Thursday, June 24, 2010

World Cup Fever

Happy Friday!! Happy weekend!! Do you have World Cup Fever? I am surprised how many people are paying attention to soccer…or football as everyone but Americans call it. Why did we change the name of it? Football makes sense to me. American football doesn’t involve a whole lot of kicking, so I really think it’s a misnomer. Anyway, my friends and I have been watching it and thought we would broaden our horizons by giving it a try.
Of course, nothing is easy with my bunch. It took forever to pick teams. Then we had to find a referee. We thought an impartial referee would be best, so we looked outside the feline species. Just as we started to consider who we could recruit, poor Bobbi came hopping into the yard to nosh on some peanuts. We all turned and looked at her, which really scared her. Even if the cats are friendly, it has to be unnerving for a squirel to be staring into so many cat eyes!! When she calmed down, Bobbi graciously agreed to moderate our competition. We were all set!





When we started playing, everyone was complaining that something didn’t seem right. We finally all agreed that it was too quiet! We tried recruiting Brittney from next door to cheer and make some noise, but it still wasn’t right. Then it hit me. Vuvuzelas! You know - those South African horns that are all the rage at soccer games. To get the real feel of a World Cup match we had to find some vuvuzelas to blow so we could hear that constant droning, buzzing noise. It sounds like a swarm of bees to me… a very BIG swarm of bees.
Since Corny had the Wal-mart connection, we sent him off to find us some vuvuzelas. While we waited for his return we drank lots of liquids to hydrate – it has been very hot here in NC!! Yesterday it was 101 degrees. Yikes that’s hot!!
It wasn’t long before Corny returned with several of his friends. They were each carrying a vuvuzela and a deflated soccer ball. Corny said that the last shipment of soccer balls Wal-Mart received had a few defective balls – they were missing their other halves! Since there weren’t that many of them, rather than send them back, they just threw them out. Corny took them out of the trash bin. He thought we could do something with them, and he was right. I had just the thing!




We made soccer hats for everyone! It reminded me of a hat I had bought a while ago, but hadn’t had the occasion to wear. I dashed upstairs and came back down looking absolutely fabulous!!!





How appropriate is that! Once everyone was hatted, we gave Brittney a vuvuzela to make some noise. Brittney blew and blew, but we all agreed she needed some help to make a bigger noise. Little Duke volunteered to leave the field and sit in the stands with Brittney and blow the vuvuzela also. That was better, but still not the same. Then Rocky grabbed a vuvuzela to join in on the noisemaking. As each player left the field and picked up a vuvuzela, the noise grew bigger and bigger as the teams grew smaller and smaller. Soon it was just me, Cali and Malcolm left on the field – and Malcolm is definitely not into athletics!





Everyone was having so much fun with the vuvuzelas that they weren’t interested in playing the game.
They were seeing who could blow the loudest and then who could blow the longest.







It didn’t take Cali and I long to figure out it’s not much of a soccer game with only two players. We succumbed to the allure of the vuvuzela, and joined the others in the bleachers. We all had a great time, though I did have a bit of a headache before it was all over. We decided to call it quits before someone complained about the noise.
Corny said we could each keep our vuvuzelas much to our families’ chagrin. He said Wal-Mart had bought so many of them they didn’t have enough room to put them all out on the sales floor. They were actually glad to get rid of some of them!
While we didn’t get much exercise, we did have fun. The USA plays this weekend, and you can be sure that I will be in front of the television in my soccer hat cheering them on and blowing my vuvuzela – loudly!! Who knows? Maybe the USA will win the whole shootin’ match! Do you think maybe then they’ll change the name from soccer to football over here?!?!?!?!
Have a great week!

Love & licks,
Josie

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