Tinker Bell and one ring to bring them to their knees.

I’m writing about Ultimate when I should be writing my Comparative Education paper. But yesterday’s game warrants at least a few paragraphs.

I had sent out a precursor invitation to play on Facebook on Sunday, noting that the temperatures were supposed to be approaching 60 and it should be a great week to play. Sending out an invitation for activities at work on a Sunday got me labeled a “fanatic” by Marianne.

At any rate, the invitation at work went out late because I was down in Medical getting my annual physical and dental exam done. The doctor wanted to know why I didn’t get more sleep which led to a whole discussion about the value of traveling between Richmond, D.C., & Charlottesville every week, sometimes all 3 in the same day. Listen, I know it’s not the “healthy optimum” but it’s not going to change in the foreseeable future so can we just let it go.

When I finally got back up to my cube nobody else had sent out an game invite either and only 1 email in my inbox from a Buzzard wondering where I might be. I was suddenly worried we might not have any interest for a game but I sent out the email anyway and immediately had 8 responses. Scott replied twice, once in proxy for Phil who apparently was coming into work only to play but was running just a little late.

In fact, by the time Phil got here, Scott and I had already hooked up on two scoring passes which he made really nice catches on both. The first stretched out sprinting to the side of the end zone line after a very nice “Chiefly finger point” call for the throw. The second was a really nice grab of a Hammer that didn’t quite flatten out and was falling more like a guillotine in the windy conditions.

Phil finally showed up and as we pointed him toward green to join Todd, George, Paul, Kevin, & Matt. Meanwhile, Scott & I were joined by Jeff, Bob, Jason, & Brian. Both teams were finding challenges with the wind that was gusting upwards of 30 mph but not all the time so occasionally one would think they could throw it the length of the field and watch their teammates tripping through pot holes to get it and the next we were throwing our first pass backwards.

Phil barely even got a sweat up today though because not long after he got there I was falling back into defense watching Matt try and sneak behind me. When I turned back up field, I saw the other 10 players on the ground. “What the heck just happened?” I wondered. “Must be an injury, who went down?” I thought trying to see who was holding anything and writhing in pain. Then I noticed they were all moving and rubbing their hands on the ground. “Ah, I deduced, lost contact lens I guess.” As I walked back toward the scrum on the ground I heard Paul explaining where we was when it came off, the trajectory of his hand and what force it was thrown with….”Hmmmm, this wasn’t a contact lens” --- lost wedding band ---

“This reminds me of a Mardi Gras and Bourbon Street story” I chimed in as I got down on my knees to help in the search.

“Did that story lead to a pawn shop?” Kevin asked and the whole conversation quickly degraded to replacement rings, replacement wives, replacement body parts…and other things but unfortunately no found ring. Paul, under threat of being battle axed (apparently the weapon of choice of his in-laws) decided to head back to building security to get some of those cool metal detector wands. The rest of us (well except for Phil who nobody really knew or cared was at work anyway) headed to the showers.

Normally I don’t relate what it’s like standing with a bunch of naked men partially wrapped in towels or wash cloths, or drying off with paper towels because they’ve forgotten one. In fact, Jason joined me (as a proud owner) today in finishing the purchase of his 2nd set of “Exchange towels” because he’d forgotten one…Anyway, I don’t normally bring this up but yesterday was special because Matt was showing off his “Tinker Bell” towel. The product of living in a house with all women/girls… apparently it was either that, “Hello Kitty” or “Hanna Montana”….good call on Tink there Matty.

About an hour later, we all got an email from Paul. On the last sweep across the field, Phil found the ring which saves Paul a severing from Nordic weaponry but indebts him to help Phil remember his anniversary next year. It was, in fact, the most productive thing Phil accomplished yesterday. On the precipice of dissolving its first marriage, the Buzzards Point Ultimate club backed away slowly from the edge.

Buzzards go Cuckoo

There are new birds in the nest! Just when you thought it was safe for the Buzzards to stay in, the Cuckoos fly in.

By the way…as a small aside here. I have this blog as an RSS feed to my Facebook (just don't try to access this from work) page but it shows up as a note (which some of you only read it as) but it does not give any indication where it’s coming from (i.e. the blog is the source). So, I’m thinking about putting the hyperlink as the first line of each blog entry. Well, at least until somebody can figure out how to have Facebook credit the source and steer people to the BPUC page. I’m sure one of my friends (Kari, I'm thinking this might be you since you had Twitter updating your Facebook status from a train the other day) can help me with that but that supposes any of them actually read this.

I didn’t want to confuse any of the Buzzards who are reading this and wondering why I’m directing them to someplace they already are.

Anyway, back to the nest interlopers…

There are a couple of great quotes from R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that I’m reminded of this morning as Brian fills in for the deranged Jack Nicholson. I got out of my car this morning at about 5:15 (that’s a.m for you Facebook readers) to walk into the building. I’m not exactly sure what the temperature was then but right now, as I write this (8:40 a.m.), it’s climbed to a “balmy” 25. Problem is, the winds are blowing from the NW at 23 miles an hour with wind gusts up to 36! That makes it feel like 10 degrees which ain’t Chicago but it’s still darn cold.

So, I figure “Okay, I’ve got my Ultimate gear today but there really won’t be anybody who wants to play.” I had already heard from a couple leaving the pitch yesterday that stated “for the record, I’m not playing tomorrow.” Thanks Todd for the heads up. You’re to be commended on your relative sanity. Unfortunately, that cannot be said of all your teammates. This is where McMurphy, a.k.a. Brian comes in.

Email at 8:03 – He wants to know if I’m calling a game for today. Or as McMurphy would have said “Which one of you nuts has got any guts?” Here’s the thing, it’s sometimes easier to ignore or assuage one loose cannon with misplaced bravado. But see Brian’s smarter than he looks, he’s got 3 other nuts with him already committed to play when he emails me (Jeana, Doug & John…you better show). Did I mention John's first two games with us will have been yesterday and today? That’s half the game right there and my obligation is to only come up with 3 more players assuming I’ve been guilted into going out myself (this is not one of the club leader perks they tell you about when you take this job).

And see I already know there is at least another one out there because Paul came out in shorts yesterday! He told me something the other day about family ancestry being tied into some Nordic fishermen or some such crazy story. Meanwhile I’m left thinking “I must be crazy to be in a loony bin like this.”

Brian chirps in a few minutes ago with another co-conspirator in Dennis and all of a sudden we’re at 7 and I have this awful feeling we’re actually going out to play today. I’m envisioning discs cracking in pieces when and if they actually land after getting caught up in the wind.

I think I’d rather face Nurse Ratched “You know Billy, what worries me is how your mother is going to take this.”

“P-p-p-please d-d-d-don’t tell my m-m-m-mother.”

Crap! There’s a positive response from Brad, now I’m going to have to send out the “Game On” email. Have the clinic standby for frost bite patients after lunch. There’s 8 flying over this Buzzards’s nest!