By the time France and Spain kicked off Tuesday, my studio was flooded, an electrical contractor was digging trenches through my backyard, and I was trying to run my workday from an iPad while a black Lab searched for the next thing in our house to destroy.
It had already been that kind of day.
The chaos really began the night before. Here in Chandler, Arizona, we had a doozy of a storm. The wind came hard, and at one point one of the shade structures in the backyard came down on top of me while I was trying to hold another one in place over the grill area. For a few anxious minutes, we wondered whether my ankle was going to earn us a trip to the hospital. Fortunately, it was fine. The storm, however, was not finished with us.
The wind and rain continued through much of the night. When morning arrived, I found my work laptop, keyboard, and monitor sitting in standing water. Something had gone wrong with the roof, and my studio was soggy. My 7 a.m. meetings clearly were not going to happen from my usual desk.
Instead, I spent the morning learning how to work entirely from an iPad. I took meetings while Center Stage behaved like an over caffeinated camera operator, constantly reframing me in the middle of conversations. At the same time, the electrical contractor arrived at 6 a.m. to start digging trenches for the wiring to my studio.
Then there was the dog.
If you have been following along, you know that we recently acquired a mischievous black Lab. She has already chewed her way through fruit snacks and shoes, dug up my raised garden beds, and sampled the jalapeños, cucumbers, and sweet potatoes. With contractors opening trenches across the backyard, we spent much of the morning preventing the dogs from finding new and creative ways to turn the property into a disaster zone. In between, I was booking work travel and trying to make sure all of my reports were up to date.
By the time I could give France vs. Spain any real attention, the match had reached halftime. I sat down, looked at the score, and found France trailing 2–0.
There is a saying in football: it is the hope that kills you.
Deep down, I had believed this might be Mbappé’s year to go all the way. Seeing France behind brought back that familiar feeling—the disappointment of watching a player you want to see rewarded come up just short. I am trying not to become cynical about it, but lately it seems that the teams and players I find myself rooting for keep reaching the edge of something special without being able to finish the journey.
France didn’t get the result I wanted, and Mbappé’s World Cup ends earlier than I had hoped. But I still managed to watch part of the match with my family, which felt like an accomplishment after a day of storms, standing water, trenches, work meetings, and one relentlessly inventive dog.
Some days, watching the World Cup means sitting down for every minute. Other days, it means finding the score at halftime while holding your life together with an iPad.
Today was definitely the second kind.
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