I'm blessed to have awesome friends (both in real life and online; a big thanks to all of you for the kind words and emails I've received this week!). Today is day 3 of the "cheer up Leah" project my friends have instituted. I have not been alone a single night since not-so-fun Tuesday. While I'm still sad and upset, I'm feeling better, and I didn't spend the day crying.
Tonight, my friend Abby and I decided to have some sportsy fun. We headed to Korean food together and then went to a Michigan sports event. Michigan sports are interesting -- some are quite expensive (football, baseball, and hockey are all not cheap) while others are free. Yes, free! And guess what one of the free sports is? Oh, yes, wrestling!
Neither Abby nor I knew anything about wrestling. I went to a few matches in high school and college, but I didn't remember anything about them. Now, I know a lot about wrestling.
We got to the match just a touch after it started. I was surprised to see that a lot of people were actually in attendance. After sitting through one match with no clue what was going on, I made a quick phone call to one of my military buddies and learned the basics. Apparently, there's lots more to wrestling matches than just getting some guy down on to the mat. There are points for the takedown, but there are also points for keeping the guy down, getting his shoulders on the mat, escaping from being down, and keeping the advantage for more time than the other guy.
I'm not sure if Abby and I will become wrestling aficionados. We did keep score on the provided scoresheet (but we do that at every sports thing we go to -- we're especially big fans of baseball). But we did have lots of fun learning about a new sport. Tomorrow, there's free water polo, so I might check it out if I'm feeling bored. Next week? Free gymnastics!