Andy Smallman

Andy Smallman here, reporting from the pitch where today the LVR Tsunamis gained their first victory of the season with a decisive 4-1 romping over the visiting Hillwood Fusion. The game was fairly even for the first ten minutes before the Tsunamis broke through with their first goal. The center forward hit a solid shot that was mishandled by the Fusion keeper and dribbled into the net. Clearly, this was an icebreaker for the Tsunamis as they had been blanked in their first two matches. The early goal buoyed the girls (yes, that play on words was intentional) who soon thereafter got another.

Speaking of their second goal, just moments earlier Coach Rob had substituted in his international designated player, the French girl Celeste Bertail (in blue with the orange shoes). Celeste was standing near the teammate who tallied the second goal. And when the ball hit the back of the net, Celeste was seen to jump in the air and clap. Although this reporter was not in hearing range, it would not surprise him to learn that Celeste let out an exuberant, “Indeed!” after the goal, and the 2-0 lead, took place.

Moments later, however, Coach Rob had to instruct Celeste on where to place herself on the field after a goal and in preparation for the opposing team’s kick-off. Playing forward at the time, it looked to surprise Celeste to learn she had to be on the Tsunami side of the midfield stripe at this point.

The second half looked similar to the first with the Tsunamis getting their third goal before the Fusion finally tallied one of their own. A late fourth goal for the Tsunamis wrapped up this fine match.

An hour or so after the game, Celeste was still basking in the glow of her team’s first win while on her way to meet a new school friend at a local public library. She was heard wondering aloud if she’ll be able to find a team in France when she returns to Nantes in December.

David Spangler is one of the founding parents of PSCS. He’s also a good friend of mine, someone who’s given me good guidance in a variety of ways for more than 20 years. Without David, I daresay I do not know what I’d be doing now. So I pay special attention to David’s writings and thoughts, and really like this piece he posted online yesterday.

Need this to make sense? Click here.

So now that the new TV season has started, Ella and I really miss each other. I mean, geez, yes, we’ve missed each other since she moved to Portland in July (well, I can only really say that I’ve missed her…). But now that our favorite shows are back on, it’s hit a critical point.

For instance, on Sunday night, one of our favorite shows, one that we’d watch together every week last year in the comfort of our home, returned from its summer break.

That’s Brooklyn 99, the funny cop show on Fox. Now we’ve never watched it on Sunday night when it airs, well, because we don’t have regular TV at our house. But we would watch it, typically, on Monday nights on Hula Plus which is connected to our TV through our Roku (if that sounds like some foreign language, you may want to put your VCR away and work on moving into the 21st century). We’ve long had plans to continue this tradition this fall, with each of us watching the show and chatting via text or FaceTime.

And that’s what we did last night, we watched the first episode of the new season “together,” Ella in Portland and me in Seattle. We even each sent the other a screenshot from our phones, each of the photos now immortalized here.

That’s sweet!

Whew, what a busy Sunday. First and thank goodness, the Seahawks looked more like their usual football selves and won, shutting out the Bears 26-0. That was some good news for this football-crazed city. Had the Seahawks lost, I think we would be in shut-down mode. People would be forced to move, property values would plummet, and Starbucks would close. It was that serious.

On the downside of sports, Celeste’s soccer team lost 3-0. But on the positive side, she played well over 45 minutes when she expected to play only 5. Why? Two of the girls on her team got hurt and there were not enough subs. Celeste got thrown in to the action at left defender. She did great, despite the loss, and I think she feels pretty good about it.

Next up, it was Dwight’s birthday party tonight. He turned 81 on Friday and tonight the family got together at Melinda’s childhood home for a little party. That’s a pretty good picture of Dwight up there on the left blowing out his birthday candles. The cake was a gift from the History Channel, go figure. Representatives were in town doing some research for a program about the infamous hijacker D.B. Cooper. Dwight has some theories that the producers were interested in hearing.

After dinner, Perrin drew what she is calling “fusion” pictures. There was one for Melinda, and others for Chloe, Ella, and even one for me. But this one on the right, fusing Celeste and Rapunzel, is pretty slick. Note the hair, obviously.

All of this, and I didn’t even mention the eclipse that a rare clear night in Seattle allowed us to witness!