Take the kids pumpkin picking was one of the small things I had to step out and do on my own with Joe gone.

…we eat incredibly simple meals, including waffles, pancakes or french toast for dinner at least once a week,

but I miss having a substantial dinner conversation with an adult.

…I start to take up more than my half of the bed,

but still close the door to our bathroom in the morning as if Joe is in there sleeping.

…I go to bed earlier and get a lot more sleep than when Joe is here,

but my evenings are completely boring.

…I make more effort to do special things with the kids,

but they never feel complete without the whole family.

…the kids stay on more of a schedule,

but they miss the “fun” parent.

…I don’t shave my legs as often as I should,

but I always try to glance in the mirror quickly before a Skype call.

…sometimes I think Joe and I communicate more on the small things through e-mail,

but I miss just being able to be together without saying anything.

Although I wasn’t a huge basketball fan before meeting Joe, I have come to appreciate the game and probably enjoy it more than most sports now. And that enjoyment of the game has even extended into me reading a bit more about the people who play the sport. So I realized the other day as I finished a book that I have now read a few books that I would put in the “basketball” category and have a few more on my “to-read” list. Of course, with Joe in the house I have plenty to choose from. So here is a quick run down of a few of the books I have read.

1. Can I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond by Paul Shirley

This was the first “basketball” book I read simply because Joe played with Paul for a short time in the NBA and then for a season in the minor leagues. I knew enough of Paul and his dry humor and often “different” perspectives to know that it would at least be entertaining. I also figured he might bust on Joe in the book too, so I had to enjoy that part. He did indeed make fun of Joe and his friend Ryan (my dear friend Angie’s husband) who played with Paul in Kansas City for being “Jesus freaks”. I had to chuckle at the section and later e-mailed Paul to tell him that next time if he was going to call Joe a Jesus freak he at least needed to give him credit and call him by name! Paul said it was a deal, next time he names names.

Although Paul has a totally different world view and chooses to live in a different way than we do, I could identify with so many of the situations he has faced in his career and enjoyed feeling that connection of nodding my head and saying” Yeah, been there.”

2. Homecourt Advantage by Rita Ewing and Crystal McCrary Anthony

I am almost ashamed to admit that I read this book. This is the ONLY book about basketball wives that I have found out there (more reason for me to write one some day, right?) It is a fiction book and almost now seems as sort of a predecessor to the Basketball Wives shows that are out there. It is all about men who are basically screwed up with issues that involve money, drugs and women. It was a quick read, but not one I would recommend for literary prowess.

3. Drive: The Story of My Life by Larry Bird

I read this book a few years ago when I was in a reading rut and saw it in a pile of Joe’s books. It was quite interesting to see that Larry Bird did indeed have quite a “drive”, but instead of leaving me feel inspired as he may have been hoping, I felt very sad for him. We see it a lot in professional athletics (although it exists for all people in different walks of life) where a person is so consumed with reaching a certain goal and “being somebody” that it is all their life entails. From that “drive” relationships fail, people are treated as means to an end and you become completely self-consumed to the detriment of others around you. I know Joe has read a few other basketball biographies and it often seems to follow the same course.

4. IL Basket D’Italia: Season in Italy W/great Food Good Friends & Very Tall Americans by Jim Patton

I just finished this book after our friend Tyler gave it to Joe to borrow. I decided to pick it up and give it a quick read before Joe left for Italy and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Although I found that Jim Patton contradicted himself often about how important basketball was in Italy (at times he painted the picture of people acting crazy over it and other times he said they didn’t even care enough to put it on television, so some distinction there would have helped). It was written about a prior decade of basketball before Joe started playing, so of course things have changed since then. But I could still relate to plenty. Here are a few quotes that I was laughing out loud at:

“We may it out, but then things get even worse. Tiny Italian cars dart in from of us. People make three lanes out of two in both directions, six lanes where there ought to be four. People on the left try to cut across two lanes to turn right (and persist until they can); people on the right insist on turning left. Death-defying teenagers and geriatrics alike swerve in and out of traffic on motorinas, little motorized scooters. Horns blare and fists with middle fingers extended fly out of windows everywhere.”

“I’m fuming. Robbie Dawkins and many others have told me that you can’t count on anything in Italy- shops and offices may or may not open, trains may or may not run, no rhyme or reason to anything- and suddenly I feel like throwing a rock through someone’s window. Is this how these people run a business? The loose-ends, live-in-the-moment, do-what-feels-right Italian way that’s usually so charming seems like anarchy now when it means, ‘Take Saturday off if you want, to hell with customers.”

“This is the wildest atmosphere I’ve ever been in,” Corchiani says. “High school, college…I played in the ACC, and this puts Duke fans [the notorious "Cameron Crazies"] to shame. You don’t see anything like this int he NBA, for sure. I like the idea of playing in this atmosphere.”

“The fans flood the court and engulf the players; the players are hugging and celebrating and trying to get to the tunnel, but there’s no way, they’re mobbed. A few pull off their jerseys and fling them into the crowd, others are getting theirs torn off. I catch a glimpse of Roberto: they’ve got him on their shoulders forcibly and they’ve got his shorts down; he’s thrashing around, then disappears. Huge Italian flags are waving above the throng. Music plays. Carla Brunamonti and Anne Wennington and Danilovic’s girlfriend and the other women stand, applauding in their front-row places at the end opposite the tunnel the players are trying to get to.”

The last quote especially made me laugh since I remember Joe calling me after Brindisi won the championship and telling me how the fans were trying to strip him of his uniform and he had to physically defend himself just to get to the locker room!

One thing is for sure, it is a different world and many books could be written on the professional basketball lifestyle,

The street in Brindisi where an unsuspecting Italian man was on the wrong end of a pregnant American woman's wrath

There is something about this lifestyle that brings out things from deep within that you never even knew there.  Since spending the last 7 months amongst (sometimes crazy) Sicilian drivers, I am often reminded of my moment of road rage I experienced last year in Brindisi.

When we first arrived in Brindisi, we were desperate to find an activity for Abby to be involved in there.  So about a month in one of Joe’s teammates told him that his daughter was in a dance class.  It sounded like a good idea, but the only problem was that it ran right through our (American) dinner time and Joe’s practice time.  So after dropping her off at dance and Joe off at practice, I would then come home to quickly prepare dinner and then run out with Elijah and Naomi at the busiest traffic time to pick up Abby.  I have mentioned before that I am not the best driver and southern Italy was initially a bit of a shock to me.  So the tight streets, aggressive drivers and having to use the GPS to figure out where I was going already had me a little stressed.

One night as I headed back out to pick up Abby, I knew it was going to be a tough night.  Elijah and Naomi were complaining as we got in the car that they were hungry.  I was three months pregnant and not feeling the best.  But I found my way there, picked Abby up and headed back home.  We lived in the center of town in Brindisi, which was a great place to live, except for the parking.  As you can see from the picture, it was a busy street and during the day and busy evening hours, parking spots were hard to come by.  I usually spent at least 5 minutes circling through to try to find a spot and usually ended up parking about a 5 minute walk away or so.  But that night, I could not find anything, not even a spot that was a 10 minute walk away.  So I continued to drive around for 20 minutes before I finally spotted a space on the street we lived on.  The people were getting in their car, so I put on my blinker, sat and waited as Abby joined in the whiny chorus of telling me how hungry she was.  After a few minutes, the car finally backed out and as it began to pull away, another car quickly dashed around me and pulled into the spot.  I was stunned.  It was seriously like the scene from Fried Green Tomatoes.  And that is when I snapped.

I put the car in park and exited the car to meet the unsuspecting Italian man who had no idea the full wrath of a pregnant American woman with three hungry kids in the car who had been looking for a parking spot for 25 minutes was about to descend on him.  I screamed and pointed at him in such a way that even though he probably did not speak my language he knew exactly what I was saying.  He looked rather frightened, got back in his car and moved.

I returned to our car to three wide-eyed children who looked like they were all wondering what this psycho woman had done with their mom.  Part of me was stunned the man was actually moving.  I had been in Italy long enough to know that I would most likely get one of two Italian responses: the shrug that says “What can I do?” or the hand wave that says “Be gone with you.”  And then I burst into tears.

Today I can look back on it and kind of laugh (only “kind of” because I really wish I could find that man and apologize to him).  And now I am no longer surprised to see the some of the ugly things of my heart that are exposed by the situations this lifestyle presents.

Anyone else have a story of an alter ego making an appearance in your life?

Over the past 8.5 years of being in the professional basketball world, I have adjusted to many things as the wife of a basketball player. I know now that when we are out and about, people will recognize Joe and want to stop and talk, so I have adjusted to things taking longer.  I know I will have the same conversation over and over again, so I have adjusted to enjoying those conversations instead of just enduring them.  And I know that people are interested in our family because of Joe, so I have adjusted to letting people in without giving up too much privacy.

But one thing I seem to have not been able to nail down yet is to avoid bad pictures of me ending up on the internet.

Enter Exhibit A:

I should know by now that fans will take random pictures of me or the kids at game and that they can easily end up on Facebook. For that reason I should follow the following rules while out in public (especially while at a basketball game):

1. Never eat. If you want to see an unflattering picture of yourself, eat and get caught in a photo mid-bite. No one looks pretty that way. Plus eating always puts you at risk for having some gnarly piece of food hanging from your face or sticking in your teeth. If you must eat, pop a Tic Tac or other small, non-chewing food.

2. Don’t talk. This was my blunder in the above picture. Talking is like eating, your mouth goes into weird positions and one of them could be frozen forever in a picture. Look straight ahead and smile.

3. Avoid the “Mom Stare”. All moms have one. We try to avoid it, but we all have a look that can stop a child dead in their tracks. My own mother’s was one of the most impressive I have ever seen. She could raise only one eyebrow (exactly like “The Rock“) and make you fear for your life. This is another look, although extremely effective, is not attractive when caught on camera.

4. Keep your fingers away from any area of your face. I know you may just be scratching an itch on the side of your nose. But if that pose is caught at just the right moment, all anyone sees is you digging for gold.

5. Squat, don’t bend. As a rule, when you are at a game with children, they will drop approximately 5,729 things on the ground during the game. When picking those dropped items up, bend at the knee and squat down to pick them up. Do not bend over at the waste. No one has ever looked good from that angle and you aren’t going to be the first. Think of it as getting a workout in at the game by doing mini squats the whole time.

Those are just a few ways to avoid having a bad picture of yourself taken in public. But as you can see from the picture above, I don’t follow those rules. I am an eat-when-I’m-hungry, need-some-adult-interaction, want-to-keep-my-kids-in-control, scratch-an-itch-when-I-get-it, already-did-my-workout-this-morning woman who will just have to deal with bad pictures of herself ending up on the internet.