Day 60 - 04/21/2007

Another Saturday, another game, another round of organized chaos. This time, however, the weather was vastly improved (clear with temps in the 70s vs. drizzle and temps in the 50s last weekend). As I relayed to the other coaches, I think the "games" are an inning too long (at this point at least). The boys get through the first inning alright, but begin to wane during the second so that when the third rolls around, a few of them would rather be somewhere else. Some of them walk off the field (as one of the opposing team's players did this week), and others don't wait to get off the field before they decide to check out of the game -- one of our players sat on the field and started playing in the dirt and didn't even glance at the ball that rolled by him into the outfield.

As I said, I think they're one inning too long.

But they got a snack afterwards, so that's all that matters, right?!? Well, almost. They're also looking forward to the trophy at the end of the season (not only N, but a couple of his teammates mentioned the trophy before the game). It's going to be a long two months before the end of the season if it continues like this. But, in reality, I don't think it will. We have practice once a week and a game every weekend. I imagine by the middle of May they'll have a rudimentary understanding of what they need to do (sort of) and then execute the play with very little reminding by the coaches in the field. I hope I'm not beginning to sound like a broken record, but even though they're out there for the fun of it, I do hope they're able to get a good foundation of skills. Or are they out there for the fun of it? Do the kids even know why they signed up? Did they even want to sign up or did their parents ask them and, not knowing any better, answer yes? I'm sure some of them are there because they enjoy it, but others I'm not so sure. But they get snacks (bags of marshmallows [?!?] this week) and drinks (what would we do without juice boxes? Oh yeah, drink more soda!), so it's all good.

But enough about that, let's talk about yard work.

I need to keep up with the Joneses. Literally. They did their yard work on Thursday this week and the neighbor on the other side did his yard on Friday, so I had to get ours done today. I edged and mowed the front yard before the game (so that the clippings would be dry by the end of the game and easier to sweep up) and finished up the rest of the yard after the game. N and I picked up all the sticks in the back yard (filling up a trash can with debris left over from the previous week's storms) before even getting to cutting the back yard. After getting the grass mowed and cleaned up, I took care of a variety of yard chores: I transplanted the dwarf peach tree from beside the driveway to the bed near the playset, I planted two lavender plants near the peach tree's original location and I was about to transplant an azalea from the front yard to the back yard when I got a bug up my ass to start power washing the deck. So, 90 minutes later I'm only halfway done and I run out of gas. I took this as a sign to call it quits for the day as I had to get ready for bowling. Busy, busy, busy.

After getting washed up and dressed, Britany arrived and D and I were off to the house. Chris and Lori wouldn't be there, so we were on our own. We arrived to find out we were in sole possession of second place, behind the leaders by 4.5 games. They ended up losing all four of theirs, so depending on how we did, we may be 1/2 game out of first next month. More than likely we'll be bowling them for the first place spot. It'll be a good time, to say the least. It's been almost 15 years since my last bowling championship, although the last one only gave us money; no trophies were involved. Since Chris and Lori weren't there (they pre-bowled), scoring wasn't able to be done accurately, so we're not sure how they did. Based on their absent scores (average minus 10 pins), we lost the first two games, but won the third (total pins might have been close). At the very worst, we went 1-3 (putting us 3.5 games out of first place). Regardless of how we do, our destiny is in our hands. If we win outright next month, it appears the championship is ours.