Category Archives: TIMBERS!

PTFC For Peace

I have always wanted to see a soccer match with our men’s and women’s teams play together.

Finally! My dream came true.

This match was a fundraiser for children in Ukraine. It was on a Wednesday night and I went back and forth about attending and decided not to.

Except when we were at the match on Saturday I changed my mind and planned to only go to the first half and then hop the bus home.

When Bob heard I planned to attend he wanted to go too so he met me downtown. I’m glad I didn’t leave early.

Tickets were free but a suggested $10 donation. Attendance was over 16,000. Lots of kids. I would say the women’s team fans outnumbered the men’s team fans. During the match they announced they’d raised over $400K but later I saw it was over $500k.

The ref was from Ukraine — first time in history I saw a ref get a standing ovation at the park. hehe.

The players looked like they were having so much fun. They were competitive but also goofing off. They rotated players about every 15 minutes to get everyone in there. (60 minute match). At the end all the players were on the field. Everyone wanted to score — no one helped the goalkeeper.

It was a really fun event. So happy we went.

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We Lost

Before the match when I was filled with joy.

I have had this post partially written since way back in December when it happened.

We went to our first preseason match last weekend and the new season starts tonight so it was time to finish it up.

My team made it to the championship and about 10 major things had to fall our way for us to get the match at home.

And we did.

This has been my dream to see my team play a championship match in my home stadium.

These are our seats. I don’t know what this setting is on my phone but it looks magical so I’m using it.

But the club doesn’t run the championship match, the league does and the first thing the league does is scrape a whole bunch of seats off the top for all their corporate cronies.

There weren’t even enough seats left for all the season ticket holders.

Twelve years of loyalty, good years and bad, rain or sizzle, US Open Cup, pre-season, friendlies — showing up for the team.

And we had to sit there in front of the computer clicking refresh to try to get tickets.

I will never be over this.

This was our view. Like it?

The only thing available, when we finally got through, were general admission. We both balked and then decided we’d rather be there in shitty seats than not at all.

We couldn’t even see the entire field. You can’t see in the photo but we could see a video screen. So, yay.

And even worse I spent the whole match looking across the field at my seats.

We made the best of it. We always wanted to see a match sitting in the Army section, so crossed that off our list. And at least we didn’t get rained on.

The seats we had were so bad, they aren’t usually even available.

It’s hard to say if I would feel differently if we’d won. I’m not sure. I think I might be less salty, but still salty.

I wouldn’t want to go through that again. What is the point of doing all this if getting to see a championship game is out of reach unless you can pay $1000 a seat or you’re special friends with crony?

I was happy to be back at the park. I hugged my seat.

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The Never Ending Tooth Disaster

Uh oh, that guy fell down. Opponents who don’t like Diego Chara are going to be thrilled to find out we have two Charas now.

I wish I had some good news about my tooth.

Overall, the dentist doesn’t think it’s long for this world but since I wasn’t up for shelling out huge bucks for an implant right now, we prepped for a crown. And the crown prep included some minor oral surgery on my gum. The site is still sore.

Meanwhile, I’ve been back and forth to the orthodontist to take wires and brackets on and off. More of the same next week when the crown comes in.

I’m kinda bummed about being constantly afraid of my mouth and constant low grade discomfort and relying on soft food and visiting the gamut of dental practitioners as my part time job.

Hopefully all will go smoothly with the crown and I can get this behind me.

Coach doing media at the half

These photos can mean only one thing: Timbers season starts again soon.

This is the preseason tournament so I saw a match last weekend and a match last night. It was fun to be back at the stadium and seeing some of the new players.

Preseason substitutions. I love seeing all the guys on the field like this.

I know it’s just preseason but I didn’t see anything that made me overly optimistic. I predict that we play just enough great games to keep our hopes up but enough stinkers to keep us at our usual spot in the middle of the table.

Opening match next weekend.

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Cooking Along

Yesterday was my favorite day of the year: First home match of the season. It was a typical first match, raining and cold which is why I failed to take very many photos. I might brush off my pocket camera and bring it to a match. I think it takes better photos than the phone.

Here is the rhodie update: it’s completely dead. I asked the landscaper about taking it out and he pushed the trunk and it broke off at the spot where the shrub met the dirt. It’s gone and we now have nothing in front of our house. I expect to remedy that but first I need to do some household due diligence/maintenance/pain in the butt stuff –long story.

Everything in life: TBD.

This is the view from my bus stop. That high rise in progress used to be a gas station.

For the first time in ages I am trying a new recipe. I am making beef broth from some bones I had in the freezer leftover from a fancy dinner a couple months ago. It smells AMAZING. I keep finding an excuse to go in the kitchen and give it a stir. But the real recipe is onion soup. I’m doing a Cooks Illustrated method of cooking the onions in the Dutch oven in the oven. We’re in about 70 minutes so far. That smells good, too.

I had my most productive writing weekend in months and months. I am plodding more quickly. But now my brain is mush and I’m still trying to tie up loose ends.

Looks like this counter works again and I like it better because seeing that percentage thing go up gives me a feeling of accomplishment.

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Things Moving Ahead Slower Than Planned

Should it be “more slowly than planned”?

I am elbow deep in revisions and way too slow. I’ll tell everyone to only read the first 5 chapters.

Everything else is falling apart. We’re having a dinner casserole topped with panko and shredded cheese for about the tenth week in a row. My husband doesn’t complain but my waistband does. I have about 200 loose ends I’m trying to tie up. That’s a lie. I have 200 loose ends that I am watching flap in the wind and laughing at because they will flap until they go away or until April.

We started Timbers on Friday and I am too lazy to even get the photos off the camera. These are from last year – obviously because that guy is wearing shorts and open-toed shoes.

It was about 45 degrees and a cold steady rain when we arrived. I wore my heavy coat that soaked more rain than repelled so I sat in a damp coat for 3 hours. Honestly, not complaining. I was so overflowing with joy to be back at the park and watching my beloved team. Especially watching them win 5-1. This is only the second time in the last 4 years that we’ve won a game in March.

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The Post You’ve Been Waiting For (Final)

Timbers Fan Appreciation Night

Here I am with Vytas who also complimented my earrings and gets a million gold stars. He just joined our team this summer and his full name has about 16 syllables and twice that many vowels. He’s from Lithuania and completely charming. When he arrived he’d never been to the US and every time they did an interview with him he was happily counting off all the things he’d done for the first time since he’d arrived. He is one of my new favorites. The other guy is Wade Hamilton who is the “c” goalkeeper.

Here I am with Zarek Valentin, Darren Mattocks, Fanendo Adi (swoon swoon!) and Taylor Peay. I love all these guys. I wrote Season of Us before Zarek was even on our team. But he used to have a surfer hair thing going and the first time I saw him I said: Zach!

And that concludes my coverage of fan appreciation night.

I had to get yet another crown — the tooth kind. I had the prep two weeks ago and ate half the temporary in less than 24 hours. So for the past two weeks every time I inhaled with my mouth open you had to scrape me off the ceiling because that tooth nubbin was sensitive. I got my tooth installed today and the dentist asked why I didn’t come back to get another one. If I’m going to break them that fast, it didn’t seem worth it. I love my new tooth and eating and drinking hot and cold things without screaming.

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The Post You All Have Been Waiting For (Part 1)

TIMBERS FAN APPRECIATION NIGHT

Here I am with Diego Valeri (Insert that emoji with the smiley face and heart eyes — can you do that in WP?) and Steven Taylor.

Here I am with Jack Jewsbury and Ben Zemanski who is only half smiling because I’ve had my photo taken with him before.

Here I am a JACK sandwich with Jack Barmby and Jack McInerney (more swooning).

There are tons more photos to come in the next couple of days so as they say in college when you’re in a sorority: get excited for the next few posts.

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Timbers Away, Kansas City Version

This is part 3 in our series of Timbers away adventures. When we were in KC someone asked if we were going to all the away games. I thought that was a crazy question but they met someone at the match who was doing that very thing. We try to do one away game a year. We’re limited on when we can go so it depends on how the schedule lines up. We’re still hoping to go to Chicago, New York and Toronto.

If any MLS fans or Timbers fans find this and are wondering about away matches, we had a great time in Philadelphia and Montreal and highly recommend.

We were told that the Timbers Army were invited to tailgate with the KC Cauldron but it was raining so that plan was scrapped and instead we were invited to hangout in their special clubhouse at the stadium. The stadium is in Kansas and is way the hell out there. You need a car to get out there. Bob found a bus that ran once an hour. I didn’t want to take a bus that runs once an hour.

The stadium is super nice. The KC fans were 99% super nice. We lost the match but we had a fantastic time.

After the match we walked over to Nebraska Furniture Mart which is gigantic (according to the website 450,000 sq ft) and has a See’s Candy inside. We just wanted to see what it was like. There’s a big outlet mall out there, too, and we walked around there. Then we had barbecue and custard and got a ride back to the hotel. That concludes the Timbers part of our trip.

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It’s That Time Again

Yesterday was our first match of the season. Ticket partner and I planned to go early so we could get our picture taken with The Cup but as soon as we ate our pizza, drank our beer and sat in the sunshine, we completely forgot about it.

It’s worth noting here that we arrive at the match ridiculously early. Why? I have no idea but that’s the way we do it.

My spouse was able to secure a ticket to the match and he wasn’t about to go sit in the seats so early so he wandered around the stadium checking out the other food and drink options and taking photos. He texts me a picture of him with The Cup.

Oh no! I wanted MY picture with The Cup. At this point it was 30 minutes before the match would start. If the stadium was a clock and we were sitting at 6, the Cup was at 2. But you can only go around to that part of the stadium the long way. AND the concourse was completely packed.

Luckily, ticket partner has to hurry through a lot of airports so he cut the trail and I hurried after him. When we made it to the line he said: I’m surprised you kept up.

But I was committed. I also needed the cardio.

So here it is. I look like the Pillsbury Do’h! Boy because I have so many layers on. Ticket partner looks like he’s about to go to the firing squad.

I was disappointed I couldn’t touch it. There were two police officers there so it didn’t seem worth the risk.

In other news, I bought a new phone holder for match days. Remember I wrote about my old phone holder and then I tried to make a new phone holder but failed. I couldn’t find a good one. I guess not many people want to wear their phone around their neck. I don’t love the one that I bought. It’s pretty flimsy.

The way the case is cut, it makes me press the side buttons when I don’t want to so I tried to take photos and instead changed the volume. Or I don’t know what I was doing. I think I have some movies and unplanned panorama shots. I got home with 216 pictures and most of them are awful.

We lucked out, it didn’t rain until the last 5 minutes but that rain wanted to make sure we noticed. It went from spitting to drizzle to droplets to gusting splash. I was glad for all those layers.

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PLAYOFFS!!!

This tifo is from our last western conference semi-final match at home. I had to think about that. I get confused between all the flavors of finals: quarter-finals (which we didn’t have – we had a knockout round), semi-finals, conference finals and then the Cup game. I hope that’s right. I’m too lazy to look at the bracket again.

Today is the western conference finals match (1st leg) and I will see the match after this posts.

I don’t know how to feel. I’ve had my heart broken so many times I hate to be too hopeful. But the guys have looked good this last bit so of course I’m hopeful.

I love how we start the pre-season in February all bundled up for matches. Then in July and August we’re in shorts and getting the top of our heads sunburned. And we finish out all bundled up again.

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