Today, in the last match of the EBRC Winter A-League, I played Chinmoy for third place-- we were both 7-4, I think, and folks were excited to see us play because we are both known for getting everything back-- but Chinmoy is more of a classic pusher/moonballer while this week, I've been teaching the high school players how to beat that kind of player, so I've been practicing along with them-- basically, you need to abandon your normal game plan-- if the moonballer hits you a moonball, hit a moonball back and sneak up to the net-- you'll most likely get an overhead or a swinging volley-- and in general, you need to hit the ball deep and up-the-middle with heavy topspin and be very patient, then when you get a shallow ball, you can slice a short shot to the backhand side and rush to the net; Chinmoy also has a directional flat serve that he can hit to your backhand or off the side on the deuce serve, but as long as you poke it back fairly deep, he's not going to kill the next shot; so I used all the strategies and I beat him twelve games to two . . . I've never run to the net so much in a match, never hit so many overheads and swinging volleys, and I definitely ended up in no man's land once in a while, but it really disrupted his game-- he wants to hit it back and forth forever and then maybe hit a weird spin shot but I made the point go fast when I could, and I hit the ball deep with topspin when I couldn't waited to throw him off balance and get to the net, so I was very happy with my mental game (and my leg is not 100% yet but it held up) meanwhile in the championship match on the court next to us, Rey and Dhiraj were in a battle that went to a tiebreaker, then there was a disputed call and they almost came to blows and there was some chest-bumping and lots of cursing -- and while Dhiraj won the match, they both lost their minds-- you have to remember tennis is a cooperative sport, even though you are competing against the person you are playing, and you need to remember the big picture (no one wants to play with a lunatic).
Two Things I learned Today from Podcasts
Two things I learned today:
1) Freakonomics taught me that we all need to stop tik-tokking and playing video games and start hunting white-tailed deer because white-tailed deer cause between one and two million vehicle collisions per year . . . or we need to embrace wolves, which do a decent job of culling the population and patrolling near roads, which make deer retreat (and wolves don't seem to get hit by cars very often)
2) Lydia Davis, on Conversations with Tyler, taught me that the English language is wonderful in its variety because you can use straightforward and visual Anglo-Saxon words like "underground" or you can utilize the Latinate counterpart, such as "subterranean"-- depending on if you want to sound more abstract and intellectual, or more blunt and muscular.
Right According to Plan
So things are preceding as expected:
1) Ian beat Alex in the three-set challenge match to determine first and second singles on the tennis team;
2) Boyang beat Raam so we have the same top three singles players as last year-- so now we can get down to hashing out the doubles teams;
3) I got in hot water when my wife was chastising the children for not checking their email and signing up for some job-training meeting because I inadvertently called my wife an idiot . . . I was trying to make the point that efficient people check their email once a day-- but they really check it that one time and reply back to whoever needs replying to and deal with whatever issues are there-- and then they don't check again until the next day, but I somehow said, "those people are idiots who check their email all day long" and my wife said, "I'm one of those people" and I tried to pontificate some but I just came off mean and judgy . . . so I just need to keep my mouth shut after tennis because I'm dumb and tired (and I had just gotten off a phone conference with a senior girl's parent-- a senior having a conference!-- and I was fairly mean to the day because he wanted his daughter to get credit for some very old assignments and he wanted me to give her another opportunity if she didn't do well on the upcoming paper and I told him she was an adult, you couldn't force her to do things, and the paper was being evaluated on the Rutgers rubric and it would be graded once, calibrated with Rutgers, and that would be the grade . . . so I was in a bad mood).
Tennis vs Soccer
I have coached soccer my entire adult life and can organize and arrange a practice for four to forty people in my sleep, but I am finding tennis to be a different animal entirely-- practice is much more chaotic and disorganized: there are challenge matches going on, and they end at various times; there are drills and fun games; there are balls EVERYWHERE; there's a court for our absolute beginners, who are just working on hitting the ball; plus, I try to work with some kids individually on particular shots . . . and there's no culminating scrimmage to end things-- practice start out organized but slowly fall apart as different matches and drills end at different times, so then you can end practice with whacky large group games like "around the world" and "lob doubles touch the net or fence" challenge and maybe some fitness . . . I really like coaching tennis so far, but I'm learning to go with the flow a bit and I can't wait for our first scrimmage to see the kids in action.
Suspicion Confirmed
As I was leaving the dog park this afternoon, I walked past three witches-- or at least I assumed they were spellcasters of some sort . . . they were wearing all black, had on Goth outfits, and they had the aura about them-- and one was carrying an odd black wooden box, and carrying it in a significant formal manner-- and since they were smiling at Lola (she has that effect on people, even witches) I asked what was in the box and the box-carrying witch replied, "ritual gear!"
Tennis and Scooping
Weird tennis match this morning-- I hurt my quad last week playing soccer, so I promised myself I wouldn't run too hard at tennis this morning because I need to stay healthy for coaching tennis, and I played a good player this morning, Jonathan, a skilled and fit Asian guy in his thirties who has played a lot of tennis and I was hoping he'd kill me so I wouldn't get competitive and hurt my leg, but in between killer shots, he made some unforced errors and near the end, I was ahead 7-6 but he tied it at 7-7 and we had to play a tiebreaker-- and my leg was really starting to get tender, but I went ahead 3-0 in the tiebreaker, only to finally lose in the end 7-5 . . . and the whole time I was trying not to run down drop shots or get into long rallies and I'm just glad I survived without injury-- though I really could have beaten him if I was at full strength . . . and then I got bagels for my family and my wife gave me a very complicated order involving a "scooped out" bagel, a term which I never heard but seems to be something they are familiar with at the bagel shop.
Ring Out the Bells
Let it be known that Dave put in a full work week-- five full school days, four tennis practices (one canceled because of rain), the filling out of the brackets, the watching of the busting of the brackets, and several coverages (including a reverse schedule Friday double coverage, complete with car relocation).
I Am Sleepy
Tragic double overtime Rutgers loss to Notre Dame last night . . . and the lateness of the game made it so much worse; Alex and I stayed up and watched the entire nightmare and we knew Rutgers was in trouble when the game went past midnight and into St. Patrick's Day-- you don't want to play The Fighting Irish on St Patrick's Day-- it seemed like Rutgers hit the game winning shot four or five times-- Geo Baker, Ron Harper hit two insane three pointers, including a bank shot, Caleb McConnell hit a clutch shot, and Paul Mulcahey . . . but Notre Dame answered every time, ending a great era of Rutgers basketball . . . but at least it ended with an epic game.
Where Do memories Go When You Can't Recall Them?
Ian didn't have the best day at tennis practice today-- perhaps because he had a dentist appointment at 7:00 AM to have a cavity filled and then ate a spicy chicken sandwich from the new spicy chicken sandwich place right before practice-- but otherwise, things went well . . . although I'd like to remember the secrets I learned when I read Timothy Gallwey's classic The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Performance to pass these along to the team . . . but I don't.
It's All Happening in Dave's Brain
Things are pretty wild right now in my consciousness-- there's Semantle and Wordle and Globle and Worldle, plus transferring my Henry IV plans from analog to digital and learning to coach varsity tennis (and a bunch of healthy eating because my wife spoke to s nutritionist) and Ian starting to prepare for college applications and Alex is figuring out his Rutgers stuff . . . I keep thinking next year will be the one where it's easier, where everything is figured out . . . but I'm not so sure that's ever going to happen.
I Blame the Time Shift
My knee hurt last night, probably a combination of my tennis match and all the weather changes, so when I woke up this morning, I figured I would just go to the gym instead of playing indoor soccer-- but then I looked at the stupid clock and it was almost time for indoor soccer-- because of the stupid time change-- and my knee didn't hurt so I figured I'd get one more session in before I was too worn out from tennis practice so I went and I played great in the first few games-- two-game winning goals and a key assist, so our team got a really long run (eight-minute games, winner stays on) and then after playing for about an hour, just after I tried to banana bend a right-footed cross, I sprinted out towards a ball and tweaked that same quad-- my right quad-- that I hurt last tennis season . . . but this time, I stopped right when I felt it-- and I don't think it's too bad so I'm not behaving as poorly as I did last winter . . . I took some naproxen, iced it down, and I'm going to take it very easy at tennis practice all week; while I am trying to stay in good spirits about this minor setback, I am also angry at the state government for stealing an hour of my sleep and screwing up my life-- and for this, I will never forgive them (perhaps I need to move to Indiana, where the time shift does not exist).
Another Saturday, Another Tennis Match Against Barry
The Saturday morning tennis schedule has gotten weird-- people are injured or have dropped out, so I played Barry again this morning-- and while I was always ahead handily and beat him 8 - 4, he's a tough old sonofabitch-- he's 66!-- and he was hitting his serve well and some weird angle shots that had me running back and forth-- but I actually hit a few aces; I got to the net and never missed an overhead; and while my cut backhand is still erratic, I was hitting my two-hander deep with some topspin-- I was working on just turning my back to start the stroke . . . I was struggling a little with his serve, I kept hitting floaters back-- and at the start, I hit a few shots without enough spin, so they floated out on me-- I've got to be confident with my follow-through . . . but I definitely got a confidence boost from my first day of coaching, I'm mired in tennis drills and practice plans, etcetera and it can only help my game (perhaps).
An Old Dog Learns New Tricks
A week-and-a-half ago I turned 52 and I was ready to turn it in and retire . . . but apparently that's not in the cards yet as my stupid kids are just smart enough to go to college, so it looks like I've got to carry on and learn some new shit-- today I coached my first varsity practice; it went fairly well, with some help from my older son Alex (he is a captain along with his buddy Boyang) but I will say it's a bit different than soccer-- there's a lot of equipment: hoppers and balls and such-- and there's a lot going on, multiple courts, multiple drills, multiple skills . . . today we worked on our forehands and did some serving and then played a fun game called Swarm and finished with some fitness; I also learned that tossing a football with players is a great way to analyze their serving form (check out the video).
Work: A Place Where They Enjoy Dave
When you take a little mid-week vacation, at home no one really misses you-- Catherine and Ian were mired in mid-week dilemmas and chores and didn't really want to hear about the fun (but disastrous on the weather side) trip Alex and I took . . . I just had to jump back into the routine-- cook, do the dishes, monitor homework and SAT prep, do laundry, help kids with their job interviews, etc-- but I will say when I returned to school this morning it was the opposite: Cunningham and Powers said there was no joy at school while I was gone and my students complained about how boring it was without me . . . so that Harold Kushner quip about how “No one ever said on their deathbed 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office.' ” might be dead wrong.
In Like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion?
Alex and I decided to take a last snowboarding trip up to Belleayre to celebrate his acceptance to college (Rutgers Engineering) and when we left NJ on Monday at 4 PM it was 76 and balmy, we drove through major rain on the Thruway, then when we got to Big Indian it was 56 and very very windy-- like trees being blown onto the highway windy-- then there was massive rain on our way back from Brio's in Phoenicia, the next morning there was some snow and the mountain was a sheet of ice-- we skied down, went up the gondola, traversed a windy icy ridge and skittered down a slick icy trail and then promptly got a refund-- the conditions were too crazy-- but when we drove the ten miles to Phoenicia, it was beautiful, so we did a hike that overlooked the town-- and it looked really familiar because it WAS . . . and we realized that things had really come full circle, as we were doing the same hike in Phoenicia that we did way back in the fall of 2014-- when Alex was 10 and Ian was 9 and now he's 18 and going to college-- and then we went (returned) to the Phoenicia Diner (amazing) after doing the hike . . . and we were warm on the hike because it was 38 and sunny-- and then we took a nap and did another hike, as it was crisp and sunny like a fall day-- and then we watched Fargo that night-- Alex is really into watching good movies now and has this Letterbox app which he chats endlessly about-- he's also got Boyhood on his list, but I told him to wait until the school year was over and watch it with Cat and me-- and then the next morning we endured even more weather-- snow in the morning, enough ice on the mountain that we stopped after an hour and got another refund-- so we've got a lot of credit for our return to Belleayre-- and then snow, sleet and freezing rain all the way home . . . so basically in two days we experienced an entire year's worth of precipitation and temperature-- but we had enough good food and conversation and nostalgia and hiking (and about two hours total of snowboarding) that made the trip worthwhile, but next year we better get to ski on some fresh powder (or I might get as angry as Hitler does in this brilliant skit . . . but a skit only for skiers).
Duh
It's surprising that it took this long to figure out that most people don't want to spend 70+ hours playing Elden Ring . . . all they want to do is play phone games that take thirty seconds: Wordle, Globle, Worldle, the NYT Mini, Heardle, Nerdle, Lewdle, etc.
The Great Unmasking . . . Not? Sort Of . . .
Today was The Great Unmasking in my school, but it started slowly and gathered speed as the day went on-- in my first period class, seven of the twenty-two students did NOT wear masks; in my sophomore homeroom, only three of 23 kids were not wearing masks; in Shakespeare class it was more like fifty-fifty . . . and one senior girl who said her mom really wanted her to remain masked took a look around the room, whipped off her mask and put it in her bag, and smirked the rest of the period; and by the last period, probably 75% of my seniors were not wearing masks . . . the vast majority of the teachers were unmasked-- I think-- but other than that it was fairly tame, no children making out in the hallways or other mayhem . . . but it was really wonderful to not worry about pretending to wear a loose, useless, ill-fitting, cloth mask.
Triple Epic Ending
I finished three epics this weekend:
1) I made it to the end of Anthony Doerr's 600 page novel Cloud Cuckoo Land . . . and the five plot-lines converged . . . the Siege of Constantinople, the library bombing, the Korean war POW romance, the Aristophanes fictional fragments, and the generation starship-- but it took a minute;
2) Catherine, Ian and I finished the twelve episode Korean zombie high school tragedy All of Us Our Dead . . . and while it was a little long, at 12 episodes, the over-the-top Korean melodrama was good fun;
3) the boys and I finished The Expanse . . . it's too bad financial difficulties truncated the series-- because there are still some loose ends, such as the dog-like creatures through the Ring which can resurrect the dead . . . but I'm going to read the novels and see how that works out.
Tennis Notes Redux Deluxe (Kudos to Bud)
The winter tennis league is winding down and only the survivors are left-- a number of players have dropped for injuries, so I played Bud again today and he was on fire for a while, he was serving to both sides of the box (and sometimes off the edge) and he was hitting some killer returns if I didn't put enough pace or spin on my serve-- I was able to come back from a game behind and beat him 9-7, but he was pretty spectacular for a 62-year-old and definitely had me guessing on his serves andI was hitting some lousy returns-- I also couldn't get my cut backhand low enough until the end of the match, so he teed up and crushed a few of those, same if I returned a forehand to the middle of the court-- then he hits a flat shot either left or right, my best success was low and deep to the backhand side (and then get to the net) and real cross-court spin heavy shots and once I started serving well, that helped too.
Never Again (Hopefully)
On Monday, masks will (finally) be optional at my school -- so teaching Shakespeare will be much more joyful for me (unfortunately, the school where my kids go-- and where I coach-- they are extending the mask mandate until March 28th . . . totally absurd, but it sounds like a couple of squeaky wheels convinced the school board and superintendent to supersede the governor, as is the right of each and every town in New Jersey-- although it's odd that our board thinks they have some secret information that the rest of the state isn't privy to . . . and out school is TINY, so the fact that the giant high schools surrounding our town have lifted the mask mandate but our school hasn't is patently ridiculous-- but I decided not to write an angry email so I'm venting here).