Last week on Thursday evening toward the end of basketball practice, June’s coach divided the team into halves and they played a brief scrimmage. “Find your girl!” he yelled, encouraging them to stay near the opposing players they were supposed to be guarding.

I was sitting on a bench with Kerry, Megan’s mom, chatting with her and enjoying the chance to watch the Pandas practice and to relax a little near the end of a busy week. We’d had three inches of snow early Tuesday morning, which led to a snow day that day and two-hour delay on Wednesday. It had been my first normal workday in a few days and I was feeling a little harried, but I was looking forward to Saturday because the Pandas would be playing their first game of the season, and we had other plans as well.

Saturday morning we arrived at the parking lot of the school where the game would be played around 9:40. Mike, the coach, and Maggie, his daughter, fellow Panda (and one of June’s oldest friends) were getting out of their car. “Hooray! It’s June!” Maggie cried. Clearly she was excited about the game, too.

After incarnations as the Purple Pandas (kindergarten), the Red Pandas (first grade), and the Golden Pandas (second grade), June’s basketball team is the Blue Pandas this year. Most of the girls are returning players, though there are two newcomers. We lost our star player from the previous three seasons because she’s playing on a fourth grade team this year with her sister to streamline her family’s hectic schedule. (They have four girls and I think they’re all in organized sports.) It’s possible this girl may have scored half the baskets in all of Panda history, and I suspect this might be a rebuilding season.

It will be different in other ways, too. They’re playing in a middle school gym this year instead of an elementary school gym, which means instead of sitting on the floor or standing, parents watch from the relative luxury of bleachers. Now that they’re in third grade there’s official scorekeeping for the first time and some rules are more strictly enforced (Mike worked hard reviewing the concept of travelling at practice).

One new rule we didn’t know about ahead of time was that the girls can’t wear any jewelry on the court. June’s been wearing a necklace with a tiny dolphin on it for months, maybe as long as a year. She never takes it off. The clasp at the back was completely wound up in hair that had gotten tangled around it and wasn’t even visible. It was starting to remind me of Victorian hair jewelry, but right now it was presenting us with an unexpected problem. Could we get it off before the game started? Beth tried to saw the hair with her keys but it didn’t work. We asked around to see if anyone had a penknife, but the closest we could get was a set of nail clippers. Thanks, Kerry! Finally, Beth got the hair off the clasp and removed the necklace. Meanwhile, two girls with newly pierced ears fretted about whether or not to take out their earrings, which were not supposed to be removed. One girl took hers out and covered the holes with Band Aids to ward off infection and the other girl secured one-time permission to leave hers in her ears.

Once that excitement was over, there was a short practice period. I saw June make a basket, but I missed seeing her get hit on the nose with a ball. I only saw her crying and Mike putting his arm around her shoulder and comforting her. She recovered quickly enough to play in the first quarter.

When it was time to play the teams were lined up and each girl was assigned a player to guard. I was glad to see there was a girl almost as small as June on the other team (the Red Warriors) and that she and June were paired with each other. The Warriors scored almost immediately and Beth predicted, “They’re going to lose.” I thought it was a little soon to say and sure enough the Pandas scored two or three times before the Warriors scored again. At the end of the first quarter the score was 6-6. June’s counterpart was fast and a good passer and Mike had to remind June, “Find your girl” a few times until June started sticking closer to her.

June sat out the second quarter and played again in the third. She said later she liked this arrangement, getting to play and then rest and then play and then rest. The Pandas didn’t score after the first quarter and lost the game 12-6, but it felt closer than that. There were a lot of baskets that teetered on the rim and ended up falling the wrong way. I didn’t see quite as well thought out and strategic passing as the Pandas had last year, and as Mike pointed out at the next practice they weren’t hustling for the rebounds, but it’s early in the season. They play until early March this year, so there will be plenty of time for them to gel as a team. I am looking forward to watching that.

After the game June was hungry and wanted an early lunch at California Tortilla. It’s in the same shopping center with a Starbucks and a Trader Joe’s and we needed to pick up some mac and cheese anyway, so we headed over there and got quesadillas and coffee— I tried the new Flat White, which is kind of between a cappuccino and a latte in terms of foam—and more than $50 worth of groceries because that’s what happens when you go into Trader Joe’s for mac and cheese, or it’s what happens to us anyway.

Back at home, I helped Noah study for his science and English midterms for a couple hours and then Beth and June and I went to the community center to hear a storytelling presentation. One of the storytellers was Noa Baum, whose CD (Far Away and Close to Home) Noah loved when he was younger and June loves now. In fact, when we invited Noah to come, too, he wavered and almost decided to come, too, before opting to stay home and practice his bells and drums. I think he would have enjoyed it because in addition to an Anansi story I hadn’t heard before (Noah used to be a big Anansi fan), she also told both kids’ favorite story from the CD, about a clever turkey who defeats the rich man who steals a gold piece from him. June, who had been listening intently all along, lit up when she started in on that one.

We came home and had a quick dinner. I reheated leftovers for Beth and myself while Noah made the mac and cheese for June and himself because Beth and I were going to a movie, which we don’t do nearly enough, especially considering we don’t even need a to get a sitter anymore. But it was the day before our wedding anniversary, so that spurred us to go on a date.

We went to see The Imitation Game on my mother’s recommendation. Toward the beginning of the film, during the first boarding school flashback, Beth’s phone vibrated and she went out into the lobby to answer it. I could hear her saying, “What’s up, Noah?” as she went through the doors. She was gone a good ten minutes, which was confusing, because I thought if it was an emergency she would have run back in for her coat and we would have been out of there, but if it wasn’t an emergency I thought she’d tell him it could wait.

When she finally came back, I whispered, “Was it an emergency?”

“A minor emergency,” she whispered back. June had a splinter in her foot and Beth had been trying to calm her down and then talking Noah through the removal process. It was the first time he’s ever taken a splinter out of someone else and he did a good job staying calm, but then again calm is his default setting (not unlike Alan Turing, though it seems unlikely Noah will break a code and help win a war).

I tried to remember the parts Beth had missed and to fill her in as they became relevant later in the film, which was very well acted and moving, I thought. Even with the small crisis at home, it was a fun evening.

The next day was our actual anniversary. We exchanged practical gifts. I got Beth a new case for her phone, because she needed one and she got me swim goggles and an umbrella, because I needed those. In the afternoon I made a cake, the same cake we had at both our commitment ceremony twenty-three years ago and our wedding two years ago. In her card I wrote, “Thank you for making my middle age much less terrible,” because we’d recently discussed this article from the Post.

It was another hectic week. Two more two-hour delays (one for ice, upcounty I guess—I didn’t see any here, and another one for a dusting of snow) cut into my workdays. I was so hurried getting dinner ready before June’s violin lesson on Monday afternoon that I didn’t answer the phone call that would have told me it was cancelled and we waited at the bus stop in a cold rain to go to the music school and only to turn around and go straight back home. Wednesday I had a book club meeting and I couldn’t get the book read in time, which was frustrating.

Still even with these irritants, I know my week, my middle age, and my life is a lot less terrible than it would have been if I hadn’t found my girl.