Great, just great. Some woman thinks it's okay to let her dog just poop in our yard and walk away. Oh, it's a small dog, its poop is small, she'll say. WTF, mate? It's still dog poop. It's still hazardous to children who might, oh, I don't know, play near it, or pick lemons off my tree near your dog's shit. It's gross, woman.

My dad doesn't pick up his dog's poop, either. "It's small," is his excuse.

Next time, I'm running out, even if I'm nearly naked, and handing the woman a doggie bag. If she doesn't take it and use it, I hereby declare she has given me permission to kick her dog.

It's small. It'll punt quite nicely.

Today was the first, possibly annual, Sunnyvale Savage Seven ultimate tournament. For years (tragically, yes, that plural is true and not just by one), I've thought that the fields at the local elementary school would be perfect for an ultimate tournament. Kris and I would walk by and see the little soccer players on the field and think, we want to play on this field, too!

So, after deciding that, yes, this was the year to host the tournament, I submitted the fields application, set up the website, announced the tournament, arranged the (unbelievably expensive) portapotties, then left the state. Sorta, but close enough.

Yesterday, after arriving home around 1 in the afternoon, I shifted from vacation mode to high gear, helped the delivery of the (unbelievably expensive) portapotties (mostly by dragging an unwilling Bella as I chased down , dashed off to Costco to purchase tournament food, assigned players to teams, and finished the tournament schedule, complete with an alternate schedule should an extra eight people show up to make another, eighth team.

Today, I shanghaied Kris into helping me set up the fields. He set up the three fields. The just-graduated-from-high-school or college freshman players all arrived exactly on time. Everyone else, of course, showed up late. I missed the first part of the first round, which started a half hour late. I managed to play all of the other rounds, however.

There were seven rounds, each team playing the other six teams, with one bye (since we had only three fields). We had eight players on our team, and only two women, so each round we picked up at least one woman. We won all of our games, including the surprising win over the mostly-Mischief team.

The sixth round, our second to last round, had us playing the other undefeated team. Kris really wanted to win that game, and gave it his all. We were up at half, but ended up losing. That round had the only high-strung players on it, with one player drawing fouls on Kris and annoying him. It was interesting to watch Kris try to rally the troops with his Mischief-inspiration talks about heart, intensity and focus. Didn't work, and we lost.

During the last round, Kris left to get the 55 burritos I had ordered for the tournament. Honestly, the (unbelievably expensive) portapotties were half the expense of the tournament, costing more than 55 burritos did. Kris, however, was smart, when he went to get burritos, as my knees were hurting so much during the last round.

I wasn't sure if the burritos would well received at the end of the day. I shouldn't have worried. Everyone loved them, with the first 51 going in less than 10 minutes as teams finished their rounds and came over for food. The remaining four disappeared shortly thereafter.

A large many number of players came up to me as I started cleaning up, letting me know they had a great time at the tournament. I had a great time, running the tournament I would want to attend. Honestly, the burritos and beer pushed the event into a loss. One of these days, I'll actually price an event so that I don't lose money. Considering this tournament was supposed to be a fundraiser for Mischief, I'm disappointed in the loss. I am, however, proud of how much fun the event was.

I blame the (unbelievably expensive) portapotties.

There were only two unfortunate parts of the whole day. The small one was that I forgot to take my camera. I have exactly zero pictures of the whole event. Boo. The larger one was an ankle sprain from one of the just-graduated players. I heard it wasn't a break, which is good. That she had a bad sprain, as I can well attest, sucks big time.

(Fortunately for me, other people did take pictures of the tournament. People like Tish Fagin took pictures.)

The world is definitely small. At the airport on the way to my flight home from Phoenix, I walked along the line of many, many people waiting to check bags at the Southwest ticket counter. As I approached the end of the line, I saw a man whom I immediately recognized.

Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out from where.

I watched him as I approached. His mannerisms were familiar, his way of talking and gesturing. When I was close, I recognized his voice. He was talking on the phone, so I stepped into the back of the line and continued to watch him. He continued to talk to some staff person and on the phone for a few moments longer, then turned and walked in the opposite direction.

He looked like Joe Martz, from elementary school and junior high. Junior high... junior high... Senior high. Senior high. Arizona. Band.

Click.

He was the first chair baritone in band. He was the one who received the fancy euphonium when the school bought one. And the really really cool marching baritone when the school bought one of them! Oh! Oh wait!

I was torn between making my flight, standing in a 30 minute line less than an hour before my flight was scheduled to leave, and running after him to say hello. The last time I couldn't remember someone and walked up to say hello, I walked up to a retired college classmate of mine who had made many, many millions from eToys. I learned my lesson from that embarrassment and never immediately say more than hello when I haven't spoken to someone in a decade.

So, I didn't run after him and say hello. I'll need to email Jenn and see if she remembers the guy's name. Hmph, she may still be in contact with him. Now that would be my luck.

As the walk progresses, her speed starts to slow, she lingers at trees to smell them, she pulls backward on the leash. It doesn't matter how long the walk is, she does this one short walks and long walks. She does this on walks that end at our house, or on the trail where the walk ends at the car. As we near the end of the walk, she slows.

It's almost as if she knows that the fun time is ending, and she wants to prolong the moment as long as she can.

Normally, I'm just frustrated with her slowing. Today, I understand her foot dragging. As my vacation nears its end, I'm slowing down. I want the time to gone on longer, I want to stay in Arizona and visit with family, play ultimate, linger at the pool.

Sigh.

Arizona is hot. It's just hot. Hot, hot, hot.

Which is why everyone is inside, or in the pool. Like us!

Eric put up a very Frank Gehry-like structure over the pool to keep the pool in the shade so that we could be in the pool during the heat of the day. Previously, we couldn't swim from around 10 until around 3 because the pool was in FULL. BRIGHT. SUN. One step out there during that time, and we'd all melt.

With the Frank shade structure up, we could be out at any time of day. The downside is that the pool stayed in the shade, too, and never really warmed up. Cold pools and me? Not so much.

Today, however, I decided that yes, I could get in the water and play with the boys. So I did. Usually, Sam and Jackson just splash around, or jump into the pool seeing who could make the biggest cannonball splash. I figured I'd splash around with them, fetch the water toys that end up at the bottom of the deep end, cool off and get out.

At one point, I was fixing the band on the goggles I was going to wear. The band was pulled tight enough to fit on a 4 year old's head, which meant it was just about perfect for my puny head, but not quite. As I stood on the pool steps adjusting the band, Sam swam up to me, pulled off his googles, and said, "Here, use these. They're bigger."

Now, the goggles I had in my hand were actually the same size and style as the ones he was offering me. The band was already a little looser, but they were the same style.

I accepted them, said thanks, and watched with suspicion as he went over to the other side of the pool, plucked up another pair of goggles, put them on and went off to swim again.

Having just spent the last two days with Sam, watching as he cheated his way to some allowed victory or bitter defeat, I couldn't help but wonder, how am i getting the bum end of this deal?

I never did figure out how. The goggles were good, they fit well. I'm not sure when I became cynical of the generosity of a seven year old.