Portland, OR:
Over the last weekend, two incredibly important events were going on:
A. The Final Four for NCAAW basketball (Specifically UCONN v UCLA)
B. Christina's Birthday
To celebrate, we got the batcall and spent the evening galavanting around the Burnside area of NW Portland. We started at a fun sports bar to watch the game, and then we ended up at the gem of Burnside, the Gateway Fred Meyer. The Gateway Fred Meyer has so many fun features like: doors that lock after 7p and don't open until 9a the next day, a former Costco employee who entered the transfer portal and committed to Fred Meyer as a receipt checker, and one (1) Coor's Banquet in plexiglass.
These Final Four games were going to be exciting for a couple of reasons. The first matchup was South Carolina vs. Texas. This is important because it was just a rematch of the SEC tournament game where Madam Dawn Staley herself clobbered the entire Texas team. The second game was UCONN vs UCLA. UCONN is a powerhouse that has the winningest coach in the NCAA, Paige Bueckers, and so much more. UCLA went into that game rocking an overall 34-2 record, their only losses being their conference rival USC, whom they lost to twice, but managed to wake up when they played a third time in the B10 conference championship. The prior game UCONN played in the Elite 8 was against USC, and while I was a UCONN ride or die-er, there is a moderate amount of humor in the universe where UCLA plays USC 4 times in one singular season. UCLA also has the former pride and joy of the 2023 OSU women's basketball team, Timea Gardiner.
(Timea was the GOAT at OSU before transferring to UCLA following OSU's Elite 8 loss to South Carolina in the 2024 post-season, but she's actually never done anything wrong in her life, so we will choose to look the other way, just this once.) (No Tea No Shade: At least she chose a good school for her the first time instead of playing for an average of 30 seconds in your transfer school and then entering the transfer portal for a second time and your highlights are only from OSU, you know who you are.) I digress, UCONN ended up pummeling UCLA 85-51, who then went on to similarly beat South Carolina 82-59 in the championship.
This was a huge win not only for UCONN, but also for Paige Bueckers, who has overcome so much adversity in her basketball career. Facing multiple injuries involving her [REDACTED], and a devasting loss against Iowa in 2024 when Caitlin Clark inbounded the ball off Paige's back. TL;DR We love women's basketball.
Now, about some of my personal starting 5 in my life, this was one of the first times in months that the group has gotten back together after the heartbreaking separation suffered in June 2024 when I suffered from being 1 school year younger than my friends. But, Christina was turning [OLD] and we had to celebrate so we got some drinks and had a sleepover at her new adult real apartment.
The next day, Susanna and I went to one of my favorite places over there called Coffee Time and I got a cute little pastry and coffee to start the morning. I would have invited Olivia, however, you'll never guess where she had to be that weekend. Spoiler Alert: It was Corvallis.
Susanna and I had a great day running around NW Portland and Washington Square Mall discussing things such as t shirts, deodorant, and the fact that it is not mutually exclusive that men benefit from the patriarchy, and while it is not every man's fault that this is the system that they exist in, to be healed and successful in this system we must find the space to put in the effort to those around us that we love.
Jim Obergefell said that we must find community outside of romantic relationships to survive in a society that will prey on you for feeling lonely. And I think that's why we have an epidemic of podcasters. We want so bad to feel connection and to feel important to people that we have made an archived version of talk radio as a way to dictate how we live our lives.
Remember: while you might be one podcast away from becoming a true influencer, you could be a handful of meaningful relationships away from being the best version of yourself.
Happy birthday, Christina!!
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