Rambling woman

I keep wanting to post more pictures of Riley, but a) Too many pictures are overwhelming and b) I'd hate to come across as an obsessed aunt, so my solution is to post one picture a day of her, indefinitely, starting today.


It feels like it's been a long week. I'm tired. The NFL cheerleaders article ended up being a lot harder to write than I expected -- it wasn't really a profile piece, but there wasn't really a story either, so it was hard to organize. I finally finished it this morning.

Tuesday I ran with Kate. We planned to do an eight-miler and I wasn't even sure I could handle that. I hardly ever run more than five unless I'm with her. As we were nearing the end she let it slip that "Vinny claims this route isn't really quite eight" and she decided to run an extra lap around the lake (two more miles) for good measure. I spent the next quarter-mile trying to decide whether I'd regret it more if I did or didn't join her.

In retrospect, I think I would have regretted it either way. I ended up running it with her because I have a lot of stupid pride, but it pretty well knocked me out for the rest of the day. But all in all it was a good run because we had a long time to talk plus I ran into my phenomenal high school coach, Coach Carter.

Yesterday I played tennis with a different woman from the same team and it was a lot more fun than last week. She was pretty good and I played a little better too. We had some marathon rallies, which I love, and she told me where to find courts with a backboard (the ones near Memorial Park on Morganton Road, for any locals who care). Even if I don't join the league maybe she and I can get together once in a while to play.

Let me think, what else ... I don't think I mentioned that Melissa and Thomas finally closed on their house on Friday, an hour before Riley was born! Of course my one closing of the quarter coincided with the birth of my first niece. But it worked out fine and I didn't miss either one. This morning Mel and Thomas found out they're having a BOY!

Matt and Stephen are going to check on some stores in Tennessee today and tomorrow so I'm on my own tonight. If I had to guess I'd say I'll be in bed by 8:30.

Amanda will be here any minute for lunch -- she has a mystery shop at Sonic and I'm joining her -- so the rambling ends here.

Tennis today

My friend Carla who I played tennis with in high school went on to play college tennis, become a tennis pro, get her MBA and open a tennis store here in town. The store happens to be next to Chick-fil-A so sometimes when Melissa and I eat at CFA we walk over afterward to say hi to Carla (we were all on the team together for one year, until Mel graduated). Every time I walk in that store I get sad that I haven't picked up a racquet more than a couple of times in six years.

A while ago I asked Carla to keep me in mind if she heard of anyone close to my age who might want to hit around sometime. There are a lot of tennis players around here but most of them are senior citizens. A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a woman (in her early 30s) who'd gotten my name from Carla after mentioning that she needed another singles player for her team. This afternoon I'm going to meet her and another woman on the team and hit around with them for a couple of hours. I'm afraid of how bad I might be but mostly excited to play!

The league doesn't officially start practicing until January and matches aren't until March, so I'll have time to improve my game if I decide to join the league. I'll have to join the USTA to play on the team, which presents the major potential problem -- their team is a 4.0 team, and if USTA rates me a better or worse player than that, I can't play with them. That is lower than I was rated in high school but I have no idea how far I might have fallen.

Since I haven't played in a USTA tournament since the '90s, I have to rate myself based on a series of questions about my skill level. And I have to join USTA before I can do that, which of course costs money. We'll see how things go. Joining a tennis league is No. 20 on my list, so I hope it all works out. But for today, I'm just looking forward to playing tennis on a gorgeous fall afternoon.

Spiders

This is disgusting. Last night I was working on a query letter for my writing class when Matt said I had to come see this huge spider on our floor. He wanted me to keep tabs on it while he got the spider spray so it wouldn't escape. Right before he pulled the trigger he said, "That sure is a fat spider. I hope it's not ..." Then he sprayed it and out spewed a zillion baby spiders! My stomach is churning just remembering it. Thank goodness they weren't ready to be hatched so they died almost as soon as they popped out (also, they were under spider spray attack). We vacuumed the remains.

That reminded me of when the same thing happened but on a much grosser level. When I was in high school I was in the middle of a tennis match when the girl I was playing accidentally stepped on a hugely pregnant spider and what looked like literally hundreds of baby spiders ran out in all directions. It was really something to see. The matches on both sides of us paused while we all just gawked. Those babies died on their own after a couple of minutes because they weren't ready to be born, but they still covered the court quite impressively.