Breakfast in America
Hungry?
Yes, this is the sight that usually greets me on any given evening. Isn’t it nice to be so beloved by the fine restaurants of my neighborhood? Fans of New York who don’t live here often say envious things about all our take-out places. The wide variety of cheap and easy food (forget cheap and easy people). The food from countries that you’ve never even heard of. But then, they don’t have to contend with the nightly detritus that shows up, unwanted and unasked for, like the cold you got from touching the wrong subway pole. Or any subway pole.
I keep my recycling pile right near the door so I can just drop the menus right in but sometimes I forget and slip on them. Luckily, although I have good insurance, I’ve never sued myself.
The funny thing about these menus is they give you a clue as to what the people on your floor are having for dinner. “Oh, someone’s having Obento Delight. Good choice.” Sometimes, the menus show up while I’m actually at home and they make a kind of swooshy sound sliding under the door. They startle me and I immediately wonder if I have a rodent problem. I used to want to chase after the delivery guy, shaking my fist and telling him where he could stuff his menus. (It’s always a “him;” there are no delivery women, for whatever reason). But then I realized that if you came all the way to America and the life from which you were escaping was actually worse than riding around on a little bicycle, dodging NY traffic in all weathers at all hours, risking your life with every doorbell buzz, all for meager tips, well then that life had to suck really, really bad. Do you need me running after you yelling, waving my comfortable life and fat, fat wallet?
Speaking of other countries (how’d you like that smooth segue?) I tried. I really really tried to figure out soccer and this whole World Cup thing. I watched a bit. All I saw was people running frantically around a field. One guy kicks to the second guy. The second guy kicks to the third guy. The third guy kicks back to the first guy. Oh, it was a real blast. I later found out that it was a “breathtaking match” in which one team “trounced” the other, 1-0. Or as my friend Neil Finn would say, “one-nil.” Shut up, Neil Finn is my friend.
Now, I am so not a xenophobe. You will remember my love of all that is English. Plus, I love sports and my favorite athlete is Argentinean. Am I not the perfect candidate to get into this? But sorry, it’s a non-starter. As a matter of fact, I never felt so American as when I sat, slack-jawed, watching men in knee socks dashing madly around a large field accomplishing not much of anything. God bless America and our complete non-interest in this thing that obsesses every single other corner of the globe!
Supertramp – Breakfast In America
It seems sacrilegious to include Neil Finn in on this anti-soccer post, but hey, I’ll use any excuse. Neil Finn is, to me, the best songwriter who ever lived. Sorry, John Lennon. Sorry, Gershwin. Sorry, the rest of you. Sure, you’ve heard:
Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over
But he’s way better than that song. Did you wonder where all the cool songs for grown-ups were? Look no further. It was hard to narrow down, but here are two favorites:
Neil Finn – She Will Have Her Way (Sorry, his solo stuff only gets 30 seconds)
Four Seasons In One Day makes me want to sob uncontrollably every time I hear it.
Oh, and I don’t get soccer either. But I haven’t really tried since my brother was in middle school and played it.
I so love take out from other countries.
I only halfway get the soccer/football thing. I did coach my kid’s soccer teams when they were young. At that time the only thing I needed to shout at them was which direction their goal was.
That’s the thing. So many people in the US play or coach soccer and even *they* don’t watch it. What hope is there for the rest of us?
Jane, I cried so hard when I tested the link to “Four Seasons In One Day” that I had to step away from the computer for a moment.
But because so many people play or coach, interest is building. I’ve seen more football kit (uniforms, t-shirts, flags, etc.) this year than four years ago and a gazillion times more than 8 years ago. More places are showing the matches and there are far more online outlets for info than ever before. (I think Al Gore is responsible for that.)
The commentators on XM keep mentioning how blown away they are by the serious interest in the sport and the level of football education in those who call their shows.
The thing about football, for me anyway, is the game within the game. There is the sheer athleticism of it all and the legs–don’t forget the smoking hot legs–but the politics and inner workings are fascinating to me.
On paper, a game like Sweden v. Trinidad & Tobago ending 0 – 0 looks boring. But when you realize that Sweden has been to the finals 34 times and this is TNT’s first time, and then you realize TNT is playing with 10 men to Sweden’s 11, and that no one, but no one gave TNT *any* sort of chance, holding off a powerhouse like Sweden is huge.
Yeah, I love it. 😀
Yeah, but what about Neil Finn?
But seriously, every time I hear that, I ask around and no one I know, save you and one or two others, is ever interested, unless they come from a country where they can only feel important when they win a soccer match (and come on, we all know it’s victory in war that makes a country great, puff puff). And the politics mean nothing if the game itself is mind-blowingly boring, which it is.
OTOH, the Spanish announcers are fantastic to listen to, I’ll give you that.
I liked playing it in high school. It was the only part of the whole school year that I enjoyed gym class. But I don’t watch it.
Maybe it would be more popular here if we started over and called it “futbol.”
Love Neil Finn. Four Seasons in One Day is a fave. So many to chose from.
Okay, this is the 5th time I’ve attempted to leave this comment. FU Blogger.
Would it impress you to learn that I know who won the World Cup in 1998? France! And I know this because I landed in Paris the morning after the victory and I thought I’d stumbled into the middle of a frat house destroyed by a hurricane.
Those football people, they know how to party.
Gee, if only I had a different, better host for my site.
I may not watch footie often but I did attend a game during the 2000 Olympics. My kids often refer to that game as one of the highlights of the games….because of the streaker that raced out and around the field. Man that guy had some moves on him.
I did watch the USA lose this morning…
I was a goalie in high school. A five foot nothing goalie. All the other team had to do was kick it over my head. I had one shot on goal and one save. Perfect.
(humming “Memories” and thinking I need my own blog so I can stop srowding Becca’s with my stupid comments)
See everyone plays soccer yet no one watches.
Is it July 4th yet?
Happ Flag Day Eve, everyone!
My sissy foreigner of a DBF actually watches soccer. But generally only the World Cup. And he watches it on Univision.