8 AM my father calls with concerns about a recent spike in the Lizzie anxiety EKG. I reassure him that my new obsession with Netherland and cricket is guaranteed to mollify any internal tension. He offers a few platitudes on the impact of the sport in the New York area. "Well... you know where they always play..." Said to the beat of (Da... da DA da da DAda da). He'd rather pontificate on the Twins. I use 20 minutes of my lunch break to watch You Tube videos of bowlers throwing a ball and suddenly cheering, which (due to my lack of insight) reminded me of when people are talking a foreign language and start laughing. Same awkwardness and yet strange impulse to join in.
At this point, I knew I needed personal explanation. I wanted this with an impatience analogous to waiting through the automated messaging system press-one-say-one, dialing 0 after every option to just get a human voice even if that human voice is on the opposite side of the globe.
What luck!
Paul, my coworker, was born in England, but
raised in Indiana. He is known to redundantly say "I'm from England" in a discordant Midwestern drawl. I get a kick out of people's bemused reaction as they process this information. Paul somehow abets the propriety that is as preternatural to European culture as the gulf stream winds and the midwestern simplicity that congruous to Walmart and tacit adages. And bars decorated with taxidermy. Think of a ruhbarb tart. Brilliantly crafted and with a bitterness that makes you wonder if it can even be considered dessert. Then take Edy's Vanilla ice cream and dump it on top. That's Paul.And he knows how to play cricket! I of course seek his wisdom. He stumbles over his words in a humbleness lacking only an "aw shucks." But my list is growing:
New things to add to cricket list:
1. A bowler throws a ball to a WICKET.
2. The wicket consists of three sticks with a fourth stick resting on top.
3. The bowler wants to knock of the fourth stick with a big cork ball.
4. The batter wants to block this and hit the ball towards...
5. Boundary, white line, two people run to make the point, the fielders catch it like this, no gloves, it bounces in the grass, six points, he thinks, two points or one point to switch batters.
I lost him around this point.
My last interview was the nanny for the family I babysit for in Brooklyn. Bibi speaks with a Guyanese accent. That kind of West Indies English that has a cadence so different from ours, it is almost impossible to stay with her train of thought. I comprehend 70%of what Bibi says. Thank god she repeats herself constantly... either as a reassurance that the idiot Americans understand her or perhaps reiteration is a result of 13 years of communicating to children. If I stop concentrating like a Russian trannslator listening to radio signals in 1954, I loose her all together. I listened hard because this was my moment to learn FIRST HAND.Investigative journalist: "Bibi, do you like cricket?"
4 foot 11 inch Guyanese woman: "Ohhh Creecket de best. Number one in our country. My son. My son he play de cricket. Very very good. Teddy! Eat your shrimps. Number one sport. My son, he love creecket. You finish de shrimps now Teddy?"
A proud moment of accomplishment: In my research I learned about the faster bowler in cricket, the pride of Pakistan, Shoaib Akhtar. A fast paced bowl clocks in at around 154 km/hr. The fastest was thrown by Akhtar a whopping 161.3 km/hr. That is 100.2 mph for us non-metric fools. And of course he dashingly handsome. And of course he is Punjabi. Maybe we can dance Bhangra together, and he can knock the stick off my wicket with his infamous yorker*.
*Yorker is a term used in cricket that describes a delivery where the cricket ball bounces on the cricket pitch on or near the batsman's popping crease. -Wikipedia.
I have no idea what that definition means.
