Thursday, May 11, 2017 (Court Day #24)

My toe, while still not healed, wasn’t causing me to hobble quite so much, in fact, sometimes I’d forget about it—until I’d do something wrong and then I’d unquestionably feel it. After debating all day, I decided to chance it on the courts.

Being that I have access to an asortment of paper-based boards in our picture framing department, I cut a long piece of 1/8″ thick scrap to toe width and sanded the edges as a support. I got home and taped up my toe accordingly. During the evening, it served well, my toe was only painful once briefly. And most of the time, it was quite serviceable.

After all the taping, I arrived at the Scotts Valley courts at about 6:40.

Jerry Louis, when I arrived asked me if I was signed up for his class coming up. I told him yes. He said he was trying to spend time with his students so he could better serve them when the class rolled around. Before we played a game as partners, he warmed me up with some dinking and me doing some drops. At once point, he told me to keep my paddle up. “If you drop your paddle, I’m going to smack you with the ball!” Which he did once! We played as partners after warming up was done.

I was partnered with Stuart for a game later against Jerry and Maria and my really good shots were often followed immediately by miserable shots. I pointed it out to Stuart and he started laughing each time it happened. We lost after I messed up two shots in a row.

I played a game with a woman I didn’t know named Jane against Maria and Kris, then Maria and me against Kris and Cheryl. Each game has its opportunities and challenges.

Erik and I played as partners late against Mark and his wife Maree and we won pretty handily. We switched up for a second game pitting Maree and me against Mark and Erik. Maree and I did our best to mess up and keep them in the game, but still won by a few points for the last game of the night.

It was an ok evening. The company was good, as always, but my playing was up and down in terms of quality. I still need to pick a target for each shot—time permitting. (Quick volleys are tough.)

One thing I am doing now that I think about it is watching the angle of my opponent’s paddle as a clue to better ancicipate and prepare for the ball’s direction. Hey, anything to help, right?

Lost!

As the night closed at 9:10, I couldn’t find my car keys! After some increasingly frantic moments, I found them in the main section of my backpack instead of the smallest outside pocket where I keep them. In a moment of distraction, I missed my target. I won’t do that again!

Hopefully, my toe will continue to heal and I didn’t do much damage, if any, tonight. Sunday? Fingers crossed!

[Note from the next day: Yeah. I think I did stress my toe a bit last night. Not too badly though. I should be able to play on Sunday. I’m going to miss playing next Thursday and next weekend, so I have to squeeze in what I can! I did tweak my right ankle some, it have have happened since I was favoring that foot a bit. Hopefully, it’s not a sign of things to come!]
Number of days on a court: 24
Number of total hours: 70