What’s better: soccer or the in-laws?

I’ve been holding in a gigantic soccer rant since the World Cup started (in what seems like) a lifetime ago. I loathe soccer. Actually, I guess that’s not true. I don’t mind the actual sport; I just treat it as I treat any sort of children’s organized sport/women’s basketball- it’s really fun to watch the participants try to be athletic and the game to be engaging, but it’s even more fun to watch how red-faced and idiotic the people who defend said sports tend to sound.

Look, I get it- you either have a hard on for all things Europe or you hated the people who played real sports growing up. I know it was hard for you to use your hands to dribble, pass, throw or hit the ball, but don’t take baseball off of ESPN for a month because of it.

But anyways, in the name of fairness and in the spirit of sport I tried to watch the final game today between Spain and the Netherlands. What I saw was an endless ping pong match between the teams: the soccer ball flew in the air back and forth and each time it hit the ground, a player would fall down (whether or not he’d been touched) and the referee guy would give a yellow playing card to the other team. It was like Magic: the Gathering, only a tad more effeminate.

Seriously, there were more greasy-haired dudes diving than at a Greg Louganis look-alike contest. The only time I saw a guy actually get tripped up, the guy who did the tripping helped him up and gave him a hug once it was done. What the fuck was that?

But despite this crap, I gave it an honest go for the sake of my friend Miguel, who hates football and yet watches the Super Bowl every year.  His father’s side of the family is from Spain and he had a horse in the race. I figured muscling through the game just because I knew it’d make him happy to have someone to talk about it later with would be the friendly thing to do. Dear lord I was miserable because of it. The next time I think about taking one for the team and doing something nice for someone, remind me instead to just run my arm over with a car instead. I hate soccer and I’m glad I don’t have to hear from the bottom feeding loser culture of soccer gimps for another four years about how I should try to enjoy a “match”.

On a brighter note, last night and today Jessie’s parents were in town. Last night, they came over to our house, ate dinner and stayed until nearly 11 talking and laughing with us. This morning, we all got up and left the house early to head up on the Blue Ridge Parkway to eat lunch at the Pisgah Inn together.

My normal joke about the Parkway is that I never went up on the road because I don’t like the outdoors, I had no girlfriend in my twenties, and I didn’t do drugs that often, thus negating any reason that I would have to travel on that road.  But this morning it was beautiful up there. We stopped at a view overlooks and I just took it all in. I tried to count the layers of ridges and got dizzy, and had my breath taken away by some of the huge rocks just jutting up out of those green green mountains.

It was a lovely time and I’m so thankful I did it. Hopefully that was just the start of more mountain adventure.  Sue and Dale (Jessie’s parents, whom I’m still not sure what to call them to their faces), were really fun. We traded stories and Dale and I even got confused when Jessie was speaking to her mother about the differences between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians (we thought that the ladies were talking about woodchucks for some odd reason).  I know the common comedy cliché is to bitch about the in-laws, but I’m not going to- and that’s not because Dale occasionally reads this blog- it’s because I like them.

Now I’m sweaty from my nightly walk with my wife and the dogs, and settling in for a nice long work week. Life is pretty sweet.

Until later, be good.