favorite. Now she has Erik to worship as well (because he is a lot like her, in terms of his love of adventure, motorcycles, animals, etc).

Phil was disgusted that she sat in our house and couldn’t stop going on about how wonderful and perfect Sonja and Erik were. It was the content of what she was saying, but it was also the complete lack of awareness that she was doing it in my house.

The thing is – there’s no explaining to her why this behavior is rude, thoughtless and out-of-order.

She is not intentionally malicious. She’s just thoughtless and self-absorbed.

And I have come to accept that without getting angry. Because I don’t need the anger. It’s not good for me. And it’s not worth it.

But Phil really saw up close how I was raised in that conversation and the rest of the conversation that evening. He told me that it gave him  real insight as to why I am who I am now and why I don’t have a real relationship with my mom.   

Before that night, for the most part he had only heard my side of it over the years. And it’s one thing to hear it. It’s another thing to witness it.

The dinner, the conversation, the whole night didn’t change anything for me and my relationship with my mother. I keep it basic and simple with her (because that works for me) and I will continue to do so. We meet for dinner, I pay, she drives the distance, we talk on the phone sometimes.

What strikes me most about all of it is that I came away from it with a feeling that I was glad Phil had seen it up close and personal. That I wasn’t crazy growing up. That you don’t have to be a member of my family to see how she treats me. That you just need eyes and ears. There was a certain relief almost – that I have made the right decision. And I’m entitled to my feelings.

hello, world….it’s just me

I’m just a girl. I like to write…no, I LOVE to write.Sometimes writing is the only thing that has kept me sane.In the blog-blog world world we live in though, I have chosen to try to stay somewhat obscure with this blog. So that I can truly write what I’m feeling without the idea that it could someday come back to bite me in the ass.So here I am.Just a girl with some thoughts.

for the love of football

Eventually, everyone who knows me is exposed to it.My love of football.I am not talking about American football (although, of course, Dallas will forever be my team!!).It is the other football I am speaking of though. The one America calls soccer.So it is with frustration that I keep feeling the realization that there will not be any England qualifier games in 2008. Because in 2008, the European Championships are being played. Without England. We have a new coach. Things should look up for us in the future. After the 2008 European Championships, World Cup Qualifiers begin for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. It never occurred to me that England might not make it to South Africa in 2010. But then, it never occurred to me that they wouldn’t be playing in 2008.Because, while I may love England, I don’t think like the English. I’m an American lover of English football (an oxymoron in more ways than one). I believe we can win. So it breaks my heart that we won’t get to play in 2008.Yet, it doesn’t really change my deep-seeded belief that we will be in South Africa in 2010. Of course we will.It’s World Cup. It couldn’t go on without England…could it?

Christmas Musings

As the years go by, I have found myself getting grumpier and grumpier about what I have always deemed as my Christmas obligations.

This year, I decided to take things into my own hands.

Rather than complain about all of the things I can’t stand about Christmas, I have begun the process of addressing them.

Materialism has always been my biggest gripe – especially the purchase of presents for people who feel equally obligated to do the same, when both parties involved are not needing for anything. This year, I called my best friend and asked if her if she would like to go out for manicures and pedicures this year, instead of buying gift cards for each other that box us into going to specific places.

Don’t get me wrong – I still buy a few gifts for people.  I enjoy the challenge of finding things for Phil. I love the looks on the faces of my godchildren when they open gifts. And I still buy gifts for my parents and one of my sisters. But that’s it. And I am currently trying to come up with a creative alternative to gift-buying for some of them. My sister makes jam and bakes cookies every year (a package I always look forward to receiving) – I would like to be able to do something creative like that in the future, and skip the materialism to an even greater extent.

I love to hand-write all of my Christmas cards each year (this year, I sent out 72). Because it comes from me and says I care and want to re-connect. It feels personal and not materialistic.

Dates and obligations – Rather than seeing everyone “during the holidays,” I see people year round. I saw my Dad and Jeanne this week, but our timing was due more to our birthdays, and their upcoming trip, than it was to Christmas. We had a fabulous dinner.  

I have only one obligation this Christmas – and I am trying to be optimistic about it (rather than being my regular Scrooge-self). I think my mother will be coming for Christmas dinner. Perhaps I am inherently selfish, but ideally, I would have liked to spend Christmas alone with Phil. We drink coffee, open gifts, turn on the Parade in the background…and then relax all day. Call family on the phone. Eat something delicious for dinner. Go to bed sated and happy.

My mother does nothing specific to make my Christmas stressful. But it does stress me (and Phil) out to have people over. To clean the house until it sparkles (why, why do I do this for a woman who doesn’t do laundrey on a regular basis??). To make the guest room like a Bed & Breakfast (again, why do I do this?, when at her house, the second bedroom is full of boxes that haven’t been unpacked in over five years).  To have just the right food items in the kitchen (she is actually very high maintenance about the right bread for toast, the right cream for coffee, the right coffee). I know that the issues lie with me – I would not think twice about doing any of this for my grandparents, my sister, and my closest friends. Perhaps because I feel they have done so much for me.

Whatever the reasons may be, nonetheless, this is my family obligation this year. It is the only one I have – and for that, I should be grateful.  

The things no one talks about

It’s considered rude to talk about money. How much we make, how much we spend, how much we we think we might earn in the future.

 It’s uncouth to mention it. Rude.

But the older we get (and the happier we are that we are finally earning an amount we can actually be proud of), the harder it seems for it not to become obvious somehow.

Phil and I love to travel. Anyone who pays even an iota of attention to our itinerary in a given year would have to know that even with the best of deals (and I do get those), it can’t be cheap to go to Argentina and London and Scotland in one year. With plans for Australia for the next.

So, it’s very frustrating when people pass judgment on us for a) how much we must be earning to be able to afford travelling internationally, and b) how we should really be spending our money on more practical things (like a bigger mortgage or the unspoken – children).

Other than a higher mortgage (which we will have by the end of 2008, as we plan to move this year), we simply don’t need to be more practical than we already are. And the truth is, we don’t have to be. 

Why is it considered acceptable to bring children into an already over-populated world and spend your money on them, but somehow considered unacceptable to choose to spend the money you earn on yourself?

We chose NOT to have children. By making such a choice, we do have more expendable income than most. And I don’t think it’s something we should have to hide or be ashamed of.

We’re not rich. I work in government contracting. My husband works at the local utility. Nobody is going to get rich at either of our jobs. But we are well-compensated.

But instead of being allowed ot be proud of it, we have to keep it subtle. Make excuses about how we can afford to travel.

Otherwise, we woud be bragging.

And that would be so uncouth.