Awake or Not?

On a Monday the 15th I found out that my services were needed in Europe. On that Tuesday afternoon I traveled for roughly twenty hours to Germany. On that Friday, I went through two fun-filled practices with some serious jetlag. On Saturday, I played surprisingly well against my former team considering I had the biggest case of noodle-legs ever. On Sunday morning, I boarded another flight back to the states for a four day Christmas break. On Christmas Day, I flew back to Germany.

So instead of worrying about getting over jet lag once, I had to put my body through it three times in less than two weeks. Hell, the powers that be might as well throw a supreme case of bubble guts at me while they are at it.

Interestingly enough, my first payment was handed to me in cash. Guess I can put up with some jetlag if I get paid in cash before I get my bank account set up. One of my teammates joked that I should go to a Casino and bet black on the roulette table. It would have been awesome to tell Jennifer that I doubled our money. On the contrary, explaining how and why I gambled that money away would not have been so good.

I know, I know, I know. You can’t win if you don’t put it on the table, right? But Jennifer has to put up with enough stress dealing with the uncertainty of this business without having to worry about my gambling our money away.

It was my teammate Mike’s birthday, so I decided to grab some beers with him and the guys instead. It was a win/win, since I was able to avoid losing all my money gambling, and I also got to know my new teammates better. Mike is American, but has the best European mullet ever. Or worst European mullet depending on your taste.

My break was awesome, but it went by in a second, or so it seemed. Was sure better than the lack of break that I got last year in Spain, so I am not complaining. I am just saying.

On my trip back to Germany, I wasn’t able to sleep much, since the cat next to me was all in my business. Even putting on noise canceling headphones didn’t stop him from talking to me. I didn’t even get to break in the new Kenny Chesney CD the right way. At least I have a couple weeks to blare it in my apartment until my sweet Jen gets here and says no to country all the time. As my old Skyforce Coach Mo McHone put it in his southern drawl, “I don’t like country music, I LOVE country music!”

So I am back in Germany, and just struggled through the first day of two-a-days with even worse noodle legs than before. My whole body feels like I have been a roadie on an Amy Winehouse Tour.

I did witness something really profound at practice that made it all worthwhile. One of my teammates got so frustrated by one of his turnovers that he proceeded to scream and ran up the wall like he was Spiderman. Yah, he literally ran at the wall and tried to climb it. Since he has such a calm aura about him, it made it that much funnier.

Later that night with Euro-Mullet Mike, I concurred the Spiderman incident actually happened and didn’t occur in a jet-lagged dream I had. I guess when you are playing in Europe you sometimes wonder if what you see is really reality. Then you realize that it is Europe, and anything can happen at anytime.