Thursday, February 27, 2020 (Court Day #343)

It’s been a very warm week. Sunny and nice. The powers that be in the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club arranged a meeting with the director of Parks & Rec at 9 a.m. this morning to show him how the net set-up process works and also give him an introduction to pickleball.

John P., Leslie, Dave Allenbaugh, and Dave Witte chat while awaiting the arrival of the Parks & Rec Director.

John P. invited a number of us. There were John, Eric, Ted, Rick, Leslie, Barb (formerly of the steering committee), Dave A., Dave W., and me.

While we were waiting, a few of us started warming up. After about ten minutes, Dave A. called to find out when the director was coming and got some bad news from the receptionist, “He needs to reschedule.” Dave was disappointed and a little irked since he had confirmed the meeting in the last couple of days. Dave apologized to everyone, but we obviously knew it wasn’t his fault. We were less upset than he was since we didn’t go through all the work of setting up the event. Our disappointment was greatly dampened by the fact that we could get in some games!

We had some fun games, rotating players. After a few games, I realized that I was fatigued from play yesterday. My thought was to appreciate the pro players who play multiple long days at tournaments!

We played until 10 minute to 11, then Eric asked if anyone wanted to drill. I was the only one to take him up on it. We spent 20 minutes drilling dinks, making it hard on each other with angles and spin (where possible).

Eric was ready to hit the road. 11:10 and we were out.

Later in the afternoon, I noticed that my legs were sore. Wow. That’s unusual.

Sunday, March 8, 2020 (No Play)

So, last Sunday, I took my nephews to San Francisco for an advanced showing of the new Pixar movie “Onward”. So no pickleball for me that day.

“Onward” Co-Producer and event organizer on stage for Q&A after the film.

As the week progressed on, I caught a cold. It wasn’t too bad on Tuesday and Wednesday—I felt it best for me not to play with a sore throat!—but it got worse on Thursday and I stayed home from work. By Thursday night, I had a fever. Friday, I was still in bed. Yesterday (Saturday), I was doing a little better, but still feeling weak and blowing my nose a whole lot. I did get out and go to a funeral in the afternoon but avoided touching anything or anyone the best I could—no handshakes!

Today, the family business is closed (for Sunday) and it’s been a leisurely day. I’m still blowing my nose about every 45 minutes and clearing my throat (lungs) every 10 minutes, but doing much better. Tom Sherwood responded to my callout and took over my Derby site-coordinator duties for today. (Thanks, Tom!)

I finally had time and a prompt to take the online USAPA referee test. I was hoping to get 95%. 90% is passing, and I figured that would be easy. They give you an hour to finish the test but I took about 20 minutes.

Number of days on a court: 343
Number of total hours: 967

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