Month: June 2018 (Page 4 of 4)

Wednesday, June 6, 2018 (Court Day #155)

John never did manage to arrrange a fourth for a game last night. But far better, Karen Long offered to have John and me come up and play at their house. Her husband Terry is a 5.0 player and Karen is no slouch at 4.5.

I left work about 5 p.m.—amazing considering how bad staffing has been lately—and met John at my house, We carpooled from my house at 5:15.

It took 20 minutes to get to the Longs in Bonny Doon. Nestled back in redwoods, their private pickleball court was beautiful as was their house and yard.

Terry, John and I drilled a bit until Karen arrived shortly after from an appointment. We continued some drills then played a few games for the next hour with the two of them interjecting encouragement and advice. There was one particular point that went on so long—I don’t know, maybe more than 20 hits—that I physically got tired during the point! Nutty! Terry was being nice, passing on obvious winning opportunities for our benefit—instead keeping the game going. Even then, while we did manage to score some points, John and I generally got clobbered. Still, it was an incredibly worthwhile and fun 90 minutes spent there. Terry and Karen are so nice. Wonderful people.

At the end, Terry offered that he observed that I had stronger drives but John was better at dinking. (I think it was because I popped up a few of my dinks—fatal in pickleball!)

We were back on the road at 7:20, back down the hill for home. John is leaving tomorrow morning for wine country. Our doubles event will be starting Sunday morning. John’s wife Diane will be playing in women’s doubles on Friday, John will be doing mixed doubles on Saturday, followed by our partnership the next day.

I’ll be playing in Scotts Valley tomorrow night. It’s nice to be playing some again, even if it’s been private games and drills.

Number of days on a court: 155
Number of total hours: 427

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Monday, June 4: 2018 (Court Day #154)

I arrived at Brommer Park shortly afterr 6:30 p.m. Yesterday, John P. had arranged this game with Eric and Dean. We played a game for about an hour interspersed with drills and short lessons from Dean. They were all things we knew, but needed to hear again since we were not t executing those things: serving deep, returning deep, keeping the ball low. Basics.

My big takeaway was, when dinking, always move back and close up any gap between me and my partner.

Dean left about 7:30. Eric and I drilled for another 30 minutes or so, then the three of us went to Casa Rosita’s for dinner.

The Sonoma Wine Country Games have their men’s doubles on Sunday. I’ve played so little. It’s not good. We have a tentative game planned for tomorrow evening, but John and my opponents are not set. We’ll see who we can arrange.

Number of days on a court: 154
Number of total hours: 425.5

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Thursday, May 31, 2018 (Court Day #153)

It’s a far cry from my schedule a year ago. I had to work a bit late and even skipping dinner and heading right out to Scotts Valley to squeeze in at least some play, I got there just before 8 p.m. It was still light out. There were only two games going and two players—Robin and a woman named Pat—sitting awaiting an opportunity to play. Only 10 people plus me. Slim. “Here. Let’s at least get you warmed up.” Robin and I did some dinking. Soon, one of the games ended—Alan opted to depart right then—and Pat and I were playing a game against Robin and Lauren. Man, it was great to be playing. I played pretty well considering how will I have been able to play in the last month. “Did you hit that with your left hand?” Pat was asking smiling. Lauren had lobbed the ball between us while we were both at the kitchen. I’d switched my paddle to my left hand and jumped up and backward to my left to hit the ball back across the net. It wasn’t winner but kept it from being a winner for them. Pat paid me a compliment, “You are so athletic! You are all over the place!”

The last game was Mark Dettle and me against Oleg and Olga. Oleg played the whole game left-handed. Oleg puts my meager left handed escapades to shame. Mark and I took a massive lead. 9-1, I think. But I made a couple of errors, followed by some Mark errors and we let them tie up the game, then go ahead 10-9. We got a couple of points, 11-10, but ended up losing 13-11. Closely matched.

Play closed out a little after 9 p.m. One measly hour, but it was like a drop of water on the tongue of a man in the desert. Staffing will eventually get better, but it’s pretty miserable. I put in 67.5 hours last week. Only 10 hours at work today, but 11.5 yesterday. Sooner or later, I’ll get to play more. No Sunday pickleball for me this week again. Dave Allenbaugh will take care of Derby for me. Hopefully, I can play next Sunday.

Number of days on a court: 153
Number of total hours: 424

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