Positive thoughts

As it turns out, all of us are hideously upset at the idea of not playing volleyball this fall. Meelyn hasn't said much, but I know her. Aisling surprised us by saying that she sat on the bench too much last year anyway, so maybe she wouldn't miss it much after all. I finally told my husband that I felt like a truck was running over my head every time I thought of no volleyball, and he admitted he felt the same way.

So for now, we have decided to think positively. The fees are supposed to be lower this year (last year they were $150 per girl -- ouch!) because we don't have to pay rent for the lovely practice facility. The facility is a church gym and the varsity coach is the assistant pastor, so voilà! Free practice! It is very true that we have no car, and how I'll be able to ferry the girls to practice in Delaware county while my husband is waiting for a ride home in Hancock county is something that I am not yet able to wrap my mind around. Hopefully, we'll be able to car pool to away games with other team members and share the gas costs.

So. Positive thoughts. Poh-zih-tiiiiiv. Volleyball. Volleyball. Volleyball.

Don't tell me 'cause it hurts

We've had a major family pow-wow around here and come to a big decision that has made me cry.

Because of our one-car status (with no hope in the near future of getting another one) and because of gas prices and traveling to practice -- which is in another county, about half an hour away from our house, but the facility is free and gorgeous and has all new, top-of-the-line volleyball equipment -- as well as to away games that include locations like Lafayette, South Bend and Ft. Wayne, Meelyn and Aisling are not going to be able to play volleyball this year. This would have been Meelyn's first year playing varsity.

Volleyball 2008 headed straight for us

My husband and I are members of our local homeschool volleyball team's board of directors -- he as a coach and me as the scheduling secretary. This is something we're both really looking forward to.

Today I sat down with my list of contacts and sent out an email introducing myself and announcing that our organization is ready to start scheduling games for September and October. I set up a new email box so that volleyball email wouldn't come to my personal address, which is where I already receive email from two homeschool groups, our parish's lectors, messages from friends and an uncanny amount of promotional notices from Bath & Body Works, who appear to think I give off an offensive odor, judging from the amount of mail I get from them. I try not to let that bother me.

So anyway, I sent out my email to all the volleyball teams in our league at about 3:00 and have checked my new mailbox every half hour since then, but there's been no word from anyone. I am currently scowling at my monitor with my lower lip pushed out. These people apparently do not realize how excited I am.

Volleyball banquet 2007

Our volleyball banquet was last Thursday night and it was a very moving occasion.

The thing that was the most moving involved eight huge tables and 60+ folding chairs. Meelyn, Aisling, my friend Susan (the other member of the banquet committee) and Jeff, the volleyball-dad-and-associate-pastor combo at whose church we were banqueting, manhandled those tables and chairs all over this huge church hall. When we were done, I was ready to go home and take to the bed with some Kahlua and decaf, but the work was only just beginning.

Meelyn and Aisling arranged memorabilia that our senior girls had contributed so that banqueters could look it over and observe the girls' progress through five or six years of volleyball. I only met these big girls last year when they were juniors, so looking at all their momentos was very touching, seeing them as 12- and 14-year-olds like my girls, all pigtails and braces, instead of the nearly-grown young adults they are now.

Susan and I put tablecloths on the tables, then laid out the centerpieces and got the buffet table ready for the caterers. Our banquet bugdet is so small as to nearly be non-existent, and I highly suspect that Susan supplemented the amount of money she had to buy decorations out of her own pocketbook. She had made really nice candle centerpieces in clear glass containers, hand-painting the glass with the girls' names and team numbers. The candles were a very nice size for a centerpiece and I have to say, in spite of the fact that this was a low-cost event with paper tablecloths and napkins and no change-plates and salt and pepper that came in plastic shakers, it all looked very nice. And that was totally due to Susan, who is one of those people who could make a silk purse out of a pig's ear with ease.

The caterers arrived exactly when they were supposed to, which led me at first to believe that they weren't actually caterers, but extremely well-organized space aliens from Planet Dinnerparty. The food was very good, the beverages cold, the talk around the tables merry and bright.

Meelyn and Aisling's coach has been with our organization for five years now as the junior varsity coach, and consequently, he got choked up a couple of times. He gave Meelyn the Service award because of her habit of always being there for her teammates with a serve, set or save. Her sweet face glowed with pride and I had to blot away my tears with half of a Parker House roll.

Aisling was the last member of the junior varsity team to be called up to the platform. She was given the Personal Growth because, as the coach said, she had progressed from being a player who simply could not come to practice without getting hammered in the face with the ball, to being one of the team's most reliable servers. I was very proud of her, too, and offered up a thankful prayer that she made it through the season with her glasses intact.

Because my husband came to the banquet straight from work, we had two vehicles there that night. Meelyn elected to come home with me and Aisling said she wanted to ride with Daddy. So Meelyn and I piled into the van (with considerably less cargo than we arrived with -- we were rivaling the Joads for the Amount of Stuff You Can Cram Into or Onto One Motor Vehicle on the way there) and set off for home.

Three seconds after exiting the church parking lot, Meelyn said distractedly, "I can't find my letter from Coach! He said he wrote us all letters and put them in our folders with our team pictures and our certificates, but it's not here! I must have dropped it! Oh, Mommy, let's turn around and go back."

I obediently wheeled the van back around and took her to the door behind the church, which was actually an emergency exit we'd propped open when unloading the van earlier. She got out and banged vigorously on the door until someone inside heard her and let her in; she disappeared and came back about five minutes with an envelope, smiling.

"Daddy had it," she explained, tearing it open and reading.

I pulled out of the church parking lot and back onto the state highway, anxious to make the half hour drive home as quick as possible. We drove along while Meelyn finished her letter, perused her certificate and nearly drove me mad by insisting that I look at every single person in the team picture, even though I was driving through the deep darkness of a Thursday evening in November during rutting season, when the deer population seems intent on making sweet Bambi love and crashing through the windshields of unwary drivers.

Suddenly, Meelyn let out a high-pitched squeal and I hit the brakes, wincing and expecting to see either the sharp hooves or the eight-point rack of a startled 250 pound buck coming in at us. "Mommy!" she shrieked. "I CAN'T FIND MY AWARD!"

"You scared me half to death," I said accusingly.

"I can't find it!" she wailed. "It was really nice, too, a volleyball medal with my name on the back!"

"You know," I said, "when I picked up your purse, I heard something jangle and clang, but I just thought it was those charms on the zipper pull of your bag knocking against the metal folding chair. I wonder if what I heard was actually your award falling out."

"I bet it was," she said. "I put it in the front pocket of my purse."

Sighing, I wheeled the car back around again and drove a couple of miles back to the church. We repeated the previous performance and she pranced back out a couple of minutes later with the medal swinging around her forefinger. She hopped in the van and buckled up.

"Now," I said, leaving the van in Park. "Have you got everything? Your volleyball stuff? Your coat? Purse? HEAD?"

"Yep," she said. "C'mon, let's hurry up and get home. I'm really tired."

"You and me both," I said.

June through November, volleyball is over for another year.

Snacks, books and ice galore

We're just now getting ready to leave for the state volleyball tournament in Ft. Wayne, loaded down with an insane variety of low-calorie snacks and drinks, along with things to keep us occupied during down time when the girls are on bye.

Road trip!! Wooooooohooooooo!!!!

I hope I will still be feeling this chipper at 11:30 tonight when we roll in.

Volleyball Game #5 - WACHE (here)

We hosted the the WACHE Lady Warriors volleyball team at our gym last Friday night, September 28. WACHE, just in case you're wondering like I was, stands for Wells-Allen Christian Home Educators.

At any rate, they pounded us. Ab. So. Lute. Ly. Massacred. Us.

There was nothing at all commendable about the whole thing. I worked in the snack bar for an hour and got a chance to buy a piece of made-from-scratch vanilla cake with homemade buttercream frosting. Aisling did do a lot of playing, subbing in several times. We were grateful to the coach.

Other than that, we're trying to block the whole thing from our consciousness. It's just painful to contemplate.

Our state tournament is tomorrow in Fort Wayne. (Hi, Lilly! I'd come see you, but we'll be playing volleyball right at the time you're headed into work.) I hope the girls will snap back into their good form. Otherwise, it's gonna be a lo-o-o-o-ng night.

Volleyball Game #4 -- Noblesville (away)

Tuesday evening was the scene of a promising-looking match between our girls and the Noblesville Lady Knights, but things took a turn for the worse, I'm afraid.

Our JV Angels took the floor after a particularly impressive warm up session. I sat and read The Yearling and kept an eye out for stray balls moving with increasing velocity toward my head, but couldn't help but notice that the setting, bumping and spiking was all looking very, very nice.

And it was! The first game of the best-out-of-three match was a really good one. Our girls, inexperienced as they are (we do have five twelve-year-olds, after all), played brilliantly, they truly did. They kept the Lady Knights scrambling ingloriously. We won the first game with ease. But then the second game came along, as inexorably as February follows January, no matter how sick you are of snow and how much you wish you'd been born in Hawaii. You might take from this that the second game did not go well.

Nor, for that matter, did the fifteen point tiebreaker.

I'm not sure what happened to our junior varsity girls, whether they psyched themselves out by winning the first game with such ease, or whether they got complacent and felt that they really didn't need to expend much effort since the Lady Knights weren't that good, but the Lady Knights came back and administered a couple of smackdowns that left the Angels reeling.

Frankly, our girls played like poo. They just did. I'd like to be one of those "they didn't win, but it was still a great game" type of people right now, but I can't. When a serve is sailing over the net and it looks easily returnable but six girls on the court all just stand there and watch it land right smack in the middle of the court, I can't say it was a good game. Or when, after being told over and over again to talk to each other, calling out "Mine!" when a ball is coming toward them, they all stand silently...I can't.

There's another problem happening with volleyball that is straining things between the JV coach and my husband and I. Aisling, who went to volleyball camp way back in June and also attended all August practices, is being left to sit on the bench, while our other young members of the team, some of whom are no better than she is (and a couple of them not as good) are getting playing time.

She did not play one single second of this match with Noblesville.

My husband and I are both extremely opposed to this type of coaching, not just for Aisling, but for anyone left sitting on a bench. I know that bench-sitting happens - it is such a refined practice that it has been given the more catchy title of "red shirting" in college sports -- but this volleyball team isn't, in our opinion, supposed to be about leaving girls to sit while their morale droops and their skills suffer from lack of the challenge of a game.

It would be hard to take if this were a college or even a high school team where kids eagerly try out just for a hope of bench sitting. But our volleyball team is one where we practically have to stand in the mall and beg girls to join. In circumstances like those, everyone should get a chance to play.

Especially someone who came and worked all summer.

Especially someone whose parents are paying through the nose to give their daughter this opportunity to sit on the bench match after match after match.

Especially when other girls, who didn't attend the camp and perhaps only joined the team within the past few weeks are getting playing time.

Especially when the coach, who repeatedly tells the team, "This is not about winning. This is about playing volleyball and developing your skill" pulled a tearful Aisling aside after the Noblesville match and said, "Look, Aisling, it's nothing personal that I didn't play you. It's just that I wanted to go with the same lineup I used for the Columbus match and see if we could pull off a win with those girls."

Which seems a little hypocritical to me. Or maybe he was just thinking of any excuse that came to mind when he saw the expression on the faces of her parents. I don't know.

Last year, a girl who had just learned to play volleyball spent a lot of time on the bench. She and Meelyn became friends because it was the first year for both of them. There were many times when I was indignant on her behalf. I thought the coach was doing her a great disservice by allowing her to sit, but I wasn't her mother and there was nothing I could do. I did politely ask the coach why Meelyn only played about two minutes of one game in an entire day's worth of tournament matches that we traveled all the way to Ft. Wayne to attend. That brief appearance on the court was not worth the money it took to drive up there with gas at $3.60 per gallon, and it wasn't worth the nine hours we spent there, either.

He was very polite in return, but personally, I thought his response, which was, "Well, everyone doesn't get to play in every single game," was just as stupid when I heard it last year as it is hearing it this year.

Why not? On a Christian homeschool volleyball team, why not? On a Christian homeschool volleyball team where parents like us, with two girls on the roster, are paying several hundred dollars in fees to the team (not including all the travel, uniforms, equipment, et cetera), why not?

I am really ticked off about this.

My husband and I are not the kind of people who will ever get in this coach's face and make idiots of ourselves about this. We aren't like that. It's one thing to politely say, "I was wondering if you could explain your motivation in not allowing my daughter any playing time?" but it's another thing to do what a lot of parents do and scream abuse at him until his hair blows backward.

So last Tuesday, my husband spoke his piece. He spoke it politely and the coach received it politely. I just stayed away. I was so angry, I was almost incandescent and sometimes it's just better to remove yourself to the van while your husband is talking with the coach because that way, you can slouch down and mutter the most ferociously insulting epithets under your breath and no one is the wiser except the Lord your God and He knows that I used no profanity in my whispered diatribe.

Tonight we play a home game at 6:30. I guess we'll see how things go from there. If there's no change, my husband and I have already told Aisling that this may well be something we'll have to offer up, to unite this suffering with the suffering of Christ, realizing that we haven't been called to shed blood. We've told her that even if nothing changes, we won't let one bad coach ruin for her a sport that she really loves.

And next year, Daddy will likely be coaching in his place since the current coach will be moving on. And he will make sure that this kind of thing doesn't happen to her or to any other girl as long as he holds that position.

Volleyball Game #3 - Indy Lightning (here)

Oh, they played so hard, those junior varsity girls! The Indy Lightning team is our nemesis, our greatest rival, mostly because they are so wickedly fast and good. We played them at our invitational and managed, at least to keep up with them, even though they ended up winning.

Which is what happened tonight. It was best two-out-of-three and Indy Lightning won. But at least it wasn't a total humiliation. We lost respectably. We maintained our dignity. We ate walking tacos afterwards and pretended that we'd really kind of won.

Two incidents marred the evening, however. Incident #1 concerned One of Those Dads, who was sitting in the stands behind me and my parents. He's one of those tall men who stand with the chest pushed forward intimidatingly, arms squared off and fingers curled inward, leaning into you with their shoulders in a subtle act of dominance, even if all they're doing is saying, "Great weather we're having lately." Which, you know, I really hate. I mean, really hate. There's something about that type of male aggression that makes my spine stiffen and my teeth bite down hard against each other.

(Anyway.)

He's the sort of person who has a snarky bit of criticism for every player on the team out there, and from the sound of it, the girls are missing returns and goofing up their serves on purpose to offend him. He whined and complained and shouted KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL, GIRLS in his big, bellowing sarcastic man-voice until I thought I was going to have to turn around and damage him physically. Because you know what he said every time his own daughter sent a serve into the net or bumped a ball out of bounds?

Nothing.

It's very hard, because his daughter is a treasure - funny, sweet and smiling. Easy to coach; anxious to please and develop her skills. And she's a good volleyball player, too. But how that lovely girl sprung from those obnoxious loins is something I'd do well not to contemplate, or I may never sleep again.

Incident #2 was Aisling's playing only about two seconds in the entire match, which makes me so impatient with the coach. I'm resigned to it because that's the way it works in this coach's purview. I don't agree with him; I think the only way to challenge players to become better is to give them some worthwhile time to play. I'm not reconciled to bench-sitting. It's counter productive, in my opinion. But....it's his team. And it isn't my business to be One of Those Mothers. And I have to admit that Aisling did spend a lot of time back in August getting clocked in the face with a ball at almost every practice, which resulted in a lot of tears and the coach having to deal with her. I can understand why his confidence in her ability is underwhelmed.

It's a learning experience, we tell her. For you and for us. Not an easy one. But the world already has its quota of parents who make idiots of themselves shouting at coaches, and we're not going to add to that sum.

Meelyn spent a lot of time at the net, which is her least favorite place to play. She made another great tip; her serves were strong and her setting was impeccable. She looks so beautiful and grown up out there, her entire being focused on what's happening on the court, radiating an energy so intense, even her ponytail seems to be zinging. The coach's wife, who was sitting next to me keeping stats, looked over once and said in admiration, "I can't believe how much that girl has improved this year." I glowed with pride. It's true! She has!

So. Another loss, but we're still very encouraged. If we can hang with the Indy Lightning, that is a sure sign that things are moving in a positive direction.

Volleyball Game #2 -- Columbus (away)

We had a good match last night.

The trip to Columbus went off without a hitch, other than the fact that my husband sat waiting for us at the McDonald's on 116th Street in Fishers at the I-69 interchange instead of the McDonald's at 96th Street in Fishers at the I-69 interchange. We managed to rectify this problem without too much irritated bickering.

It was a beautiful afternoon for a drive. Our directions were very clear. Aisling had packed the little cooler with some turkey sandwiches, and we were all set. I was driving because I have nerves of steel when it comes to interstate driving during rush hour (my husband once looked at me, his eyes wide and said, "You drive like a dude," which was a high compliment from someone who thinks that he drives better than everyone else in the world, including Jeff Gordon.) My basic method is to get in the fast lane and put my foot down, which I did, only causing my husband to close his eyes and blanch in terror twice.

The gym of our opponents, the Columbus Inferno, was a very nice one. I sat in the bleachers with all the other volleyball moms, as pleasant a group of ladies as you could ever hope to meet.

Our junior varsity girls took the floor at 6:00 and from the first return, it was obvious that the two teams were well-matched. The score went up and down, favoring first one team and then the other. We finally won the first game, to much cheering from the moms.

The second game went the same way, up and down, up and down, and the JV Inferno won that one.

The tie-breaker is played to fifteen points. The Inferno emerged victorious and thus took the match, but our junior varisty played SO well. The coaches were very pleased with them, and in spite of the loss, the girls seemed pleased with themselves. We saw very little of that business we saw far too often last season, which is the ball falling with a dismal thud while the players all stand around and look at each other: "Was that mine? Was I supposed to get that? No, that was yours. You were supposed to get it."

That's the kind of thing that makes the coaches go pop-eyed as they try to restrain themselves from saying things that will make the girls cry. The JV head coach, whose name is Kevin, gloomily says, "I've coached boys and I've coached girls and girls are a million times harder." If you tell a group of boys on a team that their playing stinks and that they need to get their heads in the game, the boys apparently respond by saying, "You got it, coach." The teenage girls respond by crying, because you've hurt their feelings by (justifiably) criticizing their level of play and insulted their heads into the bargain. I mean, can't you see that they've taken extra trouble to arrange their headbands, ponytail scrunchies and team-color-coordinating ribbons, coach? What is wrong with their heads? Sheeeesh, lighten up already and pass the tissues.

So last night's match was great fun. We didn't get home until 10:00 p.m., which meant that we had been gone from the house almost twelve hours yesterday, so the tiredness factor was urgent and compelling. We all took showers and fell into bed with actual blankies pulled over us; my husband got up in the middle of the night and put a second blanket on us and it felt so gooood.

I could grow used to these cooler temperatures.

Volleyball Game #1 (here)

There was wildness and much drama surrounding last Friday's first home match of the season. As far as I can unravel the many details, here's what happened:

Last Friday, the girls hosted their first volleyball match at our home gym. Until about sixteen hours before the match, everything looked like it was going to be completely as usual, but then our scheduling secretary got an email from the opposing team's coach saying that:

1) they weren't going to bring their junior varsity team, just varsity

2) our junior varsity would have to play their varsity because they didn't want to forfeit the match

and

3) out of deference for their varsity players, who would be tired after playing so many games, the opposing team's coach proposed that the varisty and junior varsity games be played as best-two-out-of-three, instead of the regular five varsity games and three junior varsity, as was originally agreed upon.

Our team plays in a league of teams from homeschool groups and Christian schools that are governed by IHSAA (Indiana High School Athletics Association) rules. We pay an IHSAA official a goodly sum out of our meager bank account so that he/she can officiate and make sure all standards are being abided by. So you can imagine how worried the coaches, the president of the board of directors and the scheduling secretary were. Oh, yes...and they were mad, too. What if the IHSAA official came to our match and decided that he couldn't qualify our games? Then we'd have to pay him anyway and send him straight home with a flea in his ear.

(Currently, the board president is beginning to think that it would be a good idea to go with signed contracts for matches. That way, the opposing team, if they or any other team tried to pull a last minute bit of rudeness like this, they'd have to forfeit the game, instead of just arrogantly setting their own rules for somebody else's gym.)

I'm sure this is all terribly boring to anyone who isn't involved in this organization, but let me tell you, it was a powder keg in there on Friday night.

Unless our junior varsity wanted to forfeit the match, they'd be stuck playing the opposing team's varsity girls. Our junior varsity players range in age from just-turned-12 to around 14.5 years old. Our varsity girls, six of whom are high school seniors, are all 16, 17 and 18 years old. As were their varsity players. "Better a loss than a forfeit," the JV coach sighed philosophically, so our little tiny Davids went out to meet the great big Goliaths from the City That Shall Not Be Named. Because we are really, really mad at them. But it starts with an H and has both an ing and a ton on the end of the word with a u-n-t in the middle.

Yeah, you know who you are.

I'd like to say that things worked out for our JV just like things worked out for David in the Bible, but, well, not so much. Those varsity players looked like they were more than willing to cram the volleyball down our JV girls' little throats and then maybe eat their legs into the bargain. Our girls didn't stand a chance. They had some good moments when they valiantly defended their court, but the other team's players were bigger, stronger and much more experienced than our girls and it was pretty much a massacre.

My husband and I told the girls that we were proud of them -- they fought back instead of just knuckling under. They played well and it wasn't their fault that they were extremely mismatched with their opponents. If the opposing team had actually honored their committment and brought their junior varsity team to play ours (and the reason why they didn't is still extremely unclear to me), our girls would have stood a good chance of winning.

"The best comeuppance would be to go to their game in a few weeks and for both of our teams to whip the snot out of those girls," my husband said thoughtfully.

"From your lips to God's ear," I said solemnly.

"Yeah," said Meelyn, setter and server extraordinaire.

"Yeah," said Aisling, visions of digs and spikes dancing through her head.

Volleyball invitational - booohya

Yesterday kicked off the volleyball season with our annual invitational. Three other teams from the area joined us for a tournament. Our varisty team ended up winning the trophy, as well they should have because I watched a few of their games and WOW. Those girls are good. And fast.

Junior varsity didn't do so well as far as winning games went, but their level of play was completely different from last year. This is Meelyn's second season and Aisling's first; we also have two other twelve-year-olds, one of whom is so good that I was awestruck by her instinctive knack for the game. As I watched JV matches yesterday, it was a real thrill to see flashes of brilliance as the ball was volleyed and volleyed back and forth across the net. Of course, there were a few times when the ball would be served by the opposing team, only to land with a dismal thud right in the middle of the court, a feat which makes my husband, who is the assistant coach, drop his head into his hands, his ears turning bright red.

The JV coach doesn't fare much better in this regard, but he has learned the knack of chewing the girls out for being lazy and distracted without making them all cry. Which is quite a valuable skill. Because as it turns out, it's hard to bump, set and spike when your eyes are welling with tears.

I spent a lot of my day working in the concession stand, which is one of my favorite things to do. For some reason, it just suits me. And not because I get to eat. Shut up. You can't stand there and eat if you're working the concession stand. We sold lots of different candy, plus chips and granola bars and packaged cookies and crackers, cups of watermelon chunks, homemade cinnamon buns, pulled pork sandwiches, baked potatoes, walking tacos, hotdogs and nachos, plus a multitude of soft drinks. I enjoy serving people when they come up to the window, plus I had the vantage point of being able to sit on a high stool with my feet on a cooler and see straight down one of the courts. I also had the advantage of a nice fan casting its cool breeze over me as I sat during slow periods in the un-air-conditioned gym.

Yes, you read that correctly. The gym was not air-conditioned. Yesterday wasn't as bad as last year, I will say that. We actually had a lot of rain yesterday and that helped keep it cooler in there, although it didn't do one blessed thing for the humidity. It gave us a lot to offer up, let's put it that way.

In spite of the sticky heat, it was still as really fun day. Meelyn's serve is deadly, causing all sorts of mayhem and leaping about for the other team. Aisling's serve has shaped up so well that she scored four straight points in one game. Volleyball is enormously fun to watch and I sat with the other parents (very nice people, all of them) and cheered until I was a little bit hoarse.

We all missed one spectator, the grandpa of a girl who isn't playing this year. He won the Our Favorite Fan award at the banquet in November 2006 and got a little teary-eyed when he laughingly came forward to accept it.

He had a very loud and gravelly voice and trumpeted forth with some trenchant witticisms and sporting lore that always made me laugh.

His advice for a good serve? "Get a little aiiiiiiiir under it!"

For the team, preparing for an opposing server's onslaught? "You watch this one. Sheeeeeeeeeeeee's tricky!"

What about a dive onto the court, resulting in bumps, bruises and floor burns? "Rub some diiiiirt on it!"

I miss him this year. So the other parents and I entertained ourselves by calling out encouragement in his style. It was a hoot, the kind of hoot you can only have when you've drained six bottles of water and four Diet Cokes and your shirt is sticking to your back and your bangs are sticking to your forehead.

A short time before the four McKinneys left to go home and take showers (we'd been there for about eight hours at that point), some of the other mothers and I looked at each other and agreed, "We look AWFUL." Our daughters were all glowing with perspiration and looking sensationally young and vibrant, but we, the older generation, just looked damp and draggled.

My family agreed: Never have showers felt so good as they did yesterday evening. I was in my pajamas by 6:30, my clean hair smelling of shampoo and tidily fastened up in a barrette, sitting on the sofa in front of the fan, ready to spend a pleasant evening watching television and reading with my husband while the girls went upstairs to watch Princess Diaries 2, a movie of which they never tire.

I love volleyball season.