Looking for a ball (at which I won't lose my slipper)

I have not yet gone ballroom dancing or attended a ball as part of ball year.

I'm looking for suggestions as to where I could do either.

I anticipate The Mister joining me, so presence or absence of Prince Charming is irrelevant.

The best ball I can envision will 1) include actual dancing in ball gowns  2) not take itself too seriously (sneakers balls or adult proms welcome) 3) be affordable enough that my friends and I could go and 4) in support of a cause that I personally support.

Dropping the Ball but then Getting On the Ball for Ball Games

As part of ball year I planned to attend all sorts of ball games at all sorts of levels.

In the spring I attended minor league baseball, youth soccer, and college basketball.  Over the summer I attended 9 international soccer matches.

This fall.  Well, this fall I attended eight youth soccer games (missing four for BioBlitz Oklahoma and three for the Lego League competition).  I intended to go to semi-pro soccer, and high school sports, and lacrosse and field hockey and maybe even some rugby, and then it was crazy season with the 3,000 plants, so I dropped that ball.

BUT it turns out that the college at which I teach has a conference winning soccer team, so they are hosting the conference tournament on campus, starting tomorrow.  We'll attend if they make it to the finals on Saturday.  AND the local high school football team's regular season is over, but they have their first play-off game at home on Friday.  I suddenly feel so on the ball.

Ball Book-- The Crossover

Kwame Alexander's The Crossover is amazing.  A librarian friend suggested it for ball year and, despite her suggestion and it being a Newberry winner, I balked when I opened it and realized that it was written not only in verse, but 13-year-old basketball player first person narrator verse.
But it works.  I read it in a sitting or two and I cried lots.
Months later I started reading it with Dianthus one evening and while he was intimidated by the form, he went to bed and had finished it by the time we walked to school the next morning. He claims he didn't cry. Highly recommended for many of my readers, including my mother and mother-in-law, whether or not you are interested in junior high basketball.

I want to read more Kwame Alexander, but I think at this very moment I am going to go read Pride and Prejudice again as my favorite ball book for Mo'BallMoNo.

Mo'BallMoNo Begins

Recently I was telling someone about the seasons in my life ("spring semester" but it really is winter, groundhog day, spring semester and spring soccer, finals, field season, summer, back to school, crazy season, I survived crazy season, "Thanskgiving, finals and Advent", actual "holidays").

"Crazy season" lasts Labor Day to Fall Break and includes the time in which I teach double lectures, Aster and Dianthus's soccer seasons, and my field season.  This year I was also writing a promotion document and Dianthus was doing before-school Lego League during the same time.  While most of that is done, we haven't fully entered "I survived crazy season" because my students and I have only documented 1,917 of the the nearly 3,000 plants in a place where there were 44 last year.

BUT, I am back on the ball and thinking about ball things and things other than teaching and will blog again. 
In fact, I am so excited to blog again that I am calling it More Ball Month November (Mo'BallMoNo) and I have a lot to say.  That's right, I am so caught up that I am starting a month-long November project on the 11th, and then not really starting it now.

Balls soon.  In the meantime.  Cyclanthera dissecta (now C. naudiniana) after an early (Oct. 12) freeze and think about waging piece to remember the Armistice.

"The Ball is Round"

We've attended eight World Cup matches so far (9th today) and I feel I should have more to say about them.  Yet I don't want to jinx anything, nor am I ready to type about the details.
It has been a great trip.  The ball keeps rolling.

Halftime at USA vs England semi-final

Is it American to score big? Is it sexist to care?

I fell asleep when the US was only up 7-0 in the match against Thailand last night.  I'll admit I was a bit disappointed by the final score; 13-0 is just so unseemly.  I don't like gloating; I'm embarrassed by hugely obnoxious gestures of my country-mates; and big wins feel loud, a trait I am endeavoring to teach my family not to be.
But then I awoke to lots of criticism of the US women, as if they had done something wrong by playing really well and being proud of it.
Someone asked if the same criticism would have been leveled at the US Men's National Team, which I found laughable, because the US men just aren't that good. But it did make me wonder how much of this does have to do with sexist perceptions.  So I'm comparing this to the Dream Team at the Olympics.
I'll point out a few things here:
There are only 3 subs in an international soccer match.  There is no putting in a second team or resting the starters.
The first US Dream Team in 1992 had a 350 point differential over 8 games.  That means they were averaging more than 40 points more than their opponents per game.  I seem to recall comments about how lucky their opponents were to play with the best, and how insulting it would have been for the Dream Team to quit shooting at an international competition.
Thailand may have been out of their league last night, but they are a team who had to win a spot to be here at the World Cup.  In the Asian qualifying tournament, they won a match 6-1 and beat out teams who defeated other teams 10-1.  It is too bad that women's soccer is so poorly supported elsewhere, but winning big is not a US thing, or something to be ashamed of.

Boats Before Balls

Perhaps because we live on the edge of the high plains, boats fascinate us.  So far on this adventure we have ridden a small tour boat on the Firth of Forth (under the bridges and to Inchholm), a little passenger ferry from Britain to Lismore and back, a motor boat to Threave Castle on an island in the River Dee, a car ferry across the Rhine in Germany and a wonderful current-powered passenger ferry across the Rhine in Switzerland*.

Today the "ball" part of our adventure begins (Go Jamaica!), but the boats have sure been fun.

*Two boat rides included strangers from the internet and we all survived; in fact meeting them was delightful.

Car ferry in Germany

Oh, we also rode a boat through the
world's first water balanced
 circular boat lift.

 

Threave Castle

Isle of Lismore