A True Inspiration

I received this e-mail from a very good friend of mine. Please take a moment to vote for her Grandmother, she is a sweetheart and it would mean the world to her if she won this contest!!

My 96-year old Grandmother, Grace, is in a contest for older Americans called Age Strong! Live Long! sponsored by the US Administration of Aging.

I wanted to ask you for a favor, if you could please check out the website below and go to the Video Entry #41 to vote for my grandmother ~ I know she would appreciate it!!

As you can tell by the video she is an amazing woman! For those of you who know her personally feel free to send this out to your friends.

Here is the website:

http://olderamericansmonth.org/contest.aspx

Video Entry #41

Voting ends tomorrow night, Friday May 28th, at midnight.

Thanks and God Bless~

Tennis Freaks...

My USTA women's team tennis season started last week. As you may or may not recall, a member of my team got IN MY FACE a couple of weeks back over a late call.

On Monday she SCREAMED at our coach when he was trying to correct a problem she had.

Today our lineup went out for a match we're playing tomorrow. The "loose cannon" and her partner were not in the lineup.

This is the e-mail my team captain (and friend) received a few minutes ago.

Subject: Making things right...

Dear Sue and Sally-

As captains of a USTA tennis team ourselves, we understand and appreciate all the work that goes into managing a team. We know how tricky lineups can be, with so many schedules to honor, who can partner with who, measuring how strong/weak the opposing teams are, etc. However, we notice that your philosophy and methods of managing lineups are HUGELY different than ours.

We are not proponents of welcoming and inviting players to be on a team and not giving them fair playing time, especially when a player pays for registration, a uniform and puts in many hours and money in practice time. We try to keep the team to only 12 players plus subs, so that everyone can play a lot of matches. If a player makes the investment of time and money, they deserve to play equally. (our 3.0 team chips in and pays for our subs's registration fees).

It was our intention that we were part of your regular lineup, not subs or second string players - if you wanted us to be this type of player for your team, we should have been told this from DAY ONE - we feel like we were terribly misled. Especially since we have done so well in all the practices and been consistently praised by teammates and Sergei, we felt like we earned our stripes and earned your support. Now, though, seeing your lineups for the last few matches, we are forced to make the assumption that you guys do NOT think we are strong enough players to be on your team and maybe you are too focused on the "3.0" next to our names.

Honestly, we feel we have proved worthy to play on your team through:

a) coach recommendations
b) practice play - we've consistently won matches against many of our teammates during practice sessions
c) we gave you both an excellent run for your money when we play you guys in practice runs!

So with all this being said, we would like to withdraw from playing on your team. Please take us off your team's email list. This just isn't working for us. You seem to be winning your matches without us anyway so God bless, don't let us interfere. We'd rather just concentrate on our 3.0 team and play well there, and most importantly keep our confidence up and keep having fun! We do not have hard feelings--it is just better for our psyche not to be put on schedules only to be taken off again, and be disappointed and wondering why.

Yes, we would have enjoyed playing at a level that is more challenging to our tennis skills. However, we prefer to earn our 3.5 status through our own achievements, which we're TOTALLY convinced we can do and maybe already done, and next year join or coach a team that treats players equally and openly, building tennis partners and friensdhips on the way....making this our priority. We are proud to say that we have this relationship with all our 3.0 players. So far, we have not felt this kind of camaraderie on your team.***

Good luck to you all in all your tennis endeavors! We hope you guys earn the really, really big trophy you seem to be striving for!

Wow. As always, flying off the handle.

And the saga continues...as always, the real drama in ladies tennis is usually played out off the courts.

The season has just begun...stay tuned for more backstabbing, outbursts, gossip and hurt feelings. Yeah, yeah, I know, I should take up yoga. What can I tell you? My love for the game is strong enough that I deal with this absolute insanity.

Now that, my friends, is dedication.

*** HINT: You might feel a bit more camaraderie if you didn't SCREAM at people when you disagree with them.

A Bloggy Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, in kingdom called Jersey, there was a lady who had a little blog. She loved the blog with all her heart and devoted many hours writing posts about her life in the magical land of suburbia.

But alas, the lady became distracted and began to neglect her blog. She spent time in other pursuits, while her little blog sat, alone, untouched and lonely. (Much like the mountain of laundry sitting in the corner of her bedroom.)

One fine day in May the lady went back to Caffeine Court. Her heart broke when she recalled all the hours of joy she shared writing and visiting her virtual friends in their kingdoms.

As she scrolled through her archives and relived moments of victory and defeat on the tennis court, happy moments spent at the makeup counter at Saks Fifth Avenue, and sad moments, such as the time her husband almost murdered her in cold blood when she purchased her third dog. She laughed and cried (not really, but it sounds dramatic) as she reflected on her life.

She took comfort in knowing that someday, she and her blog would be reunited, and she began to feel the old feelings of bloggy love stirring within her heart.

to be continued....

Wisdom of the Ages

Just checking in to let you know that I am still alive. My blog is pretty much dead, but I am very much alive.

Last week I celebrated a somewhat milestone birthday. The big 45. That combined with Mother's Day made it quite a week, which included dinners out, manicures/pedicures, guilt free shopping and lots of hugs and kisses from the family.

Since I am reaching my golden years, I thought I'd share some of the wisdom I have accumulated over the past 45 years.

Here goes:

Anyone who talks continually about how "nice" he or she is, probably isn't. I know this sounds harsh, but I've noticed it's pretty consistently true.

There is no avoiding the passage of time, so enjoy where you are NOW.

You might THINK you know someone else's life, but you DON'T ever really know, so don't judge others too harshly. Be kind.

If someone is talking trash about other people to you, you can be darned sure they are talking trash about you.

You cannot change even other people. Don't even try . Accept and love others as they are, not as you think they should be. Everyone will be much happier if you do.

I've got more, but in order to avoid sounding preachy, I'll leave it at that.

In other news, I had my first tennis match of the USTA season. We won, in a tense third set tie-breaker. As far as ladies' housewife tennis goes, it was quite a dramatic battle, but we emerged victorious by 2 measly points. The line between victory and defeat can be so thin sometimes. We hung in there, and never gave up, and this time around, things ended up in our favor. (You can add that one to the list of stuff I've learned in my life!)

If you've got any pearls of wisdom you'd like to add, please do!

I might be old, but I'm always open to good advice.

The Healthiest Girl in the Poor House....

Right next to the club where I play tennis is an amazing health food market. They have the most delicious smoothies, a fabulous bakery section chock full of goodies made without artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, preservatives or trans fats. Their organic produce is beautiful and all the snacks for the kids are all natural with no crazy sounding chemicals in the ingredients.

For the past couple of months I have become a regular and I wish I could shop there for all my groceries. I love the whole experience, and I get a kick out of how mellow all the employees are. So Zen. They move slowly and with purpose as if they are filled with the peace and joy of the Buddha. My new pal Justin who works the juice and smoothie bar sees me walk in and my strawberry smoothie with soy milk and bee pollen is in the blender before I have a chance to utter a word. It's my own little oasis of calm, nestled in the heart of Jersey.

The only catch.... CHA-CHING!!

As I balanced the checkbook it became abundantly clear to me that my little healthy food addiction is going to put us in the poor house.

I did a little Google search and apparently I'm not the first blogger to write about this. (Damn, and here I thought I was so original and groundbreaking! )

There are a ton of great articles on the subject. Go ahead, do it, Google "high price of healthy food." About a million journalists and about 2 million bloggers have beat me to the punch.

One of the best and easiest to read articles I found was from Time Magazine, "Getting Real About the High Cost of Cheap Food."

The gist of the article is that it is just plain cheaper and easier to buy food that is bad for us.

Some possible solutions:

I could give up some things, like tennis, trips to Banana Republic or getting my hair highlighted every six weeks to finance my trips to the Health Fair, but I think we all know that I'm too shallow and selfish to do something that drastic.

I could get a job (doing what I don't know...maybe a stock girl at Whole Foods???) to pay for my new interest in pure, fresh, flavorful, cruelty free food.

I could build a greenhouse and a barn in the backyard and start growing my own veggies and harvesting my own milk and eggs.

or...I could get real and face the fact that I'm going to have to mix it up.

Some days we'll have to throw caution to the wind and eat chemically tainted apples, abused cows and piles of refined white sugar. We won't feel good about it, but at least we will be able to pay the mortgage every month.

When we start to get sluggish and chubby, we'll switch back to the healthy stuff.

There are tears in my eyes as I write this. I'm going to miss Justin and all the crunchy, easy going folks at the Health Food Market. Maybe it WOULD be worth it to have mousy brown grey streaked hair and STILL drink a smoothie every day. Maybe my neighbors would like the sound of mooing cows and clucking chickens waking them at the crack of dawn everyday. I'll bet they'd admire my commitment to healthy eating and would overlook the smell of manure wafting from my back yard. Maybe my new job could be farming my 50' X 150' lot and SELLING my bounty directly to the Health Fair.

This could be big. I wouldn't even need to play tennis because I'd be so buff from picking strawberries and bailing hay.

I think I'm onto something here.

To be continued....

In MY face!

It's that time of year again.

USTA ladies team tennis time.

The time of year when we all restring our racquets, break out our new spanking new uniforms and try to snag the best doubles partner possible.

In this part of Jersey, USTA team season is short. 5 weeks, 10 matches, and there is never a dull moment.

My first match is May 17th and I'm feeling the heat already. Even in practice things can get intense.

Take yesterday for example. My partner and I were playing two other girls on my team, I kind of spaced out and made a late call (like 3 seconds) on a long serve. When I made the call, one of the ladies we were playing got all Serena Williams on me and started SCREAMING at me. "YOU DIDN'T CALL IT!! YOU DIDN'T CALL IT!!! IT'S OUR POINT!!!

Whoa.

"Okay," I said, "I'm sorry. I should have called it sooner. No problem. It's your point." I said calmly, even though I was starting to get pissed.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL IT SOONER IF IT WAS OUT??! YOU JUST STOOD THERE LIKE THIS..." (she then proceeded to open her mouth really wide and stick her chin and lips out like a brain damaged ape) "YOU JUST STOOD THERE LIKE THIS!! (she made the insulting face, YET AGAIN.)

Okay, at this point I'm really mad. I repeated. "I'm sorry, next time I'll be more decisive and firm on my calls."

Everyone on the other courts was staring, it was quite the scene. Finally our coach ran over to try to calm her down.

My partner and I walked back to our places and the other player stomped around on her side of the court, breathing heavily until we resumed play.

A few points later she hit a great shot down the line a few inches away from the line. She jumped up and down with pride.

I thought I'd made a joke. "I think that was out." I deadpanned.

She almost came over the net at me. "I'm KIDDING!!" I said.

She wasn't laughing.

Lighten up psycho.

Thank god she had to leave after an hour, because it was so tense, and not fun. Not fun at all.

When she left, I got to go onto another court with some normal people. Nobody screamed at anyone else about close calls, or mistakes. Nobody jumped up and down like they won the lottery when they hit a good shot and we had a wonderful time.

When practice was over I mentioned the outburst to my coach.

"Don't worry about it," he assured me, "she's not your partner. It's just her personality."

Just her personality? I guess killing people was just a part of Charles Manson's personality too.

I think outburst like that are unacceptable. My call was late, and that IS annoying. Does that justify someone getting in my face and screaming?

I think not.

I used to like this lady. Maybe her fiery personality is endearing to some, but not to me.

It's that kind of behavior that ruins team tennis.

Two weeks until our first match.

Let the games (and drama) begin!!!