I’ve been a sports parent since my eldest child began swimming in 2005. K1 swam through senior year of high school, and I probably can count on one hand the number of meets I missed. While K2 swam briefly, his passion is soccer and I’ve been a bona fide Soccer Mom ™ for at least ten years. I’ve missed a few more of those games but still, I do my best to be there.
As I type this diary, K2 is in Charleston West Virginia at the US Youth Soccer Eastern Regional Championships. His team qualified by winning the Massachusetts State Championship a few weeks ago. They played three games Friday-Sunday and made it out of the round-robin portion of the event on one of the wildcard spots on goal differential (they won their last game 7-1!). And as of this afternoon, they won their quarterfinal game in overtime and advance to semifinals on Wednesday. We are beyond proud of K2 and his entire team!
But… we are not there. We planned to be, initially. We even booked a hotel reservation, which was a lot like scoring concert tickets with 20 friends… the group hotels sold out in minutes, and we were going to be scattered all over the region. And then we looked into how to get there, and learned it would be incredibly expensive to fly, PLUS rent a car to get from airport to Charleston and then from hotel to field. Other option was a 900 mile drive, which would have entailed pairing up with another family OR taking two days each way. But that’s not all… because of the format, you don’t know when you arrive whether you’ll be done with your play on Sunday (if you don’t make it out of qualifiers), Monday (if you lose in quarterfinals), Wednesday (semifinals) or Thursday (finals). In the current airline climate, that means if you finished play on Sunday you’re hanging out in WV until Thursday when your flight leaves. Add in “take a week off work, or work from crappy hotel wifi” and it was a less than ideal situation.
Then one team parent suggested renting a van and pooling the boys into hotel rooms, and immediately a bunch of other families including ours got interested. And so last Thursday morning we drove K2 20 miles to the meeting point and pointed his sleepy self plus luggage and gear onto a packed van with ten boys and two of the bravest parents I’ve ever known (plus two more flying down to help chaperone), and off they went!!
Because of the pandemic and an injury last year that kept him out of Regionals, K2 hasn’t really had group trips without parents. This is the first time since nature camp in 5th grade that he’s been on a trip with his mates, sharing a room and getting meals as a group, depending on Other People’s Parents for transportation and supervision, and managing his own expenses (and belongings!!). It’s been a great experience for him and he seems to be having fun… we know from his requesting the Netflix password that he’s watching a movie with his teammates tonight.
It’s been both wistful and exciting keeping up with how the team’s doing from 900 miles away. The parents who are there have been fantastic keeping us posted at every game, and I am serious when I say we have cheered out loud every time a parent types “GOAL!!!” in the groupchat. They send us photos of the boys after every game, and while we’re not able to watch (no streaming of games, but they will be available eventually so the boys can pull footage for highlight videos) we feel just as involved.
Send some good vibes towards West Virginia on Wednesday at 11am Eastern, please. These boys would very much like to make Finals, and go onward to Orlando and Nationals next month. If they do, at least one of us (probably Mr. Brillig) WILL be there. Not missing that one!!!!
Tonight, we have the Triple Trifecta (or is that a Triple Hat Trick?) of Tops for you… Top Comments, Mojo and Pictures for Saturday, Sunday and tonight!! Join me over the fold, then come chat in the comments with what’s on your mind tonight!
Here at Top Comments we welcome longtime as well as brand new Daily Kos readers to join us at 10pm Eastern. We strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
TOP COMMENTS
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down. Please remember that comment inclusion in Top Comments does not constitute support or endorsement by diarist, formatter, Top Comments writers or DailyKos. Questions, complaints or comments? Contact brillig.
From tampaedski:
This response to learn by ByTor is top comment worthy. From Sunday’s Abbreviated Pundit Roundup.
From Ed Tracey:
In the diary by
annieli on the
unexpected announcement of a J6 committee hearing tomorrow at 1:00 PM Eastern time ...
justmy2 offers a menu of
possible reasons for why this did not wait until after the congressional recess.
From inkstainedwretch:
TOP MOJO
Top Mojo for yesterday (Sunday), 6/26/2022, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
Top Mojo for 6/25/2022, aka Top Mojo for Saturday:
Top Mojo for 6/24/2022, aka Top Mojo for Friday:
TOP PICTURES
Top Pictures for yesterday (Sunday), 6/26/2022. Click any picture to be taken to the full comment or picture. Thank you to the wonderful dKos staff who made it possible to continue this feature in memory of jotter!
Top Pictures for 6/25/2022, aka Top Pictures for Saturday:
Top Pictures for 6/24/2022, aka Top Pictures for Friday: