My back is sending me little signals of distress and I'm ready for bed at only 9:10pm. I'm not good with high impact sports, but it turned into such a beautiful day. Mike, Nick and I met up with Adrian and his mom to bike at Seward Park. First, the boys found a tennis court and noodled around on it for a while. Adrian was excited about showing his mom his new skills. We ended up playing for an hour and a half, three on two. Adrian really wanted his mom on his team. I figure that we needed three more people to make four people per side. It might have been good to have at least four more for off-sides too since we were playing any ball that made it over the net. I like that kind of tennis.
There are two kinds of tennis players. I am the kind of person that likes when everyone works to make the volley long and exciting. I've never been good enough at tennis to try for that corner shot or the thing I see whenever I watch Wimbledon, the way a good player can run the other player from side to side, front to back. I figure I'm entitled since I'm old and I was banned by my surgeon from playing tennis when I was twenty-four after back surgery. Yes, I'm doing great with my back after all of these years. Thank you.
Boy, some of those balls were hit like a baseball after a home-run swing. One of them actually made it through the narrow opening of the gate and rolled down into Lake Washington. It's one of the hazards of playing too near a lake, but the beauty was worth the cost of a ball. Plus, I figured some Labrador Retriever out there was going to be very happy. About half way through our 'game,' the sun came out like it meant it. Weather doesn't get any better than this - 72 degrees, no humidity, and sunny.
What was fun about playing was to see both boys start to get the feel for the volley. Nick could get the ball headed in a tall arc toward Mike, and Adrian, close to the net, sent low fast zingers into the corner that neither Mike or I could touch. It was great. I will never get better at this game, but I could see these two boys thriving on a high school tennis team. Potential. I love that feel of all that potential. Plus, we were all really enjoying ourselves.
After a water break, we decided that we brought the bikes all the way out here and we'd better ride them. It was a little dicey getting from the parking lot to the trail because drivers were stalking people for parking spots and the boys don't have much practice with cars. We passed the Audubon Center, the playground with the great zip-line, sand box, and fort. We went on through some picnics that people had set up practically in the middle of the pavement. The trail started off very busy and narrow, but widened as we rode around the peninsula. There were fewer people too. I rode, trying to watch a swimmer in a wetsuit brave the choppy water. That kind of swimming always amazes me, but at least this person was within a few yards of the shore. The open water is too dangerous with all the boats going back and forth. On the North end of the peninsula, a breeze was coming in over the water and I actually got cool. There was a narrow beach there and I imagined it would be a great place to watch the Blue Angels in August when they come for Seafair.
I was looking out over the water. Nickie still hasn't figured out that you can't just stop abruptly in front of another person and I almost rode over him when he stopped. I screeched and a bunch of people looked around. Adrian, ahead of us, stopped.
"Mom, I used the stop signal," he said. We'd been working on hand signals on real streets. The thing is that he's not comfortable letting go of the handlebars of his big bike and does them really quickly, so I didn't see his signal. Really, a slow stop would have done it, but he stops fast, almost skidding out. We got started again and, in about twenty minutes, had looped all the way around. We got to the parking lot and decided to go back the way we came to double the trip. It isn't a long bike ride, just two and a half miles one way. It was nice to see that they'd closed off the road that ran along the lake up to the arboretum. Maybe next time, we'll try doing that.
When we got back, we walked around. We looked in the window of the Audubon Center, got some ice cream, and walked the trails to see what native plants they had marked. Okay, so I just mooched a couple of licks from Mike's ice cream, but it was enough to get the flavor. Mike needed to scope out the location for the Outdoorsman pin for our Cub Scouts. The boys need to visit a Nature Center and though there are other ones, we've visited them way too often for the boys to learn anything new. If we had a den meeting here, we could roast some hot dogs, ride the trail, swim, check out the nature center, get ice cream, and walk the trail where they'd labeled the native plants. Nickie thought that they'd mislabeled the vine maple. I think he might have been right. I didn't see a vine maple. Ah, there's nothing like a little imperfection in an otherwise perfect day.
When we left, we needed food. I had packed a bag with Fritos, bottles of water, carrots sticks, blueberries, and ham sandwiches, but we had eaten enough of that and were hungry for real food. We stopped on the corner of Wilson and Dawson and ate at Bent Burgers. The place had some great art on the walls, comics lining the tables, and in the bathroom, every inch of the walls were covered in more comics. There were cool orange booths and a guy driving me nuts by making milk shakes, 'thick like a clogged artery' as he put it. The guys ate, guess what, burgers and I had my usual salad. I was a little disappointed in the salad since the lettuce was all shredded like it should be put on a sandwich. Well, what did I expect? The burgers were good, but you should know that they made these yam fries that were absolutely delicious. We ordered more, they were so good.
It wasn't long before we were back home and I was napping in my recliner with my favorite orange cat on my lap. Poor Buddy - he doesn't get to be on my lap when I write these notes, but he also doesn't get his lap time when we're off gallivanting around the countryside either. Summer stinks for a cat that just wants to snuggle.
Thank you for listening, jb
There are two kinds of tennis players. I am the kind of person that likes when everyone works to make the volley long and exciting. I've never been good enough at tennis to try for that corner shot or the thing I see whenever I watch Wimbledon, the way a good player can run the other player from side to side, front to back. I figure I'm entitled since I'm old and I was banned by my surgeon from playing tennis when I was twenty-four after back surgery. Yes, I'm doing great with my back after all of these years. Thank you.
Boy, some of those balls were hit like a baseball after a home-run swing. One of them actually made it through the narrow opening of the gate and rolled down into Lake Washington. It's one of the hazards of playing too near a lake, but the beauty was worth the cost of a ball. Plus, I figured some Labrador Retriever out there was going to be very happy. About half way through our 'game,' the sun came out like it meant it. Weather doesn't get any better than this - 72 degrees, no humidity, and sunny.
What was fun about playing was to see both boys start to get the feel for the volley. Nick could get the ball headed in a tall arc toward Mike, and Adrian, close to the net, sent low fast zingers into the corner that neither Mike or I could touch. It was great. I will never get better at this game, but I could see these two boys thriving on a high school tennis team. Potential. I love that feel of all that potential. Plus, we were all really enjoying ourselves.
After a water break, we decided that we brought the bikes all the way out here and we'd better ride them. It was a little dicey getting from the parking lot to the trail because drivers were stalking people for parking spots and the boys don't have much practice with cars. We passed the Audubon Center, the playground with the great zip-line, sand box, and fort. We went on through some picnics that people had set up practically in the middle of the pavement. The trail started off very busy and narrow, but widened as we rode around the peninsula. There were fewer people too. I rode, trying to watch a swimmer in a wetsuit brave the choppy water. That kind of swimming always amazes me, but at least this person was within a few yards of the shore. The open water is too dangerous with all the boats going back and forth. On the North end of the peninsula, a breeze was coming in over the water and I actually got cool. There was a narrow beach there and I imagined it would be a great place to watch the Blue Angels in August when they come for Seafair.
I was looking out over the water. Nickie still hasn't figured out that you can't just stop abruptly in front of another person and I almost rode over him when he stopped. I screeched and a bunch of people looked around. Adrian, ahead of us, stopped.
"Mom, I used the stop signal," he said. We'd been working on hand signals on real streets. The thing is that he's not comfortable letting go of the handlebars of his big bike and does them really quickly, so I didn't see his signal. Really, a slow stop would have done it, but he stops fast, almost skidding out. We got started again and, in about twenty minutes, had looped all the way around. We got to the parking lot and decided to go back the way we came to double the trip. It isn't a long bike ride, just two and a half miles one way. It was nice to see that they'd closed off the road that ran along the lake up to the arboretum. Maybe next time, we'll try doing that.
When we got back, we walked around. We looked in the window of the Audubon Center, got some ice cream, and walked the trails to see what native plants they had marked. Okay, so I just mooched a couple of licks from Mike's ice cream, but it was enough to get the flavor. Mike needed to scope out the location for the Outdoorsman pin for our Cub Scouts. The boys need to visit a Nature Center and though there are other ones, we've visited them way too often for the boys to learn anything new. If we had a den meeting here, we could roast some hot dogs, ride the trail, swim, check out the nature center, get ice cream, and walk the trail where they'd labeled the native plants. Nickie thought that they'd mislabeled the vine maple. I think he might have been right. I didn't see a vine maple. Ah, there's nothing like a little imperfection in an otherwise perfect day.
When we left, we needed food. I had packed a bag with Fritos, bottles of water, carrots sticks, blueberries, and ham sandwiches, but we had eaten enough of that and were hungry for real food. We stopped on the corner of Wilson and Dawson and ate at Bent Burgers. The place had some great art on the walls, comics lining the tables, and in the bathroom, every inch of the walls were covered in more comics. There were cool orange booths and a guy driving me nuts by making milk shakes, 'thick like a clogged artery' as he put it. The guys ate, guess what, burgers and I had my usual salad. I was a little disappointed in the salad since the lettuce was all shredded like it should be put on a sandwich. Well, what did I expect? The burgers were good, but you should know that they made these yam fries that were absolutely delicious. We ordered more, they were so good.
It wasn't long before we were back home and I was napping in my recliner with my favorite orange cat on my lap. Poor Buddy - he doesn't get to be on my lap when I write these notes, but he also doesn't get his lap time when we're off gallivanting around the countryside either. Summer stinks for a cat that just wants to snuggle.
Thank you for listening, jb
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