I'm typing this with fingers that are numb and frozen.  I've just spent an hour of quality time with the ice dams on my roof.  Those suckers were begging for mercy but eventually I realized my digits were flopping around in my gloves like fish on the boat deck.  That can't be good.  Speaking of 'good' , what good are gutters?  I mean, what are they for?  Aside form the obvious benefit of giving ice dams a place to stage their attack on my roof, what the hell good are they???  They are the Gaza strip of my house.

Josie had three basketball games this week.  The first was Monday, at her school.  The school is five miles from home and I have to drive her, as I've whined about in the past, and the game was two hours after the end of school so it's not like she could stick around all afternoon.  No, I had to drive there, bring her home and then drive back.  During rush hour.  Times like that, driving a super sweet Audi limo which hugs the icy roads like a lover and has a warm steering wheel would sure be nice.  At least I have the Best of Queen cd in my mini van.

The team played well and hard but were beaten at the end by a few points.  Our team has a lot of talent but is having a hard time putting together four decent quarters of play.

Tuesday, she had practice.  Again, it's an hour and a half after the end of the school day, so lots of driving.

Wednesday they played a school up on the north side of town.  It's easy enough to get to when it's not rush hour, but you have to go right through downtown and the high ways are a parking lot at that time of day, so we went the scenic route, only hopping on the high way for the last two miles.  Our team played very well and we won!  We tried really hard to throw it away; with a three point lead and less than a minute to play, our girls acted like we were down by four!  They were sloppy, threw the ball away, fouled the other team and heaved up ridiculous shots.  Fortunately the clock ran out before we could blow it.  The girls had played really well right up to the end, but I guess they panicked.

Thursday night was another practice night.  The weather has been so cooperative this winter; it only snows while I'm driving.  The farther the drive, the more congested traffic is, the harder it snows.

Last night we played a team from another league.  Surprisingly, the school was both closer and easier to get to than two of the team in our league.  We won again!  It was a hard fought game, the lead changing hands many times.  Our girls played really well and really smart.  They use a spread offense and have gotten really good at controlling the ball, moving it around the court and waiting for the right shot.  Josie has moved up to a starting position and looks like she's perfectly at home on the court.  She still doesn't dribble much, but her passes are good and if she's got a shot, she'll take it.  She's scored a few times.  I wish she would shoot more.  She admitted to me the other night that she still has no idea what she's doing but you'd never know from watching her.  Once again, our team tried mightily to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Same old thing; less than a minute to go and a three point lead and what do we do?  Do we stick with our controlled offense?  Do we run off the clock?  Heck no!  Now's the time to panic, run the fast break we never, ever use, throw the ball away and put the other team at the line until they tie it up, sending us into overtime.

I don't know anything about basketball but even I know that when you have a lead with only a few seconds left, all you need to do is keep the ball away from the other team.  The other moms and I, who had all been sitting nicely, demurely watching and applauding the game, went nuts in the last 23 seconds.  It was very frustrating watching the girls try so hard to hand the game to the other team.  While the kids on the bench were yelling "go! go! go!", we were yelling "NO!! Slow down!  You have the lead, just don't lose the baaaallllll!!!"  I might have yelled "It's 7:30 and I'm starving!!", but I'm pretty sure I didn't.

We fouled.  They hit their free throws.  Overtime.

This is the trouble with inexperienced players.  We have four girls on our team who are very talented.  For some reason, in the last fifty seconds of a game, it's as if they are taken over by some evil puppet master who makes them lose their minds and play like six year olds on a soccer field; lots of mindless running and flailing.  Again, we grabbed a lead and all we had to do was hang onto the ball for about ten seconds and we couldn't do it.  We won the game by one point because the girl we fouled at the buzzer threw up two bricks, praise the Lord.

I was going to make sloppy joes for dinner, then Josie went to a friend's house and then Zack took off with Katie, so it's just me. Me and my sidearm, so don't go planning any funny business.  I'm putting on my jammies and watching a movie.

Maybe 300.  I haven't watched that one in a while.  Gerard Butler, mostly naked.  Yeah, that's the ticket.



Would somebody please tell spell check that 'jammies' is too a word?