Not knowing what else to do, family watches soccer

That’s right. We spent the Fourth of July watching soccer. Can you think of anything less patriotic?

But alas, it was perhaps the best Fourth ever. Ididn't have to listen to "Proud to be an American" even once!

At 1:30pm Lily, Oli and I were in Small Bar in Wicker Park and the place was half full, preparing itself for the Italy-Germany game. We just barely got seats with the new buddies we’ve made down at the pub. As the pre-game was coming to a close we all vied for one of the three servers’ attention. All together we were one Brit, a duo of Germans, a Mexican, a bevel of new people from around the States, a bi-national baby and the usual urban family members (Colin, Cassie, Jay, Nate Luman, Katie, with a surprise visit from Libby). Eventually everyone got their liter German beers, hummus and pita, coffee ands strange Swedish cherry beers….and the match began.

Everyone was supporting Germany and I went with the intention to support the Germans as well, but as play began, I found myself cheering involuntarily when something happened in Italy’s favor or against Germany’s. Thus, for two hours I had to mask each shout of glee as one of despair and vice versa. That is, until Italy scored their first goal in that second-to-last minute. The sheer despair of the German players and fans broke my heart and made me see that I had been supporting the wrong team. Despite all the foul fakery on behalf of the Italians, it was only these forlorn faces that made me see the error of my ways. My deepest apologies to my fellow World Cup watchers.

Lily, on the other hand, could have cared less about the game. She was too busy being passed around and cooed at by every person who could see her through the mob of viewers. Then she got bored with that and fell asleep in my lap and slept right through the shouts of “Viva Italia” and that thing that the Germans shout but I don’t know how to spell.

After the game everyone had about 10 minutes of sadness and then we soon forgot the game as we basked on the sidewalk out front of Small Bar watching Colin and Nate Luman get drunk and have ridiculous conversations with our new soccer friends. At one point Colin was playing with Nate’s hair.

After making a stop off at the Hartrich’s to pass off my breast pump for Laura’s use (they had a second baby two weeks ago), we headed to the Janice/Megan back yard to meet up with that crew of people, who had been at the Sox game. All of this naturally led to barbequing which meant lots of cheesy hotdog consumption. Kinda delicious and kinda disgusting. All the same, thanks to Nate for providing.

On a side note, reading Laura’s blog about her creepy Fourth-of-July past made me think of that Onion article printed after September 11 titled, “Not knowing what else to do, woman bakes American-flag cake”. Read, enjoy, and have a happy July 5th.