Note to Self: Take a Break

At the start of this week, I played 6:30 AM pickleball Monday morning-- a healthy and vigorous start to the week-- and then the weather turned balmy . . . what was once known as "Indian Summer," a term with ambiguous origins that the historian Daniel Boorstin believes originates from the "raids on European colonies by Indian war parties that usually ended in autumn”-- but because of the genocide perpetrated on the indigenous tribes of North America by the European settlers, there is no worry of raiding parties taking advantage of warm weather and scalping me and my family, so it's quite safe to play pickleball late at night at Donaldson Park, where the Lenni Lenape once roamed-- so I played Tuesday night with my adult friends (and my wife) and then figured I would rest my knees and ankles, but Wednesday I got a text from my young pickleball friends-- these 23-year-old pharma and med kids who switched from high-level tennis to pickleball, so I went out and played with them for a couple of hours Wednesday night-- I played until 9 PM! . . . which is pretty much midnight for me-- and then the weather got even warmer so I played again Thursday night-- the first time I've ever played pickleball four days in a row, and by the end of Thursday, I pretty much couldn't move-- my ankles hurt, my hips hurt, my knees hurt-- so even though the weather is beautiful today and everyone (including my wife) are down on the courts, I'm drinking some beer and taking it easy, because my game really deteriotates once I can't hustle.