Tuesday, January 25, 2022 (Court Day #460)

Work is really stressful. I have two of my staff on vacation, one whose last day was Friday last week, one out with COVID-19, another out sick (not COVID), and another out with a chronic health condition. I have a big advertising deadline (12-page newspaper insert) and projects due in our custom framing department that only I know how to do. Tomorrow won’t be better. I needed to play tonight to forget about the stresses of work. And I was not disappointed.

Tennis Trouble

The crowd was a bit lighter tonight and I found a great parking spot at Skypark at 7:15 p.m. When I walked in, there were two tennis players using the court that also serves as four temporary pickleball courts. There was a slightly heated discussion going on about their use of that court. Mark D. said, “It’s not fair to have 20 people wait while you two continue to play.” One of the tennis players asked about time limits. Mark said, “It’s 30 minutes, it’s posted outside the gate.” This conversation went on for a few more minutes, when I looked again, the tennis players had moved to an open tennis court elsewhere in the complex.

Lights

The flashing strobe-like light was fixed as was the corner light. Finally! One was still out in the other corner and across the complex a tennis court light was still dim. More work to do.

Oldtimer Friend

While I was waiting, there was a familiar face on one of the courts. I hadn’t seen him in probably 10 years. When their game was done, I called, “Jim!” He turned. Yep, Jim Jocelyn. He quickly introduced me to two of his friends and also his wife. I told his male friend, “Jim and I played football together 40 years ago.” (Geez, I did the math in my head—how to feel old!) “High school,” Jim explained. Jim and I weren’t close, but you end up knowing everyone on a sports team. I asked Jim if he was still a minister. “Pastor,” he corrected, “at Twin Lakes Church.” Twin Lakes has the largest protestant congregation in the county and has a big physical complex in south county. He said it was his second time out playing. From the looks of things from the sidelines, he did pretty well for a newbie. Jim played offensive line back in high school and has the advantage of being tall, 6-foot plus.

Games

Dan M. asked me to playing in a game, which was with Paul and Matt. Kristin L. called over asking me to play with them instead. “They asked first,” I explained. “I don’t want to play with a poacher anyway!”, she kidded back. (Ok, so I unsuccessfully poached a few times in my first game that I happened to play with her as my partner last week…)

I noticed tire marks on the courts, it took me less than a second to realize it was from a bucket truck to fix the lights. The faint marks are a small price to pay!

I played a number of games with Dan as my partner against Paul and Matt. Dan is coming along. Still not a match for Paul and Matt, but improving a lot.

Nirvana

Later, Paul and I played a few games against Mike B. and Matt. I wasn’t expecting to win any games, but we did. (I’d say Matt is better than Paul and I suspect most people would pick Mike over me as a tournament partner.) Those games were fabulous. Challenging but not so far out of whack that winning a game wasn’t possible. After learning Mike has been doing tournaments in 4.0, I wanted to make a good impression in case I ever want to partner up with him for a tournament, and I believe I did that. It was fairly balanced, so we just played repeatedly, swapping sides after each game. If I could play games like that the rest of my life, I’d probably die happy.

Shortly after 9 p.m., Mike was fried and done. He’d been playing for hours. It was 9:09 when the four of us walked off the court.

What did I learn?

When you play better players, you have to keep drives low. I have to give credit to Matt. I did a crosscourt dink to my left. It was just high enough that Matt attacked, hitting the ball to my left hip. I was not expecting that and the rally was over. I complimented him, it was a nice shot. (Thinking now, perhaps Paul could have attacked that ball with his forehand, but his reactions would have had to have been very, very quick!)

I do have to wonder how pros handle “chicken wing” shots so well. I was doing my best to analyze why I lost a point and a number were shots either at my right hip, armpit, or thereabouts for a very awkward shot. There were also shots where Mike got me with hard shots hit from the net to my toes while I was at midcourt. I did get Mike with some of my own, though!

Arm

I iced my right arm when I got home, standard fare these days.


Number of days on a court: 460
Number of total hours: 2,213

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