Sarah performs tennis in front of others...let the blogging commence!

Good evening!

If you live in SE Wisconsin, as I do, you're currently enjoying some pretty spectacular thunderstorms.  I'd enjoy the storm MORE if it hadn't knocked out my Direct TV...I mean, come on...it's the NHL Finals!

So while I have a rain delay for my TV viewing this evening, I thought I'd share my tennis experience from Monday.  Having started on my quest to learn the mysteries of tennis on Saturday, Monday was day 2.  (On Sunday I lay on my couch and listened to my back and butt whine.)

Monday evening we drove up to the courts where we'd started our Tennis Quest, but there were OTHERS on the court.  (It's a two court fenced in area.  We could have played there.)  I, however, did not feel comfortable practicing my newbie skills in front of OTHERS , so Hubby drove us to another court.  This one was closed, apparently, forever.  We tossed around the idea of finding a court further from home, but, as my mother would always say, "In the amount of time you've spent arguing, you could have had it done by now."

So we went back to the first court. 

The OTHERS, the ones who made me timid were, upon closer study, a pair of young lads, one who seemed to have some skills and the other who bore the air of a teen whose mother had kicked him out the door with the command, "THOU SHALT PLAY OUTSIDE WITH SOMETHING OTHER THAN YOUR XBOX." 

"Dude, five more minutes...some old Fluffy Girl
 wants us for a mixed doubles match at 6."

(Monday was the first day of summer break for school kids in our area.  Thusly, Monday was the first day parents yelled at their children for lying around, trashing the house while the parentals were at work.  Monday was also the day all parents begin the countdown to the new school year.)

So I opted to play on the side of the fenced area where XBOX boy was.  It was a good choice.  He was as terrible, if not more so, than I.  We spent a lovely half hour or so banging balls to each other's partners.  I felt a lot of like Anne Hathaway in "Princess Diaries", apologizing for clumsily firing something at a complete stranger.

One thing I had to battle, however, was my own inclinations to goof off.  See, I love an audience.  As much as I enjoy solitude, there is something about having an audience witness whatever I'm doing, especially if I'm doing something I'm NOT comfortable doing, that makes me want to turn my bad performance into hilarious performance art. 

In short, I ached like crazy to slap that fuzzy little ball over the fence just to make the young ones laugh.  so much better than being pitied, I always think.

But my summer project, I reminded myself, was to LEARN TO PLAY THE TENNIS.  So I am proud to admit I only hit the ball over the fence one time, and that was completely on accident.  I have the back hand of a drunken wildebeest.  Powerful, and completely unpredictable.

So I'm encouraged by the progress I'm making.  I've picked up a tennis racket twice in three days.  Today I would have played with Hubby again, but Mother Nature decided I needed to NOT watch hockey instead.

Let's just see what tomorrow brings.  I may actually break into a trot and try to return a serve that comes over the net out of my immediate reach.

Then again, let's not get too crazy.