Weird Volleyball Dynamics

I'm getting better at volleyball. Tonight was the fourth of eight sessions. I actually felt like I was contributing in a positive way.

You may recall that at the first session, almost all the other players were Chinese. At the second session, the big, loud, obnoxious German guy brought all his friends, and suddenly the young, hip, athletic, loud, competitive Germans outnumbered even the Chinese players. At the third session, the Germans and Chinese adults broke off to their own game, leaving me, G., my friend the yogini, three women 10-20 years older than me, and all the Chinese-American high school girls playing a less competitive game together.

This dynamic is becoming a problem. I'm too uncoordinated and too meek to play with the Germans, who tonight I discovered are actually Austrians. Last week, in a bizarre mixed game that happened before the other Austrians arrived, the obnoxious ringleader Austrian sent me into really fun panic attacks; he was serving whenever I was setting/hyperventilating/feeling dizzy.

So tonight, G. was home with a cold and my friend the yogini didn't arrive. That left me alone without a tribe. The Austrians and Chinese adults are right out, too serious and aggressive, too talented. The older women are quite a bit older than I, and all want to chat more than play; I'm not even sure why they come to volleyball rather than going for coffee. Getting them on the court is a perpetual challenge. The lack of focus is extraordinary. The high schoolers want nothing to do with anyone over 20, especially since a newly-arrived older woman made Classic Errors When Dealing with Adolescents this week. New Older Woman showed up for the first time of this 8-week cycle, though she clearly has played many times before, and began treating the high school girls like they were new, explaining rules they well knew and generally being bossy. Had she done this to me, I would've been like, "Yo, it's cool, I've been here for four weeks and I missed that because I'm just warming up tonight." But not so adolescents, who are understandably touchy about such things. Then the New Older Woman was mystified that the High Schoolers wanted nothing to do with her.

G. and I are thinking of switching v-ball nights when these 8 weeks are up. We think a little more structure and leadership from the instructor could make a world of difference, get some better games going, and break up the cliques. Thursday nights have a different instructor...

That said, it is fun.

Volley

Ball.

The Husband and I began recreational coed volleyball tonight. When we first arrived, the coach lady told us about a tourney we could play in as a team in late June. I thought, "You may take that back when you see me try to play."

To my great surprise, I was not the worst player there. Of course, the coach lady gave me key pointers at the very beginning, while we all hit the ball around a bit to warm up. Then we played many games. I got it over the net sometimes. Wild.

It was an interesting demographic swatch. All ages--teens (all girls) to me & G, 30 each, up to people in late 40s/50s/early 60s. I would say that 70% of the players were Asian-American, specifically Chinese. I wondered why. Smatters of Chinese language broke out here and there, which was cool. Is volleyball popular among Asians or Asian-Americans?

This just in: It seems that volleyball has long been popular both in China, where it was introduced by missionaries, and in Chinatowns across the US.

The Vegan Gourmet

In college, we loved the vegan restaurant in town. On the occasional Sunday night, I would trek alone to the far ("sketchy") end of Main Street to treat myself to dinner. I sat at a small, square table with a white tablecloth and a single flickering candle, soothed by the simple decor, enjoying a secret dinner to myself. The prices were college-student friendly, about $15 for generous portions of gourmet vegan food. I am not a vegan and, barring some unforeseen conversion experience, never will be--but I loved the cajun tempeh, the tahini-carrot spread on homemade bread, the astounding salads, and ohmygod, the vegan cakes. Once a year, all the workstudy employees from the Kosher Kitchen* would have lunch there, in deference to the vegans on staff. It was no sacrifice for the omnivores. The flavors were intense and unusual, and the chef was not shy about using oils and decadent amounts of tahini. I always left feeling satisfied without feeling stuffed. Spring in my step, I would bounce contentedly back to Church Street, Washington Street, or High Street.

Our sophomore year, the vegan restaurant moved to a better location at the other end of Main Street, amped up the decor, and added a few fish and cheese dishes to its still-mostly-vegan-menu. College students muttered that their place had become "bourgeoisie". Although I preferred the original, Zen monastery-meets-storefront look, even as a young liberal I didn't see that the vegan restaurant had "sold out" so much as "stayed in business by diversifying". But, I also chose one of the most liberal colleges on the East coast and then, finding aspects of it ridiculously liberal once I was there, elected to study dead, white Greek men. Take that, early 19th-century biracial womyn's poetry majors!

Before my husband was my husband, or anything other than a buddy, we were college roommates with a group of friends. I remember when G's longtime girlfriend broke it off during winter break of our senior year. He was sad, then...he started dating. I remember, late that spring, when he fretted over where to take a girl from his tennis class for a date. "Maybe we should go to the vegan restaurant for coffee," he said, "Because I like soymilk in my coffee." Now he doesn't drink soymilk in his coffee. He prefers powdered "creamer," a mystery to me.

Years later, after meeting again in California, coincidentally moving to neighboring towns in Massachusetts, falling in love, moving in together, and, at long last (to my mother's impatience), getting married, we visited campus one summer and made a stop at the vegan restaurant. And they were selling--a cookbook! Yes!

Which is all a very long preamble to telling you what I made for dinner tonight, a vegan feast. Herbed, breaded tofu cutlets that had been marinated in red and white wine, garlic, a touch of soy sauce, and a generous portion of dried sage; quinoa salad with sweet, diced yellow bell pepper and carrots, parsley, sesame oil, rice vinegar, and sesame seeds; and (my own creation) kale braised with ginger and pine nuts, with a squeeze of lemon on top. We drank oolong.

It was delicious. We were sated, but not stuffed.

*Nope, I'm not Jewish.