Grew the houseplant population here at the house by one the other week. It is a handsome Monstera that is the 4th or 5th propagation off of pal’s plant..
He’s having some trouble adjusting to the new room, I fear, but these things are supposed to be bulletproof so I’m not sweating it too much.
A couple of Saturday matches of various effort levels, and a Sunday match with good tennis but the same fun levels. It’s almost always fun.
The morning session was a chill affair with some friends. My normal doubles partner is moving up a level, so I’m trying to get some reps with another pal who I think would make a good partner. We did okay against some guys at a higher level, and there is always room to improve.
Saturday afternoon’s match was a 6.5 mixed doubles bloodbath that we won in, like, 45 minutes. Afterward, my partner suggested we hit some singles since she “wanted to try to return that serve”. We ended up playing a full set of singles that I eked out 7-5. You can see all of that Zone 4 time was when she was running my big ass all over the court.
I’m not a fan of playing singles. There is a great deal of physics at work when I’m starting and stopping all of this body, and I tend to suffer.
Sunday’s match was my second run at the 7.5 mixed combo league where I’m playing with a 4.5 lady. Most of the teams in this league are a combo of a 4.0 and 3.5 player, but since my partner is a 4.5 she had to find a 3.0 to play with.
She’s explained to me that I was picked mostly for vibes, and also because I’m okay at the net. We won a fun match in a 3rd set tiebreak against a couple of good players.
I enjoy playing mixed doubles. And these combo leagues are a lot of fun because I get to hit with people that are, mathematically, better than me. We have a couple of weeks left in the season, which is fine, because we play outside and it’s starting to get cold.
Played two matches this weekend. The morning was some mixed doubles for funs. I like funs.
You can see that I was suffering a bit from my Big Saturday Adventures and I never really got going, heart rate-wise. And when the matches are just for funs, even if the tennis is good, the effort can be a little low. I also played like crap, which I’m also chalking up to BSA (Big Saturday Adventures).
The afternoon match, however, was some 5.5 USTA Mixed Combo action. I have to chuckle at how much more keyed up I get for “official” matches.
The heart rate levels were more appropriate for the match, and I played pretty well. The game was low-stakes, but I was glad to be able to raise my game (eventually). We started the first set down 1-5, but rallied to win it 7-5. And then we won the 2nd set 6-0. I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a match where we won 12 straight games. It was sick.
Back on the road for work, this time to Farmville, Va. It’s another classic small-town that gets an annual 9-month population boost from Longwood University. It’s nice to see the youths out and about.
It was another insane finish to an important ballgame last night. Lindor is a bad, bad man. Alonso had a clutch hit (while in the middle of an awful slump). And starting pitcher David Peterson got the save?!?!
These damn Mets pulled off a wild one yesterday to make the postseason for the first time since 2016 (and that was a super-stinker of a time).
Francisco Lindor hit a 2-run home run in the top of the 9th to put the Mets ahead after they gave up a 3-run lead in the bottom of the 8th. It was tremendous, as he has been this whole darn season.
The Mets had to go from Atlanta to Milwaukee after the doubleheader where they’ll start their series tonight. It would be wild to see them get past the Brewers.