Andy Smallman

As you can tell from this photo, it was a highly competitive soccer match today. Celeste, there on the left, is about to make one of her patented “now you see me, now you don’t” moves on Chloe. Dipsy-doodle and another goal for Celeste!

Truthfully, Celeste did play soccer today and Chloe did not. With all their injuries, Celeste’s team had no subs so she and her 10 teammates played the entire game. Meanwhile, the opposing team regularly made substitutions, sometimes three players at a time, ensuring they were always well-rested. It’s no surprise that the team with multiple subs won 5-0.

Of additional interest, at least to me, is that the opposing team from today is named the Storm. Celeste’s team is called the Tsunamis, as you might recall. Has any team ever chosen the Raindrops? We had some of those today, too.

If you’re a regular follower of this blog you may have noticed I’m posting late tonight. That’s because Melinda, Celeste and I just got back home from a Friday night out. And this wasn’t any Friday night out, especially for Celeste. This was the Friday night in which her American roots took deep hold. She attended an American high school football game, the stuff TV shows are made of.

At school today, she and a new friend chatted about the game. And when her soccer practice was cancelled due to limited availability of players, Celeste jumped at the chance to attend the Roosevelt Roughriders football game. Melinda and I drove her to the Seattle Center to Memorial Stadium (where we once saw Elvis Costello perform, by the way) where many of the Seattle high schools play their football games. It’s quite picturesque in that the stadium is under the shadow of the Space Needle.

I made sure Celeste located her friends and then Melinda and I drove further into town to have dinner. We came back, thinking the game must be close to being over, only to discover there was still another quarter to play. We took a seat in the bleachers and tried not to be discovered by Celeste (we didn’t want to embarrass her!), texting that we were “nearby.” We thought we’d hop up and head to the car just before the game was over.

But what happened, you wonder?

Right toward us came Celeste and her friends! I’d like to say that I quickly embraced Melinda in a passionate kiss in order not to be seen by Celeste, you know, like they do in the movies, but I wasn’t that quick-thinking. Instead, I just turned my head away. Celeste walked past us, not noticing. So much for the movies and those kisses…

We hustled back to the car, but not before receiving a text from Celeste, “Where are you?”

Oh, Roosevelt was losing 30-14 at the point we left, which was with about 2 minutes to go in the game. It didn’t look good for the Roughriders and it was a bit chilly, hence the early departure for Celeste and her friends. But you should have seen her grin.

So I drove down to Portland yesterday morning after having dropped Melinda & Celeste at the airport. They flew to San Francisco to spend a few days with Melinda’s cousin. More on their trip tomorrow. For now, it’s about burgers with Ella in Portland!

So, yes, I drove to Portland, arriving just past 11am. After helping Ella get a few things organized in her apartment, we hoofed it to Little Big Burger on 23rd, a few blocks from her place. She’s wanted me to try one of these tall but small burgers (get it, little big?) and it did not disappoint. Following her lead, I added bacon and together we had a fine lunch. We followed this with a walk to her school, Ella guiding me on the walking path she favors so I can picture it when I’m chatting with her.

Arriving at her school, we heard a sports announcer over a loudspeaker coming from the high school nearby, so we wandered over and watched three quarters of a football game featuring two teams made up of what we think were 5th and 6th graders. The visiting team had it all their way, ahead 38-6 when we left. Ella’s favorite player was the tiny quarterback, #32 for the home team. Under center, he leaned lower than some of the linemen.

After that, we did some grocery shopping, caught up on Flash, our favorite TV show, and then went to the Pearl District for dinner. We located Tilt, another burger joint, a place we think Melinda wouldn’t want to visit. In other words, this was our chance. I ordered something called a Mad Andy (?!) which included the burger, blue cheese, a fried egg, an onion ring, and jalapeno peppers. It was dark inside so our photo is a bit blurry, but hopefully you get the picture.

After dinner we want to Powell’s and bought a couple of books, a Patricia Polacco kid’s story called “Gifts of the Heart” and a graphic novel about the Flash TV show. We took the bus back to Ella’s place, read the Polacco book then watched a little TV before calling it a night.

Burgers, The Flash, Ella… That’s a perfect Saturday night, you know, especially with Melinda away.