We finally dropped a White Division match-- after seven wins-- but I couldn't be more proud of my team; we traveled to the super-fancy private school Wardlaw Hartridge, a team that we edged out last match 3-2 because Ian beat their superb first singles player, but Wardlaw have been hot of late and they were confident at the start of the match and all of our players except second doubles went down a set and I thought we would have an early exit and a quick and painless loss-- but we had some fight in us; I was especially proud of Ian, who battled back and won the second set in a tiebreaker; then first doubles won the second set and third singles followed and we were in a match-- it was tied 1-1 with the other three matches in the third set; Ian and his kid played an amazing match to the death, really fantastic tennis-- they were whipping two-handed backhands back and forth and getting to everything, and though Ian lost there was no shame in it; then our doubles team lost, ending the streak, but Ethan came through at third singles to make the score a respectable 3-2 loss . . . and so we reload for next week, which will be wacky because of stupid AP tests, and we'll see if we can start a new winning streak (and, though we are the smallest school in the White by far, we are still atop the division).
After our marathon tennis match in the freezing wind and cold yesterday . . . and after driving a couple kids home, trying to get some food at Coco-- which was closed-- we ended up getting burritos at Crazy Burrito in Edison, a little authentic Mexican place, and I got a chorizo burrito and the kids got barbacoa-- and when we got home, at 8 PM-- so five hours from when we left the high school parking lot-- Alex and I noticed that Ian's styrofoam burrito contained had the word "goat" written on it, but rather than tell him he was eating goat (and facing the possibility that he wouldn't want to eat it, though he was cold and hungry) we kept the information to ourselves, and he wolfed down the goat without pause (I told him today and he didn't seem concerned and then we checked the menu and apparently Alex ate goat as well).
Away match today at JFK High School in Iselin and things did not start well--our line-up was something of a mess, with a couple kids at a math competition and a couple kids just in from Georgia (DECA trip) and then our van driver took a wrong turn . . . onto the Garden State Parkway and we took a detour over the Driscoll Bridge-- but we made it on time and it was cold and very very windy and we had to get started right away and-- aside from second doubles-- we went down in all our matches; soon enough, second doubles won handily and first doubles looked to be doing well (but Boyang was very tired from the trip) but our singles players were struggling; Ethan was down a set, Ian was playing great but faced the best player in the White Division-- he was 12 - 0-- and Alex was nursing a strained hamstring and struggling; he ended up losing the first set, but then winning the second set in a tiebreaker; the same thing happened to Ethan the freshman at third singles-- then our first doubles team collapsed and lost, and there seemed to be some cheating from the opposition so the coaches had to watch-- and Alex gutted it out-- once again-- and he clobbered his kid in the third set (he basically got the kid to give up) and the match was tied 2-2 and it all came down to Ethan in a third set tiebreaker and it went back and forth back and forth in the gusty wind, past the seven point mark, to 8 - 8 and then Ethan won apoint, and-- ahead by one and pumped up beyond belief, instead of hitting his usual dinky spin serve, he tossed the ball ahead of him with a long left arm and clobbered it, and his opponent was able to get a bit of racket on it but no strings and it whipped by him into the fence . . . and there was much rejoicing (and we are 7 - 0 in our division and only have one loss on the books, to a superteam that we though we were scrimmaging but apparently the match does count, but we've got another brutal match on Friday and Alex will most likely be out with a strained hamstring).
Tuesday is my least favorite day of the week-- no fresh Monday energy and no end to the week in sight-- but I survived today's Tuesday without major mishap: while I did slightly screw up my Richard III/War of the Roses chart that I drew on the board (I mistakenly put a line indicating betrothal from Anne Neville, Warwick's daughter, to Henry VI instead of his son Edward . . . shame on me!) this was balanced out by the fact that my van healed itself, and the three check engine lights that were on magically turned themselves off this morning.
Goliath is the weirdest, most surreal legal drama I've ever seen-- the first season seemed like it was going to be in the vicinity of Better Call Saul but each season gets more and more obtuse, philosophical, and abstract . . . my whole family loves it, for no good reason other than it's weird and Billy Bob is a lot of fun to watch, but I wonder what an actual lawyer would make of it.
Yesterday, I went biking and rollerblading while my wife went to the gym, then we strolled around Duke Farms and stopped at Flounder Brewing for some beer-- meanwhile, both boys were working for the county, some kind of youth trail-maintenance job-- then today I went to the gym, strolled around with the dog, etc. while Ian worked for a lady in town, smoothing out a stone driveway, and then both boys put on their zebra-stripes and went to referee flag football . . . it's a little disconcerting, it almost feels like early retirement.
I worked a full day today, and I mean a full day-- not one minute off-- I covered a class and had a duty and finished Henry IV and started Hamlet . . . and then I raced home to prepare for what I believed was going to be a disastrous tennis match-- we were playing Edison, a huge school with a decent tennis program, and we were missing three starters-- Boyang and Jakob were on the DECA trip and Sapir was still in Italy-- but, as we know from Henry V:
"The fewer men, the greater share of honor"
and so our very depleted team took to the courts at Johnson Park and quickly fell behind; Ian was playing an athletic pusher at first singles and he couldn't figure him out; Alex was playing a hard-hitting second singles player who was nailing every shot; Ethan the freshman was playing an experienced senior at third singles; then our first doubles lost the first set in a tie-breaker, Alex got slaughtered in the first set; Ian was having a terrible time; Ethan was down but our wacky second doubles team came through and won a set; Alex decided he could run his kid to death-- not a fun way to play but a possibility-- Ethan battled back, and our first doubles won the second set . . . and then pretty much everything went our way (although it wasn't Ian's day, he couldn't figure out how to beat his kid) but everyone else battled back and won, so we managed a 4-1 victory in a match I thought was a throwaway loss, and it was all gutsy pressure-filled come-from-behind wins . . . really awesome, and after Alex won the second set in a tiebreaker and then-- with a strained hamstring-- basically ran his kid until he couldn't run any more-- he finished up, victorious, and his girlfriend Izzy did a little proposal poster with tennis puns on it (and some cupcakes that looked liked tennis balls) and it was an epic and excellent Friday afternoon, and-- in David vs. Goliath fashion-- a great win over a Group IV school . . . so we're now 6 - 0 and hanging on for dear life until everyone gets back from their various trips.
There's a fun thread on Reddit called "Am I the Asshole?" and if I get motivated, I'll put this situation on there:
this morning a teacher came into my room and said, "Did you cover my class yesterday?"
I confirmed this and he said, "Did you take them for a walk?"
I also confirmed this and he got quite upset and said that now the kids had an excuse for not finishing their work and told me "not to do that again" and I kind of laughed him off, told him we went for a five-minute walk to get some fresh air (during an 82 minute period) and that the kids weren't doing the packet he left for them anyway-- I knew some of the kids in the class and they told me that the teacher was putting up the answer key at 3 PM and the stuff was just for them to study (or not, and they were choosing not) and he said that a kid emailed and said that they went for a walk and didn't have time to finish and I advised the teacher to tell that kid to screw off, as the five minute walk certainly didn't impede anyone from finishing their work but none of this seemed to make sense to him (and I believe we're encouraged to give the kids a short break in the block schedule because classes are insanely long) and while I did not take this teacher or his concerns and demands seriously, perhaps I am the asshole.
Tochi Onyebuchi's sci-fi novel Goliath is dense, myriad, multidimensional, Biblical, and socially relevant; it is written as a sequence of vignettes, interspersed with articles and journals and first person accounts-- it's not easy reading and I wish the font was bigger but it tackles a dystopian ecologically devastated earth from the perspective of minorities in a way I've never read before, so while it certainly wasn't as fun as The Expanse novels, it's a more profound look at what's going to happen to those left behind.
Chilly match this morning in South Plainfield but I had the bright idea of moving the start time from 9 AM to 10 AM-- which didn't help a bit-- but we managed another 3-2 win . . . I don't think there are going to be any easy matches this season in the White Division; Alex struggled with my racket (he cracked his last week) but Ian had a nice win at first singles, though his leg started bothering him at the very end of the match; they only had four courts and we won three of the four so second doubles played tiebreaker sets (10 points) and though our guys lost, I think in a real match they would have won, so that bodes well for next time . . . anyway, we remain undefeated, though we have a pending loss when we finish the Metuchen match where Ian was hurt, but DECA is looming.
My core is still sore from the yoga class yesterday-- so I'm doing lots of TV . . . as it is the last days of my Spring Break; Cat and I are binging Mare of Easttown-- I shouldn't complain about a sore core after watching that show, so many tragedies and Kate Winslet is so good at portraying them; we are watching the trippy third season of Goliath as a family; I am watching old Atlanta episodes with Ian, and I watched the new Atlanta episode with Alex.
This morning, when Lola and I arrived home from our morning constitutional, I had forgotten that we left through the back and so the front door was still locked; normally I don't realize this error until I've undone her leash and I say "backyard!" and she runs around the house to the backyard, but this morning, when she heard me pull the front door and it didn't open, she ran around to the backyard before I even told her to-- pretty clever for someone who can't discern her reflection from another dog-- and I was pretty smart this morning, too-- I went to an hour yoga/pilates class with my wife and I learned that not only do I need to get more flexible but also that my core ain't up to snuff either (and I also learned that when you spend two hours at the gym and then get lost going to the bagel place afterward, that though you think you can eat an everything bagel with cream cheese and a biali and egg sandwich, that's really not possible).
Overserved myself last night-- we began pub night at the Beamsdorfer, looking at some oil paintings of the Raritan done by Sleepy Dan's friend when she stayed at his house for a month-- and there were drinks and wine and appetizers, and there was a free keg for all the friends of Erik P. at Pino's but, unfortunately, the beer was some kind of delicious super-strong Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale (8.2%) and it did me in (but not before we did a bunch of one-legged balancing tricks, to the chagrin of the bartenders-- old people shouldn't get that wound up.
My son Ian had the match of his life Tuesday, got hurt Wednesday, and got to sit out and watch his brother play first singles Thursday . . . and when his brother got slaughtered by a very nice excellent player, Ian got to say: " you see what I have to deal with at first singles?"
Despite a wacky line-up, we cruised to an easy 4-1 victory over Spotswood, and we remain undefeated-- Boyang had to play doubles because of his gimpy leg and Ian had to bow out of a great first singles match because he pulled something behind his calf; he had battled back against an excellent player, using the moonball as a frustrating tactic, and was ahead in the tiebreaker when he pulled the muscle . . . it's a long season and we had the match wrapped up, so he wisely stopped playing-- last season, Ian beat this kid twice, but both were close matches and ended with the Spotswood kid bowing out due to injury-- and we're supposed to have another match tomorrow and we are banged up and missing players-- so I am doing the rain dance and hoping for an Easter resurrection of all my players.
Holy cow . . . no one told me about the insane scheduling that's involved with tennis-- tennis players are involved with EVERYTHING . . . DECA trips and concert choir and robotics and orchestra and Environmental Club and internships-- we're piecing a team together each and every match (until after this weird separated Spring Breaks . . . when all the schools have different Spring Breaks, then no one has a Spring Break) but we salvaged a big win today over rival Wardlaw-Hartridge (who beat us twice last year) and both our doubles teams won (and Sapir and Michael won quickly enough that Sapir could make his orthodontist appointment! a great moment in sports) and Boyang cramped up again but I used this fact to motivate our second doubles team-- I told them they had to win quickly because that would cement our victory and we could pull Boyang off the court-- and they did it!-- and Ian played the match of his life at first singles and beat an excellent player 6-3, 6-4 . . . the highest rated player he's ever beaten and so now we are 2-0 but we've got a long couple weeks ahead of us and we're never going to be at full strength (and I think Boyang is going to have to play doubles tomorrow because of his leg).
I am on Spring Break this week, but my wife and kids have school (they don't have Spring Break until next week) and we still have tennis practice and matches, so I can't do anything major; once everyone clears out, it's just me and the dog at home during the day-- I took her to the dog park in the morning and chatted with the morning dog park crowd, then I went to the gym, and then I screwed around, did the Quordle and the Wordle and all that, did the dishes and the laundry, recorded some music, took a nap, but then I had to run tennis practice because our match got canceled (but we have three more matches this week) and so I watched a bunch of tennis videos to prepare for that (we played some really fun mini-games) and now I'm back home, enjoying a beer and cooking dinner, with very little stress because I don't have work tomorrow but it is odd to be the only one in the house-- besides the dog-- that isn't worried about work (and I did have some added stress when I listened to Joe Rogan interviewing David Mamet . . . while I love Glengarry Glenross, that guy is very angry for a well-to-do old man).
It's more fun to pilfer one rock at a time from the park, then it is to wheelbarrow a bunch of free rocks in a pile by the public works building all the way back up the hill to my house.
When Donald Glover's brainchild Atlanta isn't being totally weird (like the recent Black Mirror reparations episode) it reminds me of Seinfeld:
Darius is, of course, Kramer-- and the episode about the Steve McQueen poster where Earn trades his cell phone at a pawn shop and enters the world of Darius and the dogs is a perfect example of this;
Earn is George-- poor, jobless, a mess with women, looking for purpose, and angry at the systems of the world;
Alfred (Paper Boi) is Jerry, the straight-man performer who usually has the most common sense of the bunch;
Van is Elaine-- a tough candid beautiful broad with an entangled past with one of the main characters, but no solid relationship with any of them and her own aspirations;
it's one of my all-time favorite shows, up there with Curb and Seinfeld and The Wire and The Shield, just awesome . . . don't miss it.
The rainy weather finally broke today, allowing us to play our match against Edison Academy-- a nerdy math magnet school with a lot of tennis players-- and things started chaotically and just kept getting messier; I was driving over with my son Ian when my older son Alex texted-- the one bus that Highland Park runs did not show up, and this is the bus that takes kids to the townhouse complex near the courts, so I turned around and picked up Alex and his buddy Boyang . . . so now I was driving first, second and third singles to the match, but Boyang didn't have his racket, so I dropped him off and headed to the courts-- because the other team was already there; the plan was that I would unload the equipment and then Alex would take the car and go back and pick-up Boyang; we arrived and Edison Academy was there in full force and we only had a couple of players present; I knew we were missing our second doubles team (Jewish Holiday) so we were already short players to begin with, but then I couldn't find Jakob or Ethan; soon enough, however, I was directed to where Ethan was splayed out on a bench-- he had crashed on his pennyboard (a little fast skateborad) and had some serious road rash on his shoulder, knee, and hand . . . Alex just got back with the van and Boyang, so I ran and got the First Aid kit and cleaned him up and patched him up as best as I could, but he was in no condition to play; Jakob did arrive, but he had to ride his bike through the park, which was totally flooded-- so he was biking through two feet of water-- and, a true Highland Park athletics story, we now had to replace Ethan with Theo, a novice at tennis and a freshman who had never played a real set of tennis in his life . . . and then I learned from the coach that this was just a scrimmage as they hadn't officially joined the GMC, which was a relief, so while we got beat in every position, it was competitive all around-- Ian was having a great match but had to bow out because of an ankle injury and Alex and Boyang squandered leads to excellent players, and first doubles took a set before losing and Theo and Isaac held their own; anyway, it's Friday and I'm now officially on Spring Break (even though we have four tennis matches in a row next week) and will get to spend some quality time with the dog while my kids and wife are at school.
As many of you know, I am generally an advocate of the Golden Rule of Food Hygiene:
Never leave perishable food out for more than 2 hours
but today after school, I broke the rule . . . once again, Ian forgot to eat the hardboiled egg that my wife made (and peeled) for him this morning and I hadn't eaten lunch, so when I saw it on the counter I grabbed it and inhaled it (so quickly that I got the hiccups) and while I did some research and you should NOT eat peeled boiled eggs that are left out in the danger zone (between 40°F and 140°F) but so far so good, I'm writing this sentence, I'm not in intestinal distress, and I will probably follow the rules in the future.
We met some friends at Flounder Brewing Company in Hillsborough yesterday, and the beer was great (especially the Fred IPA, the Brown Ale, and the Black Emerald) and the atmosphere was even better-- the tasting room is rustic, all wood and big rough-hewn beams, and there are several nice patios and dogs are allowed-- eventually, a bluegrass-style band started playing and it was hard to tell you were in central Jersey (unless you listened to the conversation) and then, once we had sampled the beers, we wandered ten yards over to Bellemara Distillery and the drinks they made from their single malt gin and single malt "spirit" were, incomprehensibly, even better than the beer next door . . . I had a Herbaceous, which had Thai Basil, Star Anise, Lime, Jalapeño, Lemongrass Syrup, and their single malt gin-- yikes it was good-- so we will be returning to this little complex on the way to the Sourlands, it's scenic, only twenty-five minutes from Highland Park, and feels like a little vacation.
Stacey drove me to the library today during school so I didn't have to give up my pole-position parking spot (I need to exit the school in a hurry because I coach tennis in my hometown) and then we stopped at Wawa and I bought her a well-deserved coffee . . . but she also insisted that I buy a jumbo-sized bag of Sour Patch Kids for the English Office, which I did . . . and I ate a bunch of them and realized that though they are delicious, there's no difference in flavor between the different colors-- and we verified this with a Cunningham blind taste test-- and my pole-position spot worked and I got out of the school in a hurry and made it on time for the van-ride to the match in Edison and wow was it cold and then it rained and then it dried and we got started and then it rained again and we got postponed.