Tag Father’s Day

The Almost Open

Michael 10 Comments

Picture this. It’s late on a Sunday afternoon. You’re full from too much Father’s Day celebratory luncheon, it’s too hot to take a walk, it’s even too hot to go swimming, and you’re not in the mood to read. You just want to sit. If it was 40 years ago you’d do your imitation of a couch potato.

Then you remember, even though it’s not your sport, you know this is that weekend. The Weekend. The weekend that gets capitalized   The one with the biggest names, the longest drives, the finesse when it’s needed, the trophy, the payoff. The U. S. Open.

Of badminton.

USABadmintonI didn’t set out to watch the U.S. Open of Badminton. I didn’t set out to watch the U. S. Open of Golf. (That’s the one you were thinking of, wasn’t it?) I wasn’t in the mood to do anything so I sat in my chair. (Yes, I have a “my chair.” Every male over the age of 40 has a “my chair.”) And after sitting therein (thereon?) (there?) for some time, I decided I needed to do something other than just sit. So I reached for the remote and remembered about that golf thingie. But I didn’t know what station was carrying it so I pushed the button with the picture of the microphone and said “U S Open” (I might have said it with the periods after the “U” and the “S” but I didn’t hear them so I’m not including them here) figuring it would take me to that golf thingie. Instead it brought up a screen for me to clarify which “U. S. Open” (I saw the periods on the screen so I am including them here). Who knew?

Since I was given a choice, I picked badminton. Wow. It’s not your backyard after picnic probably most played on Father’s Day badminton. First of all they use a real court with real poles holding up a real net. We always had to hold up one end of the net with the clothesline pole and make the sidewalk to the tool shed one back boundary and the hedges with the red berries you’re not allowed to eat the other. The other thing is they had a lot of shuttlecocks. We had three. One was stuck in the gutter and would remain there forever. One we couldn’t use in case we lost the one we were using. They certainly didn’t need a lot of shuttlecocks. I watched them for several sets and they never once flung the one in play out of anyone’s reach.

That’s another thing. They played it sets. And kept score. Even though the court looks like a 3/4 scale tennis court the scoring is more like table tennis. Unlike tennis, or golf for that matter, the crowd is obviously into the competition. Tennis and golf spectators might be into their respective competitions but you could never tell. Everybody at those events is so reserved. Even the TV announcers whisper. Not in badminton. These fans cheer their favorites, they scream their approval at a diving save, and they openly applaud a well-placed lob. When the contestants entered the arena it could have been 1974 with Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier coming down the aisle at Madison Square Garden. The lights, the music, the cheers! They don’t do that at Wimbledon.

Overall, it was a good way to spend a late afternoon. I’m not sure that I’ll track the progress of the world class badminton players on their March to the Olympics (yes, it is), but if I’m not doing anything next Sunday, I have an alternate to watching golf.

 

I Got Nothing

Michael 7 Comments

When I sat down to write this post I realized that I really didn’t have an idea for this post. Not that I had one and forgot which I’ve done and have written about. Not that I had a bad idea for a post which I’ve probably had more times than not but wrote about anyway. Not that I had an idea but had written about several times already and even I knew that one more time wasn’t going to be a good idea. No, when I say I really didn’t have an idea, I really didn’t have an idea.

It’s been a decent enough week. I’ve felt well so I used some of that energy and did some shopping. Most of the time a good shopping trip will end up with fodder for a good blog post and sometimes just the act of shopping ends up blogworthy (which I’ve also already written about fairly recently). This week’s shopping was pretty much that. I went shopping. Bought a couple of shirts, some kitchen stuff, a canister of that newfangled spray on sun-screen. But it was all fairly normal. No weird sales signs, no clueless sales clerks, no inappropriately dressed fellow customers. Well, there was that one lady in the bathing suit with a cover-up masquerading as clothes. How could I tell there was a bathing suit under what outwardly appeared to be a cover-up? Maybe the dripping water that trailed her like an ill-trained puppy. But since I’ve done more than a couple of posts on fashion rules for the real world I couldn’t see putting yet another together at the expense of the nonfashionista and her screaming need for attention.

Since the last post I’ve spent a lot of time at the pool. I’ve switched from morning walk to morning swim at least on non-dialysis days for my exercise. In fact, it’s worked out quite well for me. Last summer, actually last summer, last fall, last spring, the summer before last, and so on and so one and etc. I’ve spent most of my exercise energy on walking. Also covered in several posts. But since I’ve started on dialysis I’ve been slacking on the sidewalk shuffle. If you’ve never had dialysis I’ll add in my prayers tonight that you never have to have dialysis for one of the things they don’t tell you when they stress that you’ll only spend 7% of your week on the machine is that you spend about 40% of your week recovering from that time. Walking just a mile or two the morning after dialysis isn’t just out of the question, it’s not even a question. Period. But swimming seems to be a different animal. I’ll swim a lap or two then climb out of the pool and rest in a comfy lounge chair under the morning sun. After a few minutes rest (ok, after about 20 minutes rest), it’s back in for some water calisthenics. More rest, more laps. More rest, some wading. I get exercise and a killer tan without having to stop for a rest when I’m a quarter mile from the nearest park bench. But hardly blogworthy.

And we’ve had Father’s Day. It’s the rare holiday that goes by without a mention of it by me. I’ve even invented my own holidays just to get a post idea. Maybe not invented but certainly given more weight to National Name Tag Day than even its proponents did. But everybody knows about Father’s Day. Not much I could add to it. I could talk about my gifts but they wouldn’t hold your interest as much as mine. I could talk about dinner and the fabulous glaze we came up with for the grilled salmon but then when the cook book comes would you still buy it? Or I could talk about how we narrowly escaped the severe weather than muscled its way into the festivities just as the grill was cooling. But how many weather posts can one blog present?

No, I just have to own up to up. I got nothing. So if you were expecting to find something here to pique your interest, go to the search page and plug in your desired topic. Chances are you’ll get something back. Till then, I’ll try to work on something more substantial for Thursday.

Have a great week!