AMERICAN DENIED ADOPTION

PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MR. JACK BELL?

NYT?

SOMEBODY?

ANYBODY?

PLEASE!!!

HELP ME!!!

LISTEN, MY ADOPTION DIDN'T GO THROUGH AND I'M VERY UPSET!!!!

IT'S DISCRIMINATION!!! THEY WON'T LET ME ADOPT HENRY BECAUSE I'M AN AMERICAN!!!!

Seriously, I went to adopt a footballer at adoptafootballer.com and was shut completely down.

This is what happened.

It's EURO 2008 time!!! Whoohoo right? Well to drum up support for the games this brilliant marketing plan game about allowing folks to adopt s footballer.

Well, to adopt a footballer you have to be registered with this other website. That's not a problem--registering is annoying but I'm accustomed. And I'm good at it too like I'm a professional registerer you know TAB TYPE TAB TYPE ...ENTER.

I'm practically the Henry of registering, right, so I begin registering when I get down to the category that reads Country of Residence I scroll down the list and I see the entire world like every country but no United States--and just as I'm thinking maybe we're filed under America or New World or something ---I see" We do not accept US customers."

WHAT?!

First of all, I am fit for this adoption--who better than me to adopt a footballer?

Even when times were tough and I was picked on for wearing soccer related items, pestered by Guinness-breathed men, hastled for calling "soccer" football and not to mention I've spent $$ that I didn't have on glasses of cranberry juice (sometimes with lime) at pubs just so I could see the games and I can't even count the amount of time spent explaining HENRY is pronounced Ahn-ree (French). And despite all of this I stood my ground. I was responsible. I remained loyal--faithful to the sport of the world. And this is the thanks I get.

Now I have Les Blues.
[[Sniffle]] I just wanted him to be my baby... [[Sniffle]]

But the world has left this American girl out. And do you think I have support from my countrymen? Nope.

I can't call anyone and spiel about this. I could. And they'd lend me an ear, but just to humor me--kinda like what you're doing right now. Merci!

Oh Henry, whoever gets you is very lucky. May you have an adopter who provides you with the discipline, support and kindness...someone who'll support your standing and speaking up... someone who'll eagerly lace your boots...

Hopefully though, it won't be one of these guys...

EURO 2008 SCHEDULE

SELFISH VACCINATION

“I asked Mom if I was a gifted child... she said they certainly wouldn't have paid for me.”
--(?) ^-^/

While everyone else throws questions out about the website, work, etc. my mom asks when’s the last time that I washed my hair, what I ate for dinner, what I wore today (my fashion still amuses her). My mom is my mom. And my mom is my friend. I know that couldn’t sound more kindergarten but it’s the truth.
I am a complicated soul and no one walking the Earth’s surface gets as close to understanding this virgin as she does. She knew me before I knew me. That’s deep. That’s my mama. And with Mother’s Day coming up, it’s only right that I talk about her behind her back. And post pictures of her making funny faces too :) haha!
The great thing about being the daughter of a busy mother who doesn’t count reading as a favorite pastime is that she has no interest in what I do. Her interest lies solely in who I am my whole life she raged against me becoming selfish—often inevitable for an only child. If someone said sit down and write a list of all the selfish things you’ve done—I could do it. And because not being selfish was so deeply drilled I now have no problem recognizing it in others and backing away when I see it rearing its ugly head. I met this really cute guy, a total gentleman, a true blue football fan (do you know how hard that is to find around here), everything—but despite being cute to boot—he was selfish. I don’t know about you, maybe I’m selfish in saying this—but being selfish is not a quality that I can overlook. And speaking of guys, oh my mom is the best—she never mentions them. I mean she’ll listen to me go on and on and on and on about how CUTE so and so is. But she never pressures me to snog or snag any of New York’s finest. (And I have FDNY right across the street ;)
And then there’s football. My mom having no interest once so ever, sat through the entire game of France vs. Brazil in the semi-finals of WORLD CUP 2006. I was on Fellowship at Northwestern and this, her first time visiting me, not even 24 hours after her plane touches down at O’Hare, are we sitting in ESPN ZONE awaiting the start of the game. To make it interesting I insisted she cheer for the opposing team—France. I was suited up (Robinho jersey) and ready to give a lung for Brazil. And when Henry scored that goal breaking my heart in 4 different places (oh, baby did it break my heart) it was her who cheered (like a true fan) and then, seeing my contorted face, it was her who said “Oh I‘m sorry!” …. Yes, the one I like (Henry) broke my heart but the one who loves me, as we later window shopped our way down the Magnificent Mile, pieced it back together.
People have said, “TELL YOUR MOM SHE DID A HEAVEN (word change) OF A JOB, GIRL!” And “GET HER SECRET SO WE CAN SELL IT.”
I tell them no need for all that. Just be your kid’s best example as a human being and oh, occasionally threaten to knock your kid’s teeth down their throats—and mean it. That’s all she did. She and Nike shared the same mantra—JUST DO IT (sex, drugs and alcohol excluded).
Funny, my first official day of college I called to ask my mom what Opium because someone had asked me to try it. Unfamiliar and unwilling to ask the cool kid, I decided to call the real mom. She didn’t flip. She didn’t run to the university and snatch me up. She laughed, told me it was a drug and that I should not try it but that she can’t stop me. Talk about a good save!
My mom has never desired to be my friend; she’s always been my keeper. I’ve been told that parenting isn’t easy, and with bogus environmental pressures on the rise, it’s not looking to get any easier. But oh well, so what if it ain’t easy. It also shouldn’t be optional. Don’t be selfish. If you did it you gotta do it, right, Mom?

THERE'S ONLY ONE RONALDO

America, we should align ourselves with the rest of the world and reconsider calling football football and football something else. By calling football soccer we separate ourselves from the other nations—and being an American—at these times—we can use all the unity we can get.
With that being said, let me spiel about what’s really on the brain. Football.
This whole Ronaldo and the transvestites thing is crazy!
What is it with superstar-athletes and hoes? Well, I suppose prostitutes and paupers wouldn’t make any cents since the objective of a prostitute is to get money. But Ronaldo! Come on. It’s different when it ain’t personal. But this feels personal. This is Lenny’s Ronaldo—my ambassador of Joga Bonito.
I was cheering for Brazil in the last World Cup—not France (as some would suspect)—not Landon Donovan. Why? Well, before Ronaldo, soccer didn’t exist. Ok, let’s just say Ronaldo = America. And I = Columbus.
See, New York, your friendly neighborhood virgin grew up in a very rural town in the South—to this day I credit God for giving me football. There’s no other way to explain my passion for this game. It’s still not popular down there. Last summer I sat alongside two of my cousins (both male) at my mom’s house and as we watched the 2007 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby—well, as they watched it—I (with the compute on silent watched football). But as soon as a commercial would come on it was “Oh, you gotta see this one!” I’d just discovered YOUTUBE and couldn’t get enough of showing clips of Robinho and Thierry Henry. I was so hype trying to win them over to the bonito side.
My little cousin said, “We’ve got this kid from Africa on our team at school—he’s pretty good.” I beamed! I’ve been beaming since 1998—the year that I discovered football. One of my pen-pals, a Singaporean named Lenny wrote me about Ronaldo. She was so excited. She LUVVVVVVVD RONALDO. #9. And she was excited about The World Cup.
“The World what?”
I had no clue but I would soon learn come summer.
In June it will be ten years. Wow. Picture it. 1998. Summertime. A kid fresh out the country into the big city recognizing nothing and no one but my mother and her friends riding along behind me up the escalator inside of Trump Tower—imagine the thrill, being this fish out of water and seeing a larger-than-life-sized familiar face welcome you at the entrance of Niketown. I think I scared a few people with my shriek. “ RONALDO!!! MOM, THAT IS LENNY’S RONALDO. TAKE A PICTURE!! OMG OMG LENNY IS GOING TO LOVE THIS!!!” And she did. And I do.
So, when people, making conversation, ask me if I heard about that Braziliansoccer playerandthetransvestites, I cringe. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I sat at Celtic Bar eating fries sipping cranberry juice watching Barca play Manchester Utd. that I chatted about this game with an Irishman who was amused by my puzzled look. You see, Henry didn’t play in the first half of this game and being the American that I am I like to know why and actually see the player sitting on the bench and/or hear an announcer give an explanation to the player’s whereabouts and why-they’re-outs, but I didn’t get that. So I of course expressed my concern with a “Where is Henry?” But it was a quiet exasperation I didn’t think anyone heard. Wrong. An Irish accent came at me like lightening, “The Frenchman?” “He probably got a sniffle and needed pampering. You got his phone number? I’ll call him.” he said.
I laughed. And we chatted and later he asked “What about Ronaldo?”
To which I bemused, “RONALDO—WHO DOESN’T LOVE BRAZIL?!”
Then it hit me. I realized that he was referring to the Ronaldo who’d just missed a free kick, the one on the screen in front of us. “Oh,” I said recognizing my error… “You’re talking about Cristiano Ronaldo.”
He chuckled. “Yeah,” (in the most Irish of Irish accents) you were referring to the fat guy?” he said.
“What?” I was taken aback.
“Ronaldo,” he said.
“The fat guy?” I said.
“Yeah that one’s past the expiration date!”
He laughed.
I crossed Ireland off the Bucket List.
You know, New York, this summer I will commemorate a decade of devotion to the beautiful game. Perhaps I’ll go back to Niketown. Truth be told I haven’t been back there since 1998. Perhaps I’ll unite with an old pen-pal and tell her “Thank you.”
Perhaps I’ll fly to Europe and watch my favorite footballer lead France in this summer’s Euro 2008...Perhaps that’s a stretch of the imagination. But it is a dream. And you know what, in a time when reality and its strangeness leave little to the imagination. I still have a dream. One day we’ll all call soccer football, my little cousin will call football "cool," Thierry Henry and I will have a tête-à-tête and Ronaldo will be remembered for defining Joga Bonito.

Amen.

DID YOU SEE IT

O. M. G.

DID YOU SEE IT? DID YOU SEE IT? TELL ME YOU SAW IT?!!
Ok, I know this is where my people are all thinking NO, FOOL, we didn't see it the website hasn't launched yet and since nobody still knows you exist little-virgin-that-could nobody saw it and nobody cares about your "French Chocolate"!
YES, I KNOW YOU ALL QUITE WELL :^P

BUT WHATEVER. HE SCORED. FRENCH CHOCOLATE SCORED IN WHAT WAS A DELICIOUS--ARSENAL'ESQUE GOAL . BUT WHY LIVE IN THE PAST? THIS HAPPENED TODAY-- BLAUGRANA TIME!

and umm...

DID YOU SEE IT!!!
I'm not even asking anymore. I'm exclaiming!
FC Barcelona beat those oranges to a pulp, baby!
Valencia what? Valencia who? 6-0 oo oo oo!!!!!!!!!! YOU SHOULD'VE SEEN IT!
HEY, THERE'S ALWAYS YOUTUBE.
Meanwhile, this is where the guys who are interested in you, knowing your interest in the sport actually YOUTUBE it and try to have discussion not knowing that I'm saving myself for
a true futbol fan. Oui!
BUT I DIGRESS :)
DID YOU SEEEEEEEEEEE IT.