FunnySauce: Church Basketball

Last night I played church basketball. I admit it, I love church basketball right now! That fact must be apparent in my face when I arrive home because Shelley continues to encourage me to go play every Wednesday night. She has even started calling me "white magic," which I admit I like.

To put church roundball in perspective, you must understand that I grew up playing mostly street basketball in school playgrounds in Los Angeles. I played on blacktop courts with rims that had shredded chainlink nets at places like Bud Carson Middle School in Hawthorne or Jane Adams Park in Lawndale. In those games I only called a foul if I had someone with me that was big enough to back it up. I am only 5'7", which in any street basketball dictionary is considered "elbow level." Driving the lane was always a dangerous plan. I could do it, but I would usually be "punished" by a hard foul. For some reason, the lane was always someone else's "house." Which is why I love, I mean I absolutely love, to watch my fellow Hoya alumn Allen Iverson play. In the NBA, he is a little man, but he drives the lane fearlously, and I've seen him take the hard hit.

Church ball can also be tough if some big (ex-community college player) egos show up. Other than the day of my birth, the only time I have been hospitalized overnight was from being "clothes-lined" in a church basketball "scrimage" game in Laramie, Wyoming.

So you can understand that I generally have some trepidation playing round ball with a new crowd.

The group I play with right now, though, is awesome. We just have fun. I drove the lane last night several times and made some fun shots. I know my drives are not pretty. I mean I am one of the "old" guys and my feet do not actually leave the floor much anymore. But nobody is going to "teach me a lesson" for driving the lane in their house, because we are in the Lord's house. Everyone actually calls his or her own fouls, and we get along. Amazing!

We also had a short intermural season at the beginning of winter. For those games, Shelley and my kids actually come to watch. So the pressure is on Dad to perform! I mean, Madison played freshman round ball in high school last year, so she is sitting in the small crowd with her arms folded thinking "let's see what you got, Dad." And I did okay! I am not one of the best players, but I sub in and I hit a three pointer at the beginning of the the game. I also drove to the basket twice and finished wih 7 points. I mean it wasn't all pretty. There was the incident when I scooped up an offensive rebound right under the rim and as I went up excitedly for an easy put back, my shot was brutally swatted out of bounds. But that's what happens when your short and can't jump anymore. The important thing? --my family was all proud of "white magic" -- he'd done good.

FunnySauce: Dog Pile on Daddy

Sunday is family time. But do you ever find that it is work to get the whole family together, and that your family-time plans can dissolve into disaster?

Tonight we decided to play Attack Uno. This is not a version of Uno our family made up. It is an actual game we received as a Christmas gift and it comes with an electronic button-controlled beeping card shooter. When you would usually be required to draw a card, you instead push the button and a random number of cards, from 0 to 7, shoot out. It is always a relief when zero shoot out. But tonight the shooter was "hot" and everybody had a lot of cards and the game was taking too long. Ellie (who's six years old) had selected the game for tonight, so when she quit, threw down her cards, climbed on mom's lap and closed her eyes, we should have known it was time to end the game.

In an effort to hurry the game along, we started adding helpful comments like "come on!", "go!", "push the button!", "tonight please", etc. We also had to wait through a time out for Jonathan to go through his new breathing exercises that help him to not cry. (Which we all did amazingly well because we are appreciative and proud of his efforts, he is a very kind-hearted kid and it is quite interesting to watch a ten-year-old in the middle of Attack Uno close his eyes and go into a meditative state.) Of course, these feelings of frustration and hostility did not deter us from finishing the game. Finally, Madison called out "Uno" for the first time in the game at about the 37th minute of play time and to everyone's relief was able to lay down her final card on her next turn.

Shelley then asked that we gather around for family prayer before going to bed. A that moment, Ellie announced that she was not tired, Jonathan then knocked over Madison's balancing act on the couch, Madison punched Jonathan and I began my lecture I learned from my dad on not hitting younger siblings. Obviously, the "family time" tension had mounted too high for my sweet wife, because as we all knelt down to pray, instead of praying she started laughing. Her laughter popped the bubble of tension and everybody started laughing hysterically. I was laughing so hard that I was lying of the ground trying to catch my breath when Ellie yelled, "dog pile." All four of my kids jumped on top of me and pinned me down. Riley, our Airedale terrier, thinks this is great fun and places his mangled stuff cat on top of me and begins to lick and slobber all over my face.

After Shelley finally convinced the kids to roll off me, Jonathan had a beaming smile on his face and declared, "Now that was the funnest thing we did all day!"