Last night Josh came home with a pair of beautiful New Balance shoes to begin his resolution to start playing basketball again. I know, I know, everyone already assumes he’s a professional because he’s 6′5. (In fact, one of my favorite pics from Josh’s childhood is his freshman basketball team photo). After a series of strange v-mail messages with cats meowing in the background on my cell phone, Ryan showed up at our door. He was pissed because all he had were skate shoes to play ball in.
I accompanied them to the park, which is a block away. Ah, the park…always an eclectic of mix of people. Today it was overrun with kids…tough kids. A pack of middle school aged girls, filled with “No way, girlfriend!” and “Let’s see what ya got!” were all over the basketball court. One of them borrowed Ryan’s basketball, and I watched it like a hawk. I don’t know where my distrust came from, maybe because these girls kind of scared me and I knew they could kick my lily-white ass. We played PIG, we shot the ball around, Josh and Ryan played 21. One of the kid-brothers of the girl gang faked a bike injury, and he had us all fooled for a few seconds. It was pretty classic.
Soon, it grew dark. Conveniently, the street light by the court wouldn’t turn on. There were a lot of kids out there by then. The girl pack had began a full on game of basketball using Ryan’s ball. It was pretty awesome watching the alpha girl boss the others around and beat up on them and say things like, “What? She can’t even fight!” After years of teaching mostly wealthy white kids these ladies were a whole new ‘ball game.’
We watched American Idol, something Ryan never thought he would start watching. And than Ryan began jazz dancing in our living room, which was incredibly entertaining. He inspired Josh to join, and my hope for us all one day to start a dance company was resurrected. (It’s gonna happen, Ryan, Canada or not!)
Today there is a terrific storm rolling into Seattle, and I love that we’re finally getting some NW weather. Kimberly and Justin are coming up from Eugene on Friday, and it will be nice to have them here. After days of submitting resumes, I finally got called back by the Beautiful Dance Store located in Freemont. Here’s hoping