Day 9- March 22, 2020

Day 9- March 22

Today was a fun one.  It was still freezing cold, but we managed to get outside for some bike riding

and creating more notes for the people who walk by out of chalk.  We also saw a few friends who were out on mini-adventures, and got to have real, live conversations instead of virtual ones.

Today is big.  It's two weeks since I took my younger daughter to the SheBelieves Cup at Red Bull Arena.  Three days later, they started shutting down all sports, and I was a nervous wreck, terrified I'd exposed both of us to this virus by taking her to this game.

But she is a soccer lover like her mama.  She plays for a U-8 team, sometimes gets called up to play with the U-9 team, and spends a lot of free time outside shooting and making up drills for herself. 

 Her dream is (and I'm taking this straight from the "SheBelieves" poster she made) to "Play for the US Women's National Team".  So for her birthday (which is a week from today), I got tickets for us to go.  Good tickets.  Tickets that a friend of mine was able to get because they are season ticket holders, and graciously offered to procure for me when they went on presale at a reasonable price.  So we were not only going to see her idols, Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd, play soccer, but we were going to do so from the corner where Megan takes corner kicks.  So close, E. would be able to see what majestic color her hair was without a jumbotron.  When I told her, she had squealed at such a high pitch, my mom's dog ran and hid two miles away.

So while we watched the stories of this virus unfold, as we watched some restrictions come into play, we waited to see if there would be any advice on this game.  We debated wearing masks (we had a couple from when R. and E. had the flu in January and we wore them around the house).  We debated telling E.  the game was canceled.   But it was her birthday present, and with only two confirmed cases in NJ at the time, we made the gamble to go.

We got to see England take on Japan first (we got there just before halftime) and made friends with a group of siblings behind us. We found our way onto the JumboTron (I was able to see it on tv when we watched the tape of the game, which was very exciting).  Our friends arrived, and E. and their daughter had a blast cheering as the US warmed up about fifty feet away.  Throughout the game, there were multiple corner kicks where we got close ups of Rapinoe.  The US won, as Press sent a brilliant ball in to Julie Ertz's head in the 87th minute, and the ensuing celebration was right in front of us.

It was a bonding moment, but as soon as the adrenalin wore off (somewhere around the Garden State Parkway), I started to second guess my decision to expose myself- and my daughter- to so many people.  As the days wore on, and the statistics (and media coverage) started to reach a fever pitch, I was more and more convinced I'd done something awful.

Today, though, I'm relieved that two weeks have gone by, and we're okay.  We've been watching older soccer games on US Women's National Soccer Team channel on YouTube, but as awesome as they are, it's not the same as seeing them in person, and nothing will compare to her first game in the stands.  Nothing, for me as a parent, is going to come close (maybe when I take her to Yankee Stadium for the first time, but I doubt the seats will be anywhere near as good).

She's currently playing "couch arm jumping", where she hurls herself over the arm of the couch, landing in a heap of giggles.  Her sister is joining her.  I've been narrating this innovative new sport in a Howard Cosell voice, largely because I spent the better part of today reading Billy Crystal's Still Foolin' Em, and he references his imitations of Cosell and Ali numerous times.  That, and I miss sports- a lot- and I think I'm a little loopy from withdrawal.

Billy Crystal, who I will likely never meet, has given me a great deal of comfort since going into quarantine lock down.  I had read his book, 700 Sundays, in January when I was going through a rough week thinking about how my dad had passed away 22 years ago.  It's about the roughly 700 Sundays he got to spend with his own father before he died suddenly when Billy was 15.  Large swaths revolve around performing shows for his family, his colorful relatives, and their bonding love of the Yankees.  If he'd been a lapsed-Catholic Italian/Irish/English gal from Jersey who was 30 years younger, we could have been twins.

I lost my dad when I was 19, and that book made me cry- a lot.  It also made me crack up out loud, and Crystal has always been one of my favorite film actors (When Harry Met Sally and The Princess Bride are one and two on my all-time favorite list).  But his film 61* came out a year and a half after I lost my dad- and was something I sobbed through, knowing how much Dad would have loved it.  I still have a well-weathered scrapbook of Mickey Mantle clippings, complete with my dad's annotations, from the late-50's, and one of my most prized possessions is a newspaper autographed by Mantle that my Dad took to get signed when I was eight.  He was friends with Spencer Ross, a sports broadcaster who owned a sports memorabilia shop a town over.  There's a photo of my dad, grinning, while I stand there in my little Yankees jersey, in an envelope taped to the back.  My parents, who were friends with Spencer, were invited to go out to dinner with Mickey and Spencer, and my mom still tells me how sitting there, listening to Mickey regale them with stories only he could tell, it was the greatest night of my dad's life.  She says their wedding, and the births of me and my sister, were close runners-up.

I picked up Still Foolin' Em at my grandma's house over Christmas, when we were sorting through some of her things.  She's 94, has dementia, and wanted me to take a book, so I acquiesced, and took this one.  In the front cover, she had written in her perfect penmanship, Very Good Book- 2015".  Since I have no idea when I'm going to be able to see her again, I figured it was a solid choice, and I was rewarded with the escape I was looking for.

I was able to get glimpses into Crystal's relationship with Mickey, into the story behind his grand appearance (at 59 and 364 days) DHing with the New York Yankees (I remember rooting SO HARD for him to get a hit, and being impressed that he was able to foul off a ball down the line), and both advice and anecdotes about different decades of age.  I also loved that here was this man, who reminds me a lot of my dad, offering me a salve in the form of stories and jokes as I sit here, contemplating the insanity that is our world right now.  He wrote of his relationship with his wife and daughters, something that rings true as I'm trying to take in every moment with my girls during this rare time of unrestricted time together.  There was a lot of good, fatherly advice in that book, and it felt a little like a message from my Dad, saying "it's going to be okay".  Here's hoping he's right, and soon enough, we'll all be watching the Yankees again.