Sometime in the early 2010’s, my kids were getting ready to start summer day camp and they’d need to pack a lunch every day.
Rather than getting lunchboxes that would either get lost or impossibly dirty at camp, my wife bought a box of brown paper lunch bags. Classics.
There were 500 of them. Now, after a dozen years, this is the last of them, dutifully carrying my sandwich and apple for lunch today.
May 7th is a day that holds a couple of key memories for me, sports-wise.
Bartolo Colon’s only career home run cemented his status as a folk hero for the New York Mets and for me as a fully-portioned gentleman athlete. I still get some goosebumps when I watch it.
May 7th was also the date for the one of the greatest comebacks in the history of sport. Liverpool erased a 0-3 deficit in the 2nd leg of the Champions League semi-final to win over Leo Messi’s Barcelona, punctuated by Divock Origi scoring on Trent Alexander-Arnold’s corner taken quickly.
I still watch this a couple of times a year. It gets me every time.
It’s Springtime-y as hell here. There was a frost warning three days ago and it’s going to be 80 this weekend. That was the last of the cold-cold, though, so I took these bonsai bros out from their winter cover and I’m going to set them up in their homes for the season. The azalea needs some partial shade and the fir gets full-blast sunshine. I was able to rely on rain/snow for winter watering, but I’m going to have to get back on my daily check-ins as things warm up.
I’m not even worried that the azalea didn’t bloom. It feels sturdy as hell and the leaves are strong and a great green. Maybe I’ll get a bloom or two? If I do, I’ll def. post them here.
This little fir, which was already trimmed up bonsai-style, got nice and wooly. I’m inclined to give it a year of regular growing and I’ll take a look at some pruning later this year.
We go through bouts of travel a couple of times a year. It’s nice to be other places.
Back soon!
Had occasion to catch the end-of-semester dance show at ODU. I’ve seen a lot of these over the years and they’re almost always a great time. College dance majors are on a different level.
And since we’re in baseball season, we hopped over to the ballpark to see the AAA Norfolk Tides take on the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Railriders. The Tides are apparently loaded, so we didn’t want to miss a game full of future major-leaguers.
It’s always exciting when these bulbs come up. They’re huge.
I’ve been catching an earlier game on Thursdays, instead of playing in the standard 8pm start. It generally gets me home earlier, unless I stick around to watch the 8 o’clock guys play (and then meet them for a beers afterward)
I need to figure out how to translate my indie service game to outside. I was smashing the ball again, and I can’t seem to do the same outdoors.
We lost, which was kind of a bummer, but one of the other players was a 3.5, so I’m not taking it too hard. I fell into some old, dumb habits. I’d like to play a match where most (but certainly not all) of my shots are the “smart” play.
I had some plans fall through so I was a late add into a game with some 3.5 players looking to tune up for our club’s member/guest tournament in a few weeks.
My partner was another 3.0 who I only just met but we had complimentary games so we clobbered our opponents, 6-2, 6-4, and the we played a 10-point set to use the rest of our time and we beat them 10-5.
We played inside and my serve was hot. I need to find a way to transfer my inside serving to outside play. I’d be a real tennis player if I could get that going.
We had a pizza party here at work with Moon Pies, Sunkist, Starbursts, and Capri Suns.
The iPhone-through-eclipse-glasses photo didn’t come out so great.
Broke the seal on the spring USTA season with a reasonably comfortable win, 6-2, 6-3, playing line 2 doubles. I’ve learned a lot about my doubles game over the last couple of years.
I’m good at the net but slow as hell, so if I can partner with someone who has decent ground strokes and can run, I trend toward success. That was the recipe this weekend.
Playing outside this week was also a huge help. There’s a big adjustment from the brightly-lit and windless indoor courts.