Friday, August 16, 2019 (Court Day #296)
55th day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.
This week has been depressing for me. With the elbow worse again, I’ve had thoughts popping into my head of giving up pickleball. I don’t want to be stuck playing left-handed forever. It’s a horrible prospect. Even with years of practice playing lefty, I can’t see ever getting as good as my right hand. It’s frustrating.
I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:25. It was overcast, but it’d clear up and be warm later on in the morning.
One of my early games was with Leslie against Cal and a woman. Cal was targeting me versus Leslie. Cal likes to win. I can’t blame him, I like to win too. Leslie commented about it to me. She wasn’t happy that she wasn’t getting many balls to hit to her and that her injured partner playing lefty (me) was getting taken advantage of in her eyes.
Josh and Mike on the nearside in a game before the fog burned off.
Chris Yoder and his wife Jennifer came. They’ve been busy running the San Juan Bautista pickleball program, so they don’t get up to Santa Cruz as often. Matt—the 4.5 player— from Monterey came up too. They were all there for better competition.
While in a game, a ball rolled onto our court. I casually hit a ball back to Karen Long using my right arm—PAIN! Ouch! A definite regression after playing righty in men’s doubles at the Cabrillo Tournament last weekend.
Jennifer asked me, “Are you ready to be over the tennis elbow?” When I said yes, she said she’d give me a name later, which she did. She said a couple of trips to this doctor and Chris’ chronic tennis elbow he’d was cured. She said the two of them refer to him as the “witch doctor”. Dr. Scott Bergman in Walnut Creek. Sounds like voodoo, but I’m just about ready to try anything at this point.
My last game was with Tom M. against Eric (tall, mustache) and Juls. Tom M. and I were leading my quite a bit but Tom started making a series of errors. We ended up barely losing the game. There was three slams in succession by Eric and Juls to me where I was able to dig them out return them. The fourth was finally too much for me. Regardless, Juls commented after the game, “I’d hate to have to play you right-handed.”
Today, was one of those “can’t serve worth a darn” days. I had little control. While I got most in, nearly all of my serves were short or wild. Super frustrating.
I was out and off to get ready for work at 12:15.
Sunday, August 18, 2019 (No Play)
I woke up to a text from Dave Allenbaugh. Asking if I wanted to delay play at Derby today. I could hear the water dripping in the downspout outside my bedroom window. Yes. We delayed an hour. An hour later, we canceled. It misted and drizzled off and on all day. In the end, it was better for me anyway. Last night, I’d discovered that one of the water lines in our garage had sprung a leak inside the wall and was running down the wall and onto the floor behind our washing machine. I had turned off the water last night. I spent the morning dealing with the plumber I had called to deal with the “emergency”—the washing machine cold water line is capped under our house, but at at least everything else is normal in our house now. Maybe I’ll get to play tomorrow morning, depending on staffing.
Monday, August 19, 2019 (No Play)
Another rainout. I guess it was better for me in the long run, it turned out to be a very busy workload for me at work.
Number of days on a court: 296
Number of total hours: 819
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