While the team is back in sunny California (oddly enough, sunny Northern California), I'm in sunny oh-HI-oh, playing at the 26th annual Jeff Warrick Memorial Poultry Days tournament in Versailles. That's Ver-SAILs to us non-oh-HI-oh people. Pronounce it ver-sigh and you'll get a head-dubbing worthy of a king.

John saved me a spot last night by double parking when he arrived earlier, so I had a sweet parking spot when I arrived at 12:30 am (nearly the whole time thinking it was only 11:30pm, because I was a nut and forgot that valpariaso is on CENRAL time, not EASTERN time - brilliant me). I went to "bed" where "bed" is the back of the aforementioned van.

My bed sucked.

It was hard, and lumpy, and curved in funny directions. I was unable to sleep well at ALL, and ended up ossing and turning the whole night, wishing that I coudl fall asleep and being completely unable to do so. 1:30. 1:54. 2:26. 2:54. 4:11. 5:27. each of these times a wakeup point. Annoying wakeup points, actually.

When 9:00 am rolled around, John knocked on my car window, telling me to get up, they were going to breakfast. Fine. Fine. Fine, I'll get up. So, up I went, moving slowly. Turns out, there are hide-away storage areas in the van, so I was able to hide all of my valuables in the bottom of the van, while carrying only the stuff I really thought I needed.

The first game at 11 am was against the top team in our pool. John mentioned tehy were a college all-star team, which didn't do much other than psych us out. We lost half at 7-2. We did, however, come back in the second half (or they didn't think much of us and relaxed), and the final score was 13-7.

The second game was against the fifth seed in our pool, and not much of a contest. The hardest part was, of course, not playing sloppy and causing the game to drag on forever. They managed two points on us, for a 13-2 score.

The next game was against the fourth seed in our pool and, although they seemed to have better throws than the previous team, the final score of that game was 13-4 or something close. I thought they were better than the fifth seed team, John didn't agree much. No matter, we won.

The last game of the day is the game that mattered. The second place team in our pool had lost to the first place team in our pool. A win over this team gave us a chance at the A bracket tomorrow: the bigger the victory, the better the chance. The team, Hee Haw, was a little odd for my tastes. They came with baby-dolls covered in crude, quite offensive words and phrases. I'm not sure if they drank all day, but our margin of victory of two points didn't really give us a great chance at the A bracket.

Having never been to this tournament before, I had no idea what to expect next, so I just went with the flow. When the team wandered over to the shade at the side of the field, instead of my usual panic rush-rush-rush to get our field area cleaned up and eat, I followed the team and sat in the shade. Matt and Rene Greff had not only sponsored the team by paying for the tournament fee and buying the team shirts, they had also brought two ice chests of food for us to munch on while several ambassadors went on a chicken run for us. I sat in the shade and enjoyed the feeling of being a team player, instead of a team mom.

Admittedly, it was nice.

So, first tournament day done. I've finally figured out how to stretch my hamstring so that I can play all day. I'm excited about the discovery, which will continue my journey of healing.

"I'm old!"

"How are you old?"

"I'm old! I'm 23!"

I'm on my way over to Ohio today. When I arrived at Dad's house, I promptly complained (Imagine that. Me. Complaining. Strange thought, eh?) about the fact the car rental company had run out of compact sized cars, a size I had specifically requested so that I could sleep in the back seat at Poultry Days.

I opened up the van and showed Dad the small back back seat, the only bench seat I could actually sleep on, given the bucket seats in front and in the middle. Dad took one look at inside of the van, and turned to look at me with an expression of, "Are you insane, child?"

An expression which I've noticed heading my way more frequently as of late.

"Looks like a good place to sleep," he commented, as he turned to open the back of the van. Three pulls, two pushes, one grunt and an old heave-ho later, and the back-back seat was folded down into the floor, the two middle seats were folded up, and I had a large flat surface to sleep on, no tent required.

Well, well, well, what do you know? These vans are good for something, eh?

... everything's the same, yet everything's different.

I went for a walk with the dog today. We went around the neighborhood, walking down Dad's street and around the bend, back along the parallel street. I didn't leave enough time for a complete walk, and had to decide whether or not to run along the road, dragging the dog behind me the whole way, or cut across the yards as I used to do when I was 10.

Given the time crunch, I decided to cut across the yards.

Up the driveway I walked, looking up the hill in an attempt to decide which yard to trespass on. When I actually started walking through the neighborhood backyards, I couldn't help but think there are a large number of activities 10 year old girls can get away with that, well, women in their 30s really can't do so easily.

Trespassing through unfamiliar backyards is one of them.

Fortunately, the neighborhood is much (much, much) smaller than I remembered it being, and I was across the yards in no time, back home in time for my phone call.

So much of the neighborhood is the same, though. Sure, it's smaller because I'm bigger. And, hey, there's a really cool playground in the back of one neighbor's yard complete with a really cool merri-go-round and swingset and awesome tree house (oh, to be 10 again!). But the houses are as I remember them. The hills are as I recall them being. The yards are still way green, the road still rough and interesting.

Bharat and I often talked about how cool it would be to have all of our friends living together in one neighborhood. As I walked with the dog I couldn't help but think that this is the neighborhood I'd like all my friends to be in. This is where I'd really enjoy being able to walk to my neighbors, my friends, to see if they wanted to come out to play a game of ultimate, or for communal dinner, or bridge, or Carcasonne.

Not gonna happen, though.

I went to dinner with Dad and Linda tonight. It's funny to watch the two of them are together. Dad is completely ornery and I can say that, Dad, because that's a Hodsden trait as much as being late or being distracted are.

We also drove to 1406, which Linda walks by on some morning walks. The house is looking way run down, which is a shame, really, because it's a lovely house: the original farm house for the area way, way, way back when.

More importantly, the first house i lived in, so it has to be important.

At one point, Linda casually mentioned that a neighbor of hers reads this site, and sometimes updates Linda on my whereabouts and events.

I think the dumb look on my face must have registered to the people I'll be visiting in Ohio tomorrow. I know my jaw took a few moments gathering dust from the restaurant floor.

The only thing I could thing of to say was something along the order of, "Uh....."

So, uh, hi, neighbor who lives next to the house where the Larsons used to live (the Larsons whose son died when I was in junior high school and Chris inherited his motorcycle, not that I can remember the Larson boy's name. Oh, and the trees have grown up a LOT in front of their old house - you can't really see the house for the trees any longer).

Linda asked if that was okay, that her neighbor reads this. I said, sure! because it is. (Did I mention? Hi, Neighbor!) I'll just pretend it's just me here. I hope you don't mind.

Hi, Megan! Hi, Mom! Hi, Roshan! Hi, Cads! Hi, Chookie! Hi, Kris! Hi, Liz!

Oh, and there's a tornado watch on right now for Northwest Indiana. Note to self: when you run downstairs after noticing the sudden drop in air pressure, run to the side with the furnace. That's the southwest side of the house, and the most likely safest spot if the house comes tumblin' down, crumblin' tumblin' dowwwwwwn.