If "you are what you eat," this week was even more interesting than usual...
I. Blue McNuggets
On Monday, April 28th, Rose had her second middle school track meet of the season, a 70 minute bus ride way out in Naches, at the edge of the Cascade Mountains. Which meant as the head coach, I had my second middle school track meet of the season too. Several miniature headaches popped up here and there as we neared departure, with a kid wanting a last-minute grade check so he could be eligible to compete (athletes have to be passing all classes to compete). The procedure is supposed to go like this: grade checks are done every two weeks. Kids who are passing can compete; kids who aren't can't compete until they get their grade up. But it's bad form to do it all last minute and the athletic director does impose a deadline for grades. That's what the grade check is for! Anyways, all of the kids on my team but one were eligible to compete. This kid really wanted to come to the meet, so he went into desperation mode.
That involved a long chain of events that all happened in the 15 minutes before our bus left: The kid went to beg a teacher to grade his assignment, I sent a message to the athletic director about the situation, the kid went to the main office to ask for a grade report and permission to compete, the secretary verified the passing grade and called the athletic director to ask for his permission. Then the kid came outside to tell me he was cleared. But I'm not allowed to just take a 14 year old kid's word for it, so I had to dash inside the school office to verify with the secretary. She gave me a thumbs up, but I still felt unsure because it's supposed to be the athletic director's call. The secretary mouthed "I'm on the phone with him now!" to me, so I exited the school and gave the kid permission to board the bus. Once we were rolling, the athletic director called me to confirm that this kid was allowed to compete. WHEW.
All of that happened right after I had been talking with the athletic director about some confusion with dismissal times (none of our team was dismissed from class on time so we were running late). I felt all of the pressure of being the head coach in charge, but without enough power to make decisions. It wasn't up to me to decide if a kid was eligible to compete, and nobody had told me that I had to inform the school office of our dismissal time (the office has a meet schedule with dismissal times on it, so I didn't think I had to do anything else!) BAH, it was a hairy itchy uncomfortable half hour before we finally hit the road and drove the 70 minutes to Naches, WA.
The actual meet went really well! The host school kept it moving along well, and my team paid attention and made it to their events in time. I was able to take videos of the hurdle races to provide real feedback. I took splits during the 1600 meter races. I answered approximately 100,000 questions from the kids on my team. I even managed to sit down for five minutes to eat a snack! It was business as usual at the track meet.
Rose ran the 1600m and the 800m, and threw the discus. She got season bests in all three, and a PR in the 800 (3:11). She said she felt very satisfied with her performance at this meet, because even though she wanted a faster time in the mile, she managed to focus for the entire race and not tune out. That helped her feel like she ran as well as she could that day. I was so glad she was able to do that, because I always try to get kids to have performance goals as well as another non-performance related goal for each race so they can succeed no matter what and feel satisfied with their meet. Rose finished 6th in the mile with a time of 6:49, and she got 3rd in the discus with a throw of 47 feet. Even better, at the discus pit, Rose taught a girl who had never thrown discus before how to do it. Good sportsmanship is my favorite! I also overheard a boy on our team explaining to a kid from another team how to go over hurdles better. I was proud of my team for being open and willing to help their competitors (and the novice hurdles coach in me felt a glow of pride that my carefully studied hurdle coaching has sunk in).
What on earth does all of this have to do with blue McNuggets? We stopped at McDonald's on the way home from the track meet, and the only semi-appealing thing on the menu was chicken McNuggets and blue Powerade. I was super thirsty because it's hard to hydrate enough while coaching at a track meet, and I wasn't excited about McDonald's food but knew I needed to eat. Soooo I ended up ingesting 20 McNuggets and a medium Powerade at 8pm on a Monday night. It was not an ideal meal. It was free, though, since select McDonald's provide free meals to coaches and bus drivers. So I got what I paid for! Haha.
My tummy turmoil aside, the middle schoolers lived it UP at McDonald's. Every year it surprises me how HAPPY they are to go to McDonald's of all places. They were having the time of their lives, playing in the play place (I probably should've told them not to) and eating ice cream and just partying with their friends. We shared a bus with Sunnyside's other middle school, so we had close to fifty 13 and 14 year old kids at McDonald's for an hour and 15 minutes. It was a long stop, and it was weird trying to coordinate with the other team's coaches because they didn't seem to care how long everything was taking, and when there are two head coaches, who's in charge? Both of them. Which kind of equates to neither of them. Awkward!
I had to ride home in the back of the bus (supervision wins on middle school bus rides), and let me tell you: blue Powerade and chicken McNuggets mixed together in my stomach by the bouncy jouncy zigzagging bus motion was a nasty concoction. Cue the motion sickness. And every 10 minutes or so, the kid across the aisle got my attention:
"Coach White! Coach White! Hi."
"Coach White! Look, a bright light!" (shines his phone flashlight in my face)
"Coach White! What are you doing?"
"Coach White!" etc...
Not to brag or anything, but I AM A SAINT.
I took two Tums when I got home.
II. Sardines
We didn't actually eat sardines, but here's a fishy story that fits: When I was little, one of our favorite family games was Sardines. It's like reverse hide-and-seek, where one person hides and everyone seeks them. When you find the hidden person, you hide with them, until everyone is crammed like sardines into the same hiding spot. The last person to find them loses. That's my inspiration for this title.
After the first 20 minutes of middle school track practice on Thursday, I left assistant Coach Alfredo in charge of practice while I walked the 150 meters over to the high school track to work as clerk at the league meet we were hosting. Shortly after I arrived at the high school track, I got a phone call from the middle school athletic director that went like this:
"Hi, there were shots fired in town and there's an active police chase going on right now, so we need to implement secure and teach procedure. Get your team into the school gym!"
I sprinted (without any warm-up) back over to the middle school track to let Coach Alfredo know. The announcement was made over the PA system in the high school stadium "Please get inside due to police activity in the area." Once I had relayed the message to Alfredo, I ran back to the high school track to help shepherd a couple hundred high schoolers from the seven schools in our league into the track shed and nearby locker rooms. We crammed into the track shed like sardines and rolled down the garage bay doors all the way, shutting out the bright hot sunlight. Weak fluorescent lights dimly lit the dark two garage-bay shed. I stood in the echoy loud stuffy chaos and sweated. We jokingly told another team that was in the shed with us, "Welcome to Sunnyside!"
III. Fried Asparagus
15 minutes later, we got the all-clear sign and were able to roll up the track shed garage bay doors, release the runners back into the wild, and resume business as usual. All of this happened before the official start time of the meet, so we were able to start the meet on time at 4:00pm. I was head (only) clerk; Jeff was head (only) timer. Rose headed up the "everyone's assistant" position with a few other kids, and they moved hurdles and ran errands in a most helpful way. Amber was overjoyed to discover that her Best Friend Forever Kamila was in attendance at the meet, to watch her older sister compete. Amber and Kamila set up camp in the tent shade behind Jeff's timing table and darted all over the place, playing soccer outside the track, drawing pictures and sharing snacks in the timing tent, talking a mile a minute, and basically living their best life.
After the lockdown at the beginning, a miracle occurred. We managed to stick to the schedule for the entire meet! We finished right on time--a first in my six meets as head clerk! I clerked it up like a pro, Jeff ran the timing system like a pro, and Coach Dan Winger fired the starting gun like a pro. We were just a trio of professionals making things happen ON TIME AT A TRACK MEET. BOOM. It felt amazing to be so punctual, since track meets are known for their tendency to get behind schedule.
Something that did not feel amazing was my sartorius muscle--that same hip flexor muscle that I strained a month ago. It had been bugging me all week to the point where I scheduled a physical therapy appointment for Friday (the day after the track meet). Partway through the week it was starting to feel better--I even went on short runs on Tuesday and Wednesday. But after that emergency sprint to get my middle school team indoors, I think I re-tweaked that poor overworked muscle. By the end of the high school meet, I could barely walk--it was aching and throbbing that badly.
JAY had a great meet! He shaved another couple seconds off of his PR in the 1600m, finishing in 5:12, which put him 12th out of 16 runners. He also ran a PR in the 800, finishing 15th in 2:25. I watched all of his races except for the last lap, when I was in the finishing chute, desperately trying to keep wobbly pukey exhausted runners in order so I could record their places. Writing down the finishing place next to each runner on my heat sheet is a very useful backup tool for the finish line camera, so even though it is tricky and stressful, and at least on one occasion required dodging active puking, I make it happen.
After the meet ended, Sunnyside High School track team had its senior recognition night, which took a while with 30+ seniors. Even sitting on a folding chair during senior night was painful for my hurt muscle. It ached so badly! We didn't get to start cleaning up the meet until after 8pm. I gimped and limped around, whimpering while winding cords and putting away equipment. I left for home with my 3 kids at 8:45pm because I suddenly realized none of us had eaten dinner. I did bring a few protein balls for myself and a box of Wheat Thins and a jar of peanut butter for the kids, though, so it's not like they were completely starving--only partially starving. We went straight home and had leftover brats at 9pm. Coach life is hard on the digestion.
Jeff got home about half an hour after us, with a bag of Burger Ranch takeout: a hamburger for himself and two large orders of our traditional post-meet-hosting fried asparagus to share. The kids said "you said we couldn't go out to eat tonight, Mom!" I told them that brats were greasy enough to count as takeout, and we got home way faster without a stop at a drive-thru. I refused to get nasty fast food twice in one week! Once I had eaten, taken a baby wipe bath (I know, eew, but seriously my leg hurt too bad for shower safety), and taken two Aleve pills, I hobbled over to help Jeff enter field event results at the kitchen counter. We finished just before 10pm. Another home track meet was done!
IV. Peanut Pellets
After a month of smooth grasses, a few gopher mounds popped up again in our backyard this week. I noticed the new mounds about 90 minutes into a hefty weed whacking and watering session. So I stretched my limits and extended my yardwork in order to dump poison peanut pellets down the cluster of new gopher dwellings, cursing the furry burrowers the whole time. I will win this war!
V. Orange Chicken
There was no school on Friday, the day after I worked at the high school track meet, and therefore no middle school track practice. So I was able to go to my physical therapy appointment without missing track related activities. Daniel Hernandez watched me limp across the sidewalk and from then on it was the most painful PT session I've ever had. For almost 90 minutes, I endured pummeling, kneading, massaging, and stretching, all interspersed with simple exercises that targeted muscles that I didn't even know were weak. I was so shaky with effort during the exercises, and with pain during the pummeling! It was so intense. Now I have a set of six exercises to perform daily in order to strengthen the weak parts that were straining sartorius muscle as it worked overtime compensating for the lack of support. Whew! I was still limping as I hobbled back to my car after the PT visit, but I was armed with a recovery plan, which gave me hope.
On my way home, I picked up some of the only fast food that sits well in my poor abused stomach: Panda Express orange chicken. Yum. I got it with half a serving of fried rice and half a serving of super greens, and it was a very satisfying dinner. Rice is not exactly easy to eat while driving down the freeway, but I managed just fine.
I had to rest rest rest on Saturday to give my strained hip time to heal, but Sunday morning (today), it felt a lot better. Yay!
VI. Pepe's Donuts
Amber would probably be unhappy with me if she saw this label, because we didn't actually get Pepe's Donuts this week. On Saturday night, Rose, Amber, and I played in the 35th Annual Ensemble Piano Recital. Rose played in three different piano ensembles: one with Amber, one with a group of other kids, and one with me. This was the first time I have performed anything on the piano since the 15 months I spent as the primary pianist at church. It was my first piano recital in nearly 30 years. (I only took piano lessons for 5 years, ending when I was 11 years old, and come to think of it I don't even remember my piano teacher having a recital for the last two years I took lessons.)
Basically, I am NOT a piano performer. It is terrifying. I wasn't as shaky as I thought I would be up there, but I completely forgot how to read music when I looked at the first measure of our song. After a brief mental scramble, I had to kind of rely on muscle memory as I watched my hands go to the right opening chord in the nick of time when the conductor started us out. I survived and did alright, dropping a few notes here and there, but mostly sticking together with Rose and the duo at the other piano all the way to the last line of music. All of us forgot to slow down at the finale, so we ended in a cacophony of mismatched chords and glissandos. It was hilarious. I laughed and cringed and was still laughing and cringing as we stood up and bowed after that performance.
Performing is so vulnerable--there's no hiding! I had to accept applause and bow even after botching the landing at the end of the song! It was a sheepish feeling.
Rose did great! She did all of the page turns so well and played her three songs meticulously. She even generously pointed out all of the things I was doing wrong as we practiced together over the past few weeks. I'm not sure if there's a delicate way to teach my highly intelligent yet guileless daughter a little bit of tact. It was not my favorite to have her say "You played this note too slow. You messed up here." etc. Again, I felt a bit saintly for just moving on and not reacting to the pit of irritated frustration inside my chest. Because I was NOT the only one making mistakes! It's fine. After our performance, however, I did feel the need to apologize to the intense piano teacher for botching the ending. She was intense enough that I could feel the undercurrent of disappointment even though she waved it off.
Amber dutifully pounded out her part in the ensemble recital. I didn't detect any extreme reactions, positive or negative from her--not even any nerves. Piano isn't something she hates, but it isn't something she necessarily loves either. It's just something she has to do. She read a book all the way up until it was her turn to go up front and play, and then she picked her book right back up again after she finished playing in the recital.
Normally after concerts and recitals we got to Pepe's Bakery for a donut or pastry, but they close at 8pm so it was too late by the time we left the piano recital. I let the kids have ice cream when they got home instead.
***
There you have it: a culinary tour through our rather busy week. I wish I could intersperse applicable pictures with each section, but that is one step that I simply don't have energy for. As a matter of interest, here's what I actually cooked for dinner this week: ham with roasted herb potatoes and broccoli, baked French toast, and brats.
PICTURES:
2 comments:
How you manage to write such delightfully humorous posts when you are/have been exhausted, in pain, terrified, nauseated, and annoyed, I’ll never know! In the record books that matter, you definitely got a PR in the race of life this week! You are a champion human being!
You ARE a saint
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