Life Outside of Basketball?

For years now, my family and friends have been trying to convince me, rather unsuccessfully, that there is life outside of basketball, specifically aside from my beloved Mavericks. Try as they might, though, they have not been able to persuade me to believe them…until last Saturday night, when I finally “saw the light” and couldn’t have been happier.

Since my time in the spotlight ended in January (although I have yet to change the month on my calendar – it’s my way of clinging to my ‘stardom’) and I had to return to life in the real world, I have been trying to work my daily routines around the Mavericks’ schedule whenever possible so that I never miss a game. Thanks to the modern miracle of the DVR, I might be a few hours late watching it, but I don’t skip one entirely. On Saturday night, however, a night when I had originally hoped to be at the AAC taking in the Mavs vs. Knicks alongside my Dad, (the only available tickets were more than we were willing to pay to see the Knicks), I was instead reduced to the mundane task of grocery shopping. Joy, joy! I programmed the DVR as always, with plans of watching the game once we got home and had everything put away.

However, as we made our way through the aisles of Wal-Mart, my cell phone kept buzzing in my pocket. (I never turn the ringer or sounds on as I’m usually too deaf to hear them and they just annoy me when I do). I recently updated several text message subscriptions, including one to ESPN to be notified of games scores and starts for the Mavs and the Spurs, and started following multiple Mavs-related people on Twitter, such as Ben & Skin, Mark Followill, and Shawn Marion. So every time I opened my phone, there was another message from either Skin or Followill via Twitter, talking about how the Mavs were off to a stinky start and New York was opening a can of whoop-ass on them. At halftime, which coincided with the midpoint of our grocery seeking adventure, I was becoming discouraged and wondering if I even wanted to watch the game after all. Let me pause for a moment and fill you in -- over the past six years, the only game I have completely missed was the one where my husband had a stroke, and we were actually at that game when it happened. Even during the playoffs last year, when the Mavs played on Saturday and I was forced to work, I borrowed my Dad’s TV and snuck it upstairs so I wouldn’t miss a minute of the action.

So when the text message came through near the end of the third quarter that said we were down by 25 points, I cringed internally and wondered if I could get away with just pretending there hadn’t been a game at all by the time we got home. I was hoping that, being only four years old and easily distracted, my little MFFL in training, Trystan, would forget about the game. But she didn’t. On the way home, she asked again if we could watch Mavs when we got to the house. I told her she could watch it, but I was going to bed, as by that time, I had already received the text message with the god-awful final score – Knicks 128, Mavs 94 – and knew there was no way possible I was going to sit through 48 minutes of ugly ball, knowing in advance there was essentially no hope for my Mavs and their wonderful winning ways had come to a screeching halt at the hands of the Knicks.

Sometimes, even a superfan like me has limits as to what she can endure. So when we got home and got the groceries put away and all was said and done, I deleted the game without Trystan realizing it. I figured, if she still wanted to watch Mavs, I had several other games on the DVR, Mavs victories at that, which would be much more entertaining, even to a four year old who was still trying to figure everything out.

Every day and nearly every night before bedtime, Trystan will ask when the next Mavs game is on TV, and she is always disappointed when we have to wait a day or two between games. But tonight she is more excited than normal, because she gets to wear her ‘new’ Dirk jersey that her auntie Mandi bought her yesterday. I was on my lunch break and wandering through a local thrift store when I found a Dirk jersey, albeit at least two sizes too big, for just $3. Knowing how much little T loves Dirk, I figured she could just grow into it and couldn’t pass it up. So after supper tonight, we will be plopping ourselves down in front of the TV to see if Dirk and the Mavs can start another super streak as they head into the home stretch of the season. Hopefully, taking on a much depleted Chicago Bulls team who has lost eight straight games will work in our favor, especially coming off the embarrassment that was Saturday night. My boys in blue…or they’ll probably be wearing the green tonight in honor of St. Patty’s Day…have had several days to stew over what happened this weekend, and hopefully they will come out fired up, guns a blazing, ready to kick it into another gear. Plus, Jason Terry is supposed to be back tonight, which can only help us as he provides an offensive punch off the bench. I think maybe tonight, I’ll see if I can get Trystan to recognize the Jet by his face, not just the back of his head. The mask should probably help.

Is it game time yet?

LET’S GO MAVS!