Sunday, May 28, 2017 (Court Day #31)

I got up a little sore. Two Advil and I was off to Derby Park. I arrived about 9:15 with a game underway. I warmed up the Maree and her husband Mark.

I played a few games. The first were hit or miss. No pun intended!

Jerry Louis wanted to get his students to play games against each other so he could continue preparing for his class. Originally, it was going to be Eric, John P., Kim, and me but Maree was very disappointed that Jerry wasn’t aware that she’d signed up for the class too. So Eric stepped out and it was Kim and me against Maree and John P. “to make it even.” But it wasn’t. I played well and Kim and I handily beat Maree and John, leading the whole game and it was never in doubt. Afterward, John told me, “You played well.”

We had some visitors, Jack and Cindy from Saratoga. I’d never seen them before, but Maree was familiar with them. They were both pretty good players, but Jack was the stronger one. Grita—who hasn’t been around for a while—and I played against them. I played very well. Grita remarked, “I was here when you started, you are playing very well.” Jack and Cindy made us work for it, but Grita and I won by about a 2:1 score ratio.

I did get a first today. I had my first successful shot off of my hand! It wasn’t the most pleasant experience, but it works. By the rules, anything below the wrist is a legal hitting surface—that includes any part of your hand. Not that you’d want to, of course!

On Thursday night in Scotts Valley, I had mentioned to Mark Dettle that my daughter Charlotte played pickleball for her middle school physical education class. I asked her this afternoon if she’d be willing to come out and play with me for a day during the summer. She said she would though she only did it during P.E. and so she didn’t feel that she’d be great at it. Still, it’ll be fun to get her out!

Number of days on a court: 31
Number of total hours: 89