Granny Turns 100 and Other Fun Events

It is not everyday that a loved one turns 100. Granny Fran celebrated her 100th birthday this past weekend with family and friends at her church with a birthday lunch and cake after the Sunday service.  The highlight, other than seeing extended family and watching the cousins play, was experiencing Granny’s unfiltered mind at work which has always been a little blunt (“you must have been a fat baby” is one of my favorite Granny quotes) and has only gotten more amazing with age, although I suppose she has earned it.  During the church service the pastor asked all fathers to stand up to honor them on Fathers Day.  My Uncle David was sitting next to Granny and he stood up as requested.  Granny immediately quipped “Why are you standing up?  Are you celebrating a big birthday?”

In addition to 100 years, Martin and I also celebrated our anniversary early at Foreign Cinema, another Germany win at a watch party on Saturday, and Father’s Day on Sunday. And because, the end of the school year is always hectic, we had dim sum with my parents on Juneteenth, and Oskar graduated fourth grade (the end of elementary school in Germany)

Is this normal?!

I feel like the guardian of lost children and solo travelers. 

This past weekend we were in Houston for the World Cup and we spent most of Saturday at the Houston Children’s Museum. Towards the end of the visit we were walking down the stairs and we passed a kid who seemed to be in a bit of distress. I turned around and sure enough he was crying and lost. Turns out his name was Ben and he was in fact lost and looking for his mom. I introduced myself, asked what his mom’s name was and then walked with him to find a staff member to help locate his mom. 

It is weird, but this is not the first or even second time I have helped a lost child. There was the kid at Disneyland who I found hiding behind a garbage can, there was the little girl who was wandering the soccer pitch at one of Oskar’s games and then the treat or treating princess who couldn’t find her mom while out on Halloween night in the Marina. In all of these situations, I have stayed with the lost child until either their parents were found or those in charge were able to take over. 

And this isn’t limited to children in need, I have found myself assisting multiple solo travelers along the way as well: the girl who fainted on muni on the way to work, the guy who had a seizure on the Greyhound bus and the woman who crashed her car on the way back from Timber Cove.  

Is this normal? Does this happen to everyone? I am always happy to help but this seems a bit higher than average.

World Cup Is Here!

I have always loved the World Cup and have so many fun memories of watching the matches with friends and coworkers over the past years.  With the US hosting this year’s tournament, I knew we had to get tickets, or at least try.  

I entered the lottery to get tickets to see Germany play in Houston (and got 4 tickets in the process) and also scored tickets to a game in Santa Clara.  The tickets in Santa Clara I eventually resold (at face value) to a coworker (life became too hectic to make it work). And surprisingly, I had to convince Martin that we should go to Houston for the Germany match. I leveraged the best negotiating tactics available: I told him I was going and would be happy to take the kids by myself if they wanted to go too.  Of course the kids wanted to go, so Martin begrudgingly agreed to partake in the fun.  We were to fly out Friday night after school, have a day in Houston, watch the match Sunday midday and fly home Sunday night so the kids could still make it to school that following Monday. 

The Match

It is funny. After all of the anticipation before and the joy experienced during the actual game, I am at a loss on how to describe the actual day and match, watching the Germany team play against Curacao. 

It was all a bit overwhelming: there were so many people (68,000+), it took so long to get through security (we arrived at 10:30 for a 12pm match and still had to wait 40 minutes to get through the gates), it was so hot waiting to get inside the stadium (92 degrees and humid) and then pleasant once inside and, after weeks of anticipation and build up,  it was all over after less than 2 hours. 

And those 2 hours were action packed.  Germany scored the first goal which was followed shortly after by a goal from Curacao, the small nation of 160,000 who was playing in the World Cup for the very first time.  While the Germany fans had celebrated winning the first goal and a good start to the game, the Curacao fans put the Germans to shame: they sang, they danced,, they cheered, and they cried with pride in their team. 

Germany responded with a few more goals after finding their rhythm. And at the end of the game, Germany had secured the win with a 7-1 final score (a score tying the previous record for biggest win in the World Cup set in 2014 when Germany beat Brazil 7-1 in the semi-finals).  

Unfortunately my poor planning didn’t allow us to stay to enjoy the glow of the win: we had a flight to catch and bags to grab.  But we did get to walk out of the stadium singing Tage Wie Diese with the rest of the German fans. 

All in, we watched five matches over the course of the two days in town and the family was officially hooked on the World Cup festivities.  We have already started planning for the 2028 World Cup in Spain and maybe even the Euro Cup in England in 2026.