Subject: 'Twas a Dark and Stormy Night...  
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 92 17:30:59 -0800 
From: li@inigo.Data-IO.COM

Hmmm... I'm *still* aching from last night's game.  Not a particularly
odd thing, simply a facet of life, I guess.

It was raining all weekend, hard.  No thunder, just lots and lots and
lots of showers.  There is a plastic tarp that John hung up over the
railing of the deck that collects rainwater, which Fezzik seems to far
prefer over all other forms of water.  He'll actually go out in the
pouring rain, just to get a drink from that plastic instead of getting
a drink from his dish. Makes one wonder...

Of course, Fezzik was pretty much soaked for the entire weekend.  Not a
surprising thing, all in all.

It rained so hard that there were absolutely no kids at our house
Halloween night.  Not that I'd blame them, that driveway is *long* and
utterly dark and with all the wet going around, I would scarsely think
that anyone would go to the trouble of that trek for a Fun Sized
candybar.  Or even a handful of them, which is probably what we'd have
given if they'd actually made it that far, *and* through Fezzik.  Ah
well.

It was very nice to just sit indoors, light a fire in the woodstove,
and have inside be cozy and warm while I worked on yarn for John's
family (Christmas is going to be a slew of Mobieus scarves) and on some
blue silk.

Hmmm... 'working some blue silk' doesn't really tell the whole thing,
does it?  About three years ago I was *really* into all the fibers
there are and into *buying* them as well, not really realizing *just*
how much work spinning the stuff would be. I bought on whim and on
reputation.

One of the things I bought were four dyed silk caps.  Silk caps are the
result of a certain style of processing, the coccoons are boiled,
loosened, and then spread over a cone.  The resultant mass of fibers is
shaped like a very large cap, and that particular form lends itself
*very* well to being dyed piece-wise.  The caps that I'd gotten were
streaked and mottled blue, purple and green, with an occassional creamy
white spot where the dye hadn't quite gotten all the way through.  The
colors were *bright* and as clear as only silk can dye.

The problem was that I didn't know *how* to handle the stuff.  Peeling
a layer off wasn't the problem, the problem was figuring out how to
handle the super long, circular fibers.  I had no *clue* how to
straighten them into something that would be easy to spin, and no idea
as to what to *do* with the resultant, rather lumpy yarn I did get when
I spun it off the circular form.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I learned how to handle the caps.  I took a
single layer off, and then put a hole in the center of it and pulled
outwards.  The fibers slid along each other, to accomidate the force,
and I would have a ring of fiber.  I'd keep pulling and the ring would
thin, and, eventually, break.  The result was a long strand of fibers
that all lay in parallel to each other with clumps of shorter fibers
distributed through the mass.   The clumps, unfortunately, are nearly
impossible to completely remove.

The cap silk had a longer fiber length than *any* silk I'd ever spun
before.  The longer fiber length meant that I had to use more force to
pull those fibers out in the drafting process of getting the fibers
that would be spun into any particular part of the resultant yarn.
The silk fibers were so strong that I could actually feed the flyer
only four to six fibers for the thread and have something strong enough
to withstand the process of spinning it.  That made for an exteremelly
fine thread.  The first night after spinning like that, while I was
pulling my contacts out of my eyes, the saline *hurt* the tips of my
fingers... yeah... since the thread was that fine, and the force needed
to get the stuff *out* was so great, I was actually cutting the tips of
my fingers while I spun.

Fascinating...  :)

So that was what I was working on.  The clumps actually give the thread
some character, but I wish that they weren't integral to the fiber.
Life.  :)  No silk without it's lumps?  :)  Turns out that I got about
1152 yards out of a little more than half an ounce of silk.  And that
was only the *first* time I've ever done it.  I really wonder what kind
of yardage I can get with a little more practice...

So it made for a pretty quiet weekend.  Other than the obligatory Fall
Leak In The Roof that was actually leaves clumped somewhere on the
roof.   John went on the roof and didn't break his neck and *did* clean
off the stuff that needed cleaning off.   I had actually done all the
gutters the weekend before, while it *wasn't* raining, but the maple
had filled them again. Sigh...

I also spent an hour or two raking leaves.  With all the wet, the
leaves were soaked and heavy and took a lot more work than when they're
dry.  They also managed to soak my pants and socks and shoes.  Sorta
miss Poughkeepsie, I think...  when the leaves were crisp and light for
a while, and a pile of them raked together could actually be jumped in
and flung about without getting completely soaked.  Grin.  But, then
again, one wouldn't be able to use a pitchfork to get a huge pile of
them to fling into the ravine.  That was fun.  Fezzik just lay on the
wet lawn and watched me while I worked.

It was raining hard, last night, just before the game.  And, as usual,
part of my brain is going, I *really* don't want to play in the rain, I
*hate* playing soccer in the mud and the rain, while part of me was
shivering in anticipation of delight.  Laughter!  Shows you how far *I*
have gone into playing soccer to think of running around in the rain
and mud as a 'delight'.  Giggle...

Anyway, before we left, I had on the top of my thermal underware, my
soccer shirt, shorts, shin guards, long socks over the guards, my
shoes, a pair of fingerless gloves and a windbreaker.  I also packed a
pair of sweat pants, a dry t- shirt, a sweatshirt, a towel, and an
Aladdin insulated 32oz mug with hot tea.  Hot enough to burn my leg as
we bounced out of the driveway in the van.  Yow!  And hot enough to
stay warm throughout the game and surprise me when it actually gave my
lips their feeling back in the last part of the second half.  Grin.  I
didn't *know* that we'd need everything I brought, but it turned out we
did.

I also managed to throw together a pot of chili before leaving,
thinking that it's always good to have something hot and substantial
after a cold, wet game.  [Recipe: Three cans of chopped tomatos (one
salsa-cut if you can find it), 4 liq oz of salsa, a bay leaf, 2-4 Tbls
chili powder, 1 can pinto beans, 1-4 tsp garlic powder, dump that stuff
in a slow cooker while browning 1 med chopped onion (stir it into the
mess) and then 1 or 2 pounds coarse ground beef (drain of all the
fat).  Cook for as long as you want (1 hour min.)] After the game, as
we hobbled into the house, it was absolutely heartwarming to smell the
garlic, onions, and spices of the chili pervading the air of the entire
house and know that we had a hot dinner.  I'll have to remember to do
that more often...

The hardest part about such a game is just getting out of the car.  The
rain sounds different on the roof of a car than on the roof of a house.
Different accoustics, I guess.  Grin.  Seems to sound just that much
colder, nastier, and the wind can *move* a car, it has a far harder
time making a house sway.  So, like getting into a cold lake or taking
that first wave after being so warm on the beach, that is the first
step out of the heated car into the cold blast of a late-fall Seattle
night with bare legs and a windbreaker over soccer stuff.  It was in
the 40's, and the rain was softly coming down, not hard enough to
obscure vision, but hard enough to dampen hair and spirits.

I clutched my insulated mug and gulped at the cold air as I trudged to
the lines.  John and Fezzik ran past me, John laughing like some mad
man and Fezzik bounding with his ears flapping and his mouth open in
his perpetual, white toothed grin.  At least *someone* was enjoying
themselves.  I put my mug down on the stands that were on the side of
the field and noted that the seats were covered in a thin film of water
and were as cold as ice.  Ellen, the team captain, had just gotten a
standard poodle Pup, a chocolate brown female she named Cocoa Pebbles.
The tiny pup doubled her size in two weeks, and looked like she'd
doubled it again as she leaped at the end of her leash in an attempt to
join John and Fezzik in their madcap swirl of movement.

Ellen let Pebbles free, and ran with her onto the empty field.  Fezzik
sat next to a suddenly still John and watched with bright eyes.  Then
John let Fezzik go, and Fezzik put every muscle and paw into getting to
Pebbles as *fast* as his long body could let him.  Something that big
moving THAT fast and with that kind of intensity is always amazing to
watch.  I found myself running, and watching as, with a single paw,
Fezzik bowled Pebbles completely over.  She squeeled and laid still, on
her back, as Fezzik did a 180, spraying mud and water as he changed his
momentum.  Then he saw me running at a full sprint by.  So he gave
chase to me and, I then noticed, John as well...  The three of us then
played Fezzik's version of tag in the rain, on the mud, and I
discovered that not only was I laughing, but I was *warm* and getting
warmer as the running warmed up all my muscles.

Soon, movement was no longer a grudging thing.  Rather, it was a flow
that felt better than just standing still.   The rest of the team was
arriving, and we took shots on our goalie for a while.  After loosening
up a little, I did my stretches to loosen everything up before playing
hard.

I started as halfback on the left side, knowing that I was going to die
in that position because I knew that I didn't have the stamina for both
offense and defense.  Forwards only have to concentrate on offense,
fullbacks are mostly dedicated to defense, but the halfbacks or
mid-fielders have to do *both*.  After fifteen minutes of *running* my
little legs off, I called for Cheryl to sub, rather desperately, and
Chris Macky said, "Already?!" incredulously.  I grinned at him and
said, "Yup. I'm *runnin'*.  What about you?" and trotted over to the
sideline where I collapsed into a wheezing mass of light cramp.  Sigh.
I *hate* *catching* my second wind.  I like it after it gets there, but
when I push the first one so hard, I find that my brain's a little
fuzzy during the second even when the second wind is physically solid.

About fifteen mintues later Cheryl needed me to sub back in, so I did,
back at halfback.  Ouch... turned out that Kim had actually subbed out
as had John, because he'd gotten hurt, badly, on a play.  Cheryl had
moved back to fullback while I played half.  I rather *like* halfback,
when I have the energy to play it, as I have both defensive
capabilities and offensive capabilities, and they both are needed at
that position.  I also like filling in the mid-field when they try to
always attack up the middle.  So I ran my butt off, again, and stayed
back on defense when I got too tired to go up as well as back.
Eventually, Cheryl and I switched positions, but there was only one
more play and the half was over.

At the half, my brain felt like it was in cotten.  John came up to me,
limping *very* badly, and I said to him, "Why don't you have one of the
ladies sub in for you?  We can have..."

He stopped me and said, "Yeah, someone already *is* in for me.  I can't
play... pulled my hamstring."  He had a big bandage wrapped around his
right leg, and was moving so stiffly I really couldn't do anything but
sigh.  I hugged him a little, and then went back in when the ref blew
the whistle.  While I played the second half, John went back to the van
and changed into dry clothes, using the sweats that we'd brought and
the towel to dry off, some, and he came back to watch.

I, in the meantime, played fullback.  When I first started, John had
once told me that defense is easier to learn, but harder to play; and
that offense is harder to learn, but easier to play.  I had just nodded
back then, just knowing that I was more comfortable back at fullback.
This last year, as I played more and more offense, with more and more
ball handling skills, I learned more of what he was talking about.  In
defense, the first, most useful concept is Get Between the Ball and the
Goal.  It's very simple.  It doesn't require anything but a body, and
can be played quicking and cleanly by a beginner fairly easily.  The
second concept is Work with Your Teammates.

We have, in a way, a scrambling defense.  If one of their folks gets by
someone in the first lines of defense, someone else collapses in to get
them, and the first liner goes straight back and then backs up the
second line.  This kind of defense depends on each defensemen *knowing*
what the others are going to do, knowing something of each other's
speeds, and on everyone playing together as a unified whole.  Not just
intellectually 'knowing' that 'Ellen is faster than Kim, so I don't
have to go back quite as quickly for her...' but at a single glance
being able to react in the the way that the play is going to unfold.
Simply knowing that someone is a beginner doesn't cripple that kind of
defense, as they know to compensate for it.  However, it's far better
to play *with* folks that know what they're doing in such a defense.

So.  On either level, defense is instinctive.  You don't *have* the
time to think, all there is is reaction, worked in with being able to
react to the rest of one's team.  So, the second half, I didn't have to
think.  All I did was *do*.  It was an advantage having a head too
cloudy to really logically piece things together.  Or it seemed so,
because I have several scenes in my head...  here are a few
snapshots...

Barrelling down on a guy who had the ball, hearing Nick in the
background telling me that he'd gone back for me, and going full out
for that.  Taking the smack-bang of the forward's intended pass on the
inside of my left knee, and then pushing thru(?) him to get at the ball
and send it up to the left wing... (can I *really* kick it that far,
now??  Guess so...)

A ball going past me to a woman on the outside, and just knowing I can
go faster, and I catch her within five strides, tip the ball with a
toe, on the next stride, catch her under her foot as she reaches for
the ball.  She loses her balance for a splitsecond because of my foot
under hers, and I use it to the advantage it gives me to take the ball
away from her on the next stride, sending it saftely into the arms of
my goalie to the side of the goal. *Knowing* he'd be there, because
that's how he plays those.

He's gotten past the first three lines, and is right in front of the
goal. Someone tips the ball away from him, and I put everything I have
into the kick that *should* clear it and as I swing I see he's swinging
too, so I put just a little more into it.  I hear the tremendous *bang*
of the impact, and realize that I've just sprained the hell out of my
ankle/foot, and... I turn around, to see the ball just dribble, slowly,
past my goalie's grab.  Argh...

I slowed it.  Just not quite enough or in quite the right way for
Nordsby to get it.  Sigh... I limped slowly off the field as someone
came in for me.  There were only ten minutes left, anyway... so John
and I left.   Me driving with the sprain as it wasn't nearly as bad as
his pull, and it was easy to be easy on the gas with the VW van.  No
one expects a van to go very fast.

Not a bad game, eventhough we lost, we played well for us.  They were a
very good team and we were short a male sub, which meant that we
couldn't really keep up with them for the whole game.  I have no idea
what the score was, though three feels about right for them.  We didn't
score, but that's O.K., they were only able to score one goal the
entire second half, which, usually, is good enough for us to win.

All in all, eventhough I'm sore as heck today, and my ankle is as stiff
as a board, those moments, when everything *worked*, were well worth
everything else...

----- 
Phyllis Rostykus     | "Liberty: if it's worth fighting for and dying for, 
li@inigo.Data-IO.com |  it's certainly worth voting for." -- Andre Marrou