A Letter to President Trump on Martin Luther King Jr Day 2018

Dear President Trump,

         Confession.  I am prejudiced.  I cried the day you were elected.  I was frightened by a world who would elect a white, rich and powerful man.  A man, so much like the one who took away my innocence before I finished first grade.  

 As I sat in my bathroom crying, I remembered going into the voting booth with my mom back when Dukakis was running against the first Bush.  My job was to keep the cheap blue curtain in place while my mom got to pull the levers. I couldn’t wait till the day I got to pull those levers. I even aspired to be on the ballot.  

Full disclosure:  In my first Presidential election I voted for George W. Bush to serve a second term as our president.  I figured he was the one who got us into the Iraq war which my friends had heedlessly enlisted in, only to come back ghosts of their former selves. I guess I was just hoping that he had a plan and I was wise enough, even at 19, to see that bureaucracy required almost a decade to carry out a plan. 

Fuller Disclosure: I voted both terms for Barack Obama.  I not only wanted an African

American to be president, I wanted him to be president. I admired the way he wrote his memoir so humbly, admitting his weaknesses and insecurities. I liked the way he told stories of all the people he’d met along the campaign trail. He was so skilled at diplomacy and after eight years of war in the Middle East I believed that we needed someone who would sit down and talk, someone who was internationally savvy.  Maybe it was vanity, maybe as a speech and debate teacher and coach I wanted someone well spoken.  

Fullest Disclosure: I did not vote for you last year but neither did I vote for Hillary Clinton.  I did what most would say was wasting my vote by casting it for an independent.  

Now, here I sit, a white mother of three white children, trying to make sense of how to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. in light of your alleged racist remarks.  

I face 3 main problems:

1. My first dilemma- Your comments themselves.  Even if they prove to be inaccurate in the particulars I take issue with them and even to your rebuttal to the allegations:  "I am not a racist. I'm the least racist person you will ever interview.”  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42685356 

This strikes me as ridiculous.  How can we ever crown someone “the least racist.”  It’s immeasurable and unquantifiable.  Even if someone is an activist for racial and ethnic equality we can never know the moments of snap judgements they make based on their own subjective experiences and unacknowledged indoctrination into “how life works.”

2. My second dilemma- Martin Luther King Jr. was not perfect.  He was a great man.  He made the world a better place but not without controversy.   “King was regularly accused of what today would be called ‘reverse racism;’ of hating white people. One piece of hate- mail is particularly revealing: “How can you be a minster and have such hatred in your heart for the ‘white’-race and the Nation in general?”  http://www.missioalliance.org/king-wasnt-peaceful Frankly, it makes me uncomfortable to contemplate that in his mind I owe Black Americans reparations for the sins of my forefathers  I hate being lumped together with bigots and racists because I am white. In fact it makes me want to dig up dirt on him such as the fact that he was unfaithful to his wife, and he put her and his children in danger as well as leaving them penniless. But I know that is petty.  

3. My final dilemma: What can or should I do?  My first instinct is to stay silent because I have yet to “win” a debate via social media or blogging.  Also, I run the risk of being misinterpreted and phrasing something in a particularly offensive way to someone, which would break my heart.  But in the end I love Martin Luther King Jr's message and I think he deserves to be celebrated. I found this article that I think is really helpful on how that can play out in each of our personal lives.  

https://hellogiggles.com/news/politics/9-ways-celebrate-martin-luther-king-jr-day-meaningfully

He was a man who truly made America great and he did so by recognizing that without humility, self-sacrifice, faith and love our own beloved country is a hateful sh--hole.  So, let's go President Trump. Let's honor the man who gave his life for equality and civil rights.  Let's make America great again.  

Sincerely,

    K.D. Simington

Katie Noel Parsons May

So, today at midnight (or tomorrow morning technically) my first writing piece in ages goes live on The Prodigal Chair.  I am SO nervous- not just because I haven’t written in a while.  I am happy to end that silent streak.  

No, I am nervous because I wrote about my dearest friend Katie Noel Parsons and it was hard.  I haven’t written about her in the 4 years since we last spoke.  I’ve wanted to.... but it seemed too sacred a subject.  I’m still convinced I didn’t get it quite right.  I didn’t do justice to the way she changed my life forever.  

I am nervous because there are so many of you who knew her longer or better.  Please forgive my inadequacies, I think that she would.  She saw the best in me...in everyone she met. I miss her every day.    

The good news is that I got to go through tons of old journals and emails that made me laugh over our many escapades.  I got to re-view her memorial (I used a photo from it I hope that is okay.)  I got to read her obituary which I had never done.  My favorite line was ... “Canoes will be gathering in Redfish Lake, Idaho to candles being lit  in Chernovtsky, Ukraine.”  She changed the whole world.  

Commonly unspoken questions about suffering

As I announced last week, we are expected another sweet baby.  And also, we are going through another high risk pregnancy.  Here are some questions I've been wrestling with.  I know most of you may not relate but I figured they are the same darn questions that spin around in my head whenever I am hurting (minus the baby part):


1. Are the baby and I gonna make it?
2.  What is really gonna help me and what is a scam? (For example the $1,000 ER visit for fluids and all my meds especially zofrane (anti-naseau @$100 a bottle).
3. How much is this about mind over matter?  

Our pastor preached a great sermon yesterday about how we are not ok, and we need the Holy Spirit at all times.  We just notice it most during hard times.  Well, I am noticing that is for sure.  

And then just to blow my mind  I was watching Running Wild with Bear Grylls and Deon Sanders was the celebrity guest.  Of course he was asked to do things that required trust, strength, agility and skills he didn't think he had.  

Think about that...... Deion Sanders...the Deion Sanders.....only man ever to hit a major league home run and score a major league touch down in the same week didn't think he had it in him!!!!  

Do you know what he did?    I couldn't have guessed.  He started praying...in tongues.  He called on God Almighty in a personal and desperate way.  And God answered.  


Deion got calm and then he did it... he completed his mission.  This is Prime Time!!!!  What?!!!  So if you are like me and need some help, suffering in big or small ways, call out to God.  He will hear you.

Bed Rest

Bed rest doesn’t seem like a bad thing at first.  It seems like a good thing and it is.  With my first baby, I spent my time of confinement learning sport stats to impress my husband and watching re-runs of Walker Texas Ranger.  

With my second baby, my friends (who are also saints) watched my toddler and I indulged in long naps and re-runs of Murder, She Wrote.  (I hope you’ve noticed my fine taste in television.) Still, the days seemed to last for weeks and the minutes for hours, just waiting for time to pass.

This time around, everything was more intense.  The “morning sickness,”  the lack of independence, the fear of having to survive another day.  It was hell.  Then, one day I dragged yourself to the door and my neighbor was there, she was taking me to the ER.  I was to weak and confused to argue so I went.  As it turned out I have/had hypermesis gravidarum. I was super dehydrated and losing weight at a frightening rate.  

Hypermesis gravidarum has been made famous by Princess Kate, Dutchess of Cambridge who had it with her first born.  Ironically, Charlotte Bronte (my favorite author) also suffered (and eventually died) from it.   All this to say, I was in bad shape.  But it seems to me that it is when we are in the worst shape that we see the best in others.

Here are some examples and thank you’s (certainly not exhaustive) of the love I’ve received:

-My neighbor baking me cookies, buying ginger ale, and lollypops that somehow really do magically take away the nausea for a little bit.

-Friends who coordinated so that every day one of them took my kids, changed their diapers, dressed them, fed them breakfast and lunch and often dinner too!

-Get Well cards, flowers and balloon.

-Someone to pick up all my multiple prescriptions.

-My brother driving me home and making sure I kept my electrolytes up with gatorade (electrolyte imbalance is the #1 threat to the baby)

-My sister letting me drink all her gatorade while juggling a job, another job and oh yeah another job.  

-My other sister holding my hand and telling me it was gonna be ok, plus changing innumerable diapers and “accidents.”

-My parents for watching over me and cajoling me into actually going to the doctor.

-My friends who did my dishes and cleaned my kitchen.

-My friends who sent me music.

-Those who kept me amused with their blogposts, instagrams, and tweets:)

-My whole family in CA for offering to take the kids and for flying my sister in law out to take care of the kids, the house and me.

-All the offers I didn’t even get to take people up on because I was so flooded with help.

-THE PRAYERS, life is a miracle.  This little one inside me and my own because I know I would have died on my own.  Thank you all!

Asking for help is hard.  

But it is worth the risk.

People probably care way more than you can imagine  (especially if they know Jesus because that is exactly what he was like...he cared and he did something about. )

Going Home: Our love story and the CDP Nuevo

Ok, so far, in this love story, David and I met, I confessed my feelings for him and we started dating.  Although this felt like my whole life, in reality it was really only a few months.  It was right around thanksgiving when David invited me to come home with him.  

I was the first girl that David ever brought home. 

He’d obviously dated other people but he’d never brought them to meet his mom and see his land.  

I was determined not to ruin it.  Although I knew this would be a little tricky since David had mentioned his mom had cats, like around 20 of them, and I was horribly allergic.  Of course, not ruining things required me to act like having 20 cats is totally a normal everyday thing I was used to, not a threat to my ability to breathe.  

Before we left Santa Barbara we had breakfast with his sister Kalli and her husband.  They prayed for our trip to Nuevo...after which I was like, “Where is Nuevo?  I thought you lived in Riverside?”  I had a lot to learn.

Come to find out Nuevo is the name of the CDP (Census Designated Place) they lived (it’s not technically even a town...no police...no city hall...just land, land and more land) in Riverside county.  It’s population and it’s total acreage both hover around the 4,000 mark.  David’s family making up a good portion of the population and owning the majority of the land.  

No place on earth smells like Nuevo, CA with the pungent smell diary farm manure and the rich earthy alfalfa, sod and sundry other crops covering the land.   It is completely wide open, I kind of gasped when we made it through the mountains and looked down on the expanse below.  It was brown, baked in the sun with little hints of green olive trees lining the main ways.  I felt out of sorts without the green refuge of trees I was so used to.  

The streets were mostly unpaved and I was happy to be bumping along in David’s cherry red F150 rather than my hand-me-down minivan.  It was obvious from the moment the land came into view that David loved it.  He pointed out landmarks and places he and his dad had farmed, fished, hiked.  His shoulders relaxed; he was clearly at home.    

As we pulled into a dirt driveway I fell in love with the place. It totally harkened back to my early 1990s obsession with the movie Overboard (with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.)  The rusted out cars in the driveway, the enormous springs and tractor parts strewn about the backyard bore put me at ease.  

I noticed 3 more things as David escorted me inside.  #1. The oven was held closed with two shoestrings that seemed to be slightly singed.  #2.  David’s mom was even more gorgeous than he had told me with long blond hair and piercing blue eyes. She looked more like his older sister than his mom.  #3.  The “shower” was in truth just a over-oxidized pipe sticking out of the bathroom wall.  

As we took the tour of the house, I saw the cats.  It was hard to keep count because David’s mom only took in black and white cats.  Or rather she took in a cat named, “Fat Cat Moo Cow” who’d  sired most of the rest. 

As much as I despised the cat’s hair I was impressed by the way David and his family cared for animals.    Their compassion knew no bounds, it extended to humans and ran over onto every living creature God made.

The next morning we went to Beverly Ann’s donuts which had been bought out by a chinese restaurant but still sold donuts.  Much to my chagrin, Fat Cat Moo Cow and his brood seemed to have reign even over the tiny shopping complex down the road.   By the time we left.  My nose was completely plugged up.  My throat was a straw sized passage that I wheezed through and my eyes were hard to keep open both because of the constant watering and the extreme puffiness.  But I was happy, I’d completed phase 1. His mom’s house, now it was on to Hemet and the rest of the family.  

Words of Wisdom

This was a writing prompt I was given a couple weeks ago and it was pretty fun to write:) 

"Write a letter to a seventh grader that is becoming an eighth grader with advice about what to expect, what to do, and what not to do."

Dear Seventh Grade Me,

Don’t take that dare to wear a tiara during your History Presentation.  Or if you must take the dare find a way to relate it to your topic.  Don’t worry though, the detention is probably worth the laughter in the end. 

I'm not really sure what to say about this picture except "YIKES"

Do take the opportunity to do higher math and don’t worry about how it affects your grade.  It is as important to understand numbers as it is to understand words.  

Enjoy ska and punk while you can.  It will be a somewhat guilty pleasure later in life so get to every concert you can.

Work harder at soccer.  Try to understand the sport, not just get through practice.  Seriously, you have a chance to be really good.  Watch professionals.  

Focus more on singing than on the trumpet.   

Get over the fact that you did not get the princess part in the play but were forced to be the evil stepsister.  You are not in fact, going to go into acting as a career. Besides the prince and the princess holding hands will be priceless blackmail material soon.  

Spend more time with A.  In 3 years she’ll get pregnant and have a baby.  You’ll lose touch and then she’ll get cancer.  One morning you’ll get the call that she died.  You probably won’t be able to change the way things happen but at least enjoy the time you can before she’s gone.  Same for L and E.  They all die young and you’ll miss them more than you expect.  

Have fun, these are some of the sweetest years of your life.  Learn Mrs. Wright’s memory verses and learn to conjugate latin verbs but don’t let a dead language kill your joy.  

Be yourself!  You turn out pretty well and believe it or not you do get married.  And to someone you never could have dreamed up... not to mention the 2 adorable kids you get to raise.  

See you on the flip side,

 30 year old me

Big Plans: The year long decision we didn't make

Last September we had a choice to make: should we continue to go to the church we have been attending for the 8 years we’ve lived here or should we join the group from the church who was planting an urban church near our neighborhood.  

The decision we kept coming to was “neither.” Honestly, both were really good options but neither felt right.  We both felt dis-ease and unsettled in our hearts.  So we started looking into moving, like far away, like back to CA or anywhere warm really.  David had been in Puerto Rico with his best friends from growing up and we both realized how much we miss the surf and sun.  

Almost as soon as we thought about moving David got a job offer from a company in TX.  He turned them down but we decided we should check out the opportunities there.  I immediately began to freak out.  Then I started the following dialogue with David (a monologue really since I never gave this to him or read it aloud...cause that just seemed weird):

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"I know in my heart that we should go.  I can just sense it.  

I heard it in my mom’s voice...  “It’s an idea whose time has come.”  I saw that through her grief at losing her only two grandchildren that she still felt peace and trusted God who is the author of all great ideas in the first place.  

I knew it on our 7 year anniversary, when I wrote our vows out from Ruth, “Where you go, I will go...where you die, I will die.  Your people will be my people and your God my God.  May God deal with me ever so severely if anything but death separates us.”

I knew it when I read Glimpses of Grace Chapter 9 about hardship and how God takes away our pacifiers so that we can have him.  Even if we are happy with our pacifiers, they aren’t the best God has for us.  

I knew it when the dark started coming earlier and earlier and the cold let us play outside less and less.  And J.Wynn screamed about his gloves falling off before we even got to the bottom of the stairs

I knew it when  people who would cut off their arms for us to stay said that we should follow the lead of the Spirit and not quench it.  

When you went to TX randomly walked in on a board meeting at ---- Homes and then the CEO emailed you back even though I wrote a very open ended/ badly written email to him.  When he wanted to see your resume and references and has space for you.  

I still get sad to think about our amazing neighbors...not to mention the best land lady in the world

I hate the idea of leaving when:

A friend gives an unbelievable talk on gospel and I realize I have so much more to learn.

I meet a host of new people who I’d love to get to know but don’t feel I have the time. 

I sit at the park with other moms watching our kids enjoy the neighborhood and their friends.  

But I have to let them go.  It has taken a year to come to this decision but here we are.  At the crossroads."

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Once the spring arrived, I narrowed my rambling thoughts down into a list (as I am wont to do:)

March 19th, 2014

Here is why today I think we should move:

1. David is more important to me than any friend.  Leaving my friends will be hard but it will drive David and I closer together if we let it
2. The guy actually emailed him back with three exclamation marks!!!!
3. We would be closer to CA and could do PC as a family!
4. Having David home is more important than any friends the kids have
5. I want to take this scary plunge and have a life of adventure together
6. 5 amazing properties for rent within our budget
7. I am excited about my homeschooling ideas to supplement whatever school they have there

--------------------------------

Next, I started planning

If I move to AUSTIN...

I get the opportunity to start over, totally fresh and there are not many opportunities to do that in life.  So if I move to Austin.... I will:

-Count 1,000 gifts

-Take time to be outside every single day

 -Learn to be honest and accurate when I tell stories

-Not create the piles that drive David so crazy

-Put up family photos!

-Pray every day with David

-Get up with David to make breakfast and lunch

-Learn Spanish

-Limited Screen Time and buy a battery operated clock with alarm.

-Be a Hands Free Mama

-NOT be a gossip or news bearer

Not forgetting back-up plans:

And if we don’t move...

   So if Austin falls through, then what?

Was it to get me to officially quit my job and use my retirement to pay off some debts?

Was it to teach me how to submit to my husband even when I am not sure what is best?

Was it so that I would un-enroll J.Wynn from pre-school?  

Was it so that I could appreciate with fresh eyes the beauty of the community on our block and the greenery of the trees that the abundance of lakes and water?

Wherever we go what I truly care about is:

1. Prayer life, being led by the Spirit
2. Quality time together as a family ( I think David and I need to talk about what this looks like for us.)
3. Quality time as a couple.  (again...need to discuss)

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Finally David actually went there and came back with a great job offer.  

So we decided to move...and the first ones to find out where David’s best friends who live there, who we were super excited about being neighbors with...

March 31st 

The reaction:

It was the night of the big decision and it could have gone either way.  We called up David's friend M. and his family.

     Junior was wanting him to go watch Casey at the Bat.  M. put on his cowboy hat and his best texas drawl.  Then he invited his wife in from cooking dinner to convince us too.  Once they were all in there saying how they wanted us to come I had to tell them.  David and I had just been fighting about it being his decision.  But it is mine too.  I want this adventure with him.  It is going to make us closer, more loving, better parents.  I am excited.  But M., he was dancing around the room like a maniac with Junior.  I was cracking up:)  

What was most inspiring to me was David’s stoic response amidst all M.’s craziness.  He took it all in stride and let his best friend wear himself out.  Then later he and M. talked a bit more on the phone but I was so happy to see that I am not the only one he doesn’t give a reaction to.  

April 3rd

It's funny that now that we know we are leaving we are freed up to do all kinds of fun things.  I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from David’s shoulder’s.   Tonight we had Korean food with our neighbors and just sat talking, laughing and eating together.  It was priceless.

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And suddenly, 3 weeks before we were planning to move.  It all fell through.  I’d been praying for a sure sign and this really felt like it. Every door that had seemed opened slammed in our face.  It didn’t feel good.  For as happy as I was at the prospect of staying it didn’t feel good to have our whole world turned upside down again.  The spinning cycle of uncertainty threw me into a panic.

1. How can we go on with David working 50-60 hours a week and commuting 10-12?

2. Why doesn’t it seem like we are growing in our faith like we want to be?

3. How can we afford to stay?

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Last week (when I realized that we will almost certainly be living here for at least another year)... God did an amazing thing!  

He showed us his love through all of you.  Seriously, every: kind word, morsel of food, load of laundry, prayer, penny, hundred dollar bill, word of wisdom or moment together we have received with inexplicable gratitude.  

Thank you for showing us how God loves us: here or there, near or far, poor or rich, good or bad.  So, if you are far away we still miss you and would love to be closer.  And yup, if you live near us you are stuck with us at least a little longer:)  That’s the story of us and the lone star state. 

Who Am I?

“Jesus was totally unpredictable.”    A friend said that to me last  week and it has been stuck in my head.

Jesus was totally unpredictable and I CAN NOT figure him out.  I’ve read the Bible a lot.  After all, it was my major in college: Biblical Interpretation. Yet, I could never have predicted his next move, or response to various people.
Somehow, I find it freeing because all my efforts to find the pattern he used or, the lifestyle he choose or, the perfect words at the perfect moment, the perfect balance in life is just too much.
I think the problem is, I am trying to figure out Jesus in order to figure out myself.

Most of my life is an effort to figure out what “type” of person I am or should be for optimal quality of life.  I find myself wanting to turn the conversation to myself whenever I get a chance, longing to get to a deeper level of friendship with people so that I can know what they really think of me.  (Wow, that is a little uncomfortably honest).

Am I more introverted or extraverted?  Am I an academic or an athlete (ok don’t laugh, I still aspire to be athletic or at least athletically minded).  Am I liberal or conservative?    Am I a happy person or a depressed one?

The answer really depends on the day and on the circumstances.

I have always felt like this was a bad thing, that I should be so rock solid in my faith and my identity that nothing could phase me.  But I know deep down that I am totally confused about who I am at all.

So, I utilize what I call “The Essay Approach to Life.” (Based on the three best ways to organize an informative essay.)

• I try and define myself.  I get on this quest to find the correct definition of me.  I ask friends and family.  I ask my kids.  Sometimes, I  am so desperate to figure myself out that I ask strangers, “What kind of person do I seem like to you?”  (The answer to that is almost always... “a crazy one”)  
• I try and compare and contrast myself.  This one is a recipe for disaster.  I compare myself to people I wish I was more like and I contrast myself to people I dislike. I feel bad even saying that I dislike some people but it’s true...probably not you because you are reading this... but I do this compare and contrast thing and it’s exhausting and totally based on my perceptions of other people which are almost always wrong.  
• I try to figure out the cause and effect of who I am...what made me like this.  I delve into the past.  I dig up old memories and rehash old arguments.  I nurse old wounds and savor old victories.  I write the story of my life based on events and cataclysmic moments.  

This week I realized that applying ELA methodology to the nature of my existence is not really very helpful.

So, how do I move past this obsession so I can get on with living?

And I know all Christians out there are thinking, “You are the daughter of God, you are Beloved.”  That is the right answer.  I know it.  I believe it.

But honestly, (and I mean like super duper honestly...embarrassingly honestly...) I’ve heard that so much I’m not sure what that even means.

Which scares me because then I’m like, if I were a real Christian I would “get it.”

Here are some things that I don’t get about Jesus:

1. Sometimes he seems really harsh (...but then, can you respect someone who doesn’t even have the capacity for hard truths.)  I guess I can respect it but I definitely don’t get it.  
2.  He tells us to be alert and self controlled because he is coming back “like a thief in the night.”  (what does that mean and how can we not worry and still be alert?)
3. He says that he didn’t come to abolish the law and yet Christians don’t follow the laws.

Here are some things I love about Jesus:

1. -He had compassion on the weak, the poor and the sick.
2. -He healed people!
3. -He tells us not to worry.

Maybe I need to stop trying to “get it.” Maybe Jesus doesn’t want us to figure it all out...to figure him out.  And maybe it is not that important for me to be able to characterize myself succinctly (you know just to make it easier for the many biographers who, I am sure, will want to immortalize me after my death).  Once I let that go, I can stop trying to perfect my image.  I can actually talk to people and not just try to analyze how I am talking to people.  I can live and breathe and love.   It may be a little or even a lot unpredictable but then again, unpredictable doesn't seem so bad any more.

The Basics of World Cup Soccer

I married into a soccer family.  I thought that I was from a soccer family.  I played from the time I was 10 on and my sister started at 6yrs old. I’d watched World Cup matches and even remember admiring Alexi Lalas and Kobe Jones as America’s hope in the 1990s.  

Alexi Lalas... On the field...

...off the field

But my in-laws...they are real soccer fans.  Like, stay home from work, call each other after every qualifier and friendly and injury update sort of soccer fans.  Not to mention that they are astoundingly skilled player to boot (pun intended.)

Probably the only soccer fans I know who are more dedicated are my sister’s inlaws, who are Brazillian...enough said.  

I’ve assembled a who’s who/ what’s what for myself so I don’t sound like an idiot when watching with my husband and I though I’d share it for anyone who might also need a cheat sheet.  

1. Here is the countries who are playing.  They are divided into 8 groups labeled A-H .  America is in Group G which is also known as the “Group of Death” because both Portugal and Germany usually make it to at least the quarter finals, and Ghana is always a contender too.  

2. “The best soccer player on earth” can refer to any of the following four people:

-Pele- played for Brazil back in the day and is an icon/idol in the futball world.

-Diego Maradona- played for Argentina back in the day and then coached for them last world cup.  Is bat-sh!#$ crazy but some argue better than Pele.

-Christiano Ronaldo- Plays for Portugal and seems to me the Tom Brady of the International Soccer World.  Uggs commercials, supermodels, etc.  Except there is no way that Tom Brady is even close to as conceited as Ronaldo.  (Can you tell he is not my favorite)

-Lionel Messi (he is my favorite)- If you like an underdog you’ll love him.  At 5 foot almost 7 inches he is small, to say the least.  Which is due to a growth plate injury he had as a child.  Amazingly he grew as tall as he is and is faster than lightening (not literally).  The only problem...he plays for Argentina, the bitter political, cultural and athletic enemies of Brazil.  I want him to win...but I don’t want a war to be waged over it. (not kidding).

3. Brazil is the winningest country in the history of the world cup.   They are banking everything on a hometown win. They have tons of ridiculously talented players but the one name you MUST know is Neymar Jr. He is unreal and probably should be added to fact #2 Best players in the world.

4. No, Landon Donovan (probably the one US soccer player you have heard of) was not chosen for the World Cup team by US coach Klinnsmen (Winner of the world cup with Germany in the 1990s...wait, what?!)  I know it’s strange.  I’m not a Donovan fan, I prefer Clint Dempsey to be our poster boy but it is a point of heated controversy and will undoubtedly be beat like a dead horse by the announcers.  

5. The games are called “matches,” the field is called “pitch”, the teams are called “sides.” Oh yeah and the sport, it’s called Football.