Weekend Notes

It was a proper summer weekend. The weather was warm and got warmer and muggier as the weekend progressed. That turned into torrential downpours Sunday afternoon. We lazed in the pool when the weather allowed. Sunday S and I went to the graduation party for the daughter of one of her partners. As it poured we reminisced about M’s party getting broken up by similar storms, and said a little prayer that we get through L’s party next year without a deluge.

Summer Hoops

L began her final summer of high school basketball last week. CHS played two games Wednesday night then three in a shootout on Friday. They went 3–2 in those games, all against 4A teams. We looked pretty good in a couple, overmatched physically in a couple more. No complaints when the team had not had an official practice before playing Wednesday.

We have a new girl who is transferring in and is well over six feet tall. She has the potential of being a game-changer inside but has some rawness to her game she needs to work out.

L did ok. She scored seven in one of the losses, six in one of the wins, then only one point combined in the other three games. She started a couple games, but the coach is playing all kinds of weird lineups to see how girls work together so there’s no reading into when she is/is not on the court right now.

In one game L got knocked in the face and came out with a bloody nose. I was running the clock and got the ref’s attention so she could stop the game. On the way home L told me the ref came over to check on her. She popped out two fake teeth and told L, “This happened to me once when I got hit in the face in a game. Ref didn’t call anything then, either.” We both thought that was pretty funny.

The rules in Friday’s shootout were strange. To keep everything moving not only was there a running clock, but there also no free throws. If you got fouled on a shot, your team got one point and the ball. Unless you made the basket, then you got two points and the other team inbounded like after any made bucket. However, as we learned in our final game of the day, if it is closer than 10 points in the final minute, suddenly the clock stops and you do shoot free throws. Naturally this happened to our player who would totally get rattled by this, and she missed her free throw. We still won.

This week will be lighter with just two games but a full week of workouts around them.

House Projects

Thanks to our cool, wet May a number of projects around the house kept getting pushed back. We had planned them in a specific order: replace the pool liner, have a couple gutters and downspouts replaced, and then a crew comes in to drop new mulch. Naturally after all the delays everything happened in exactly the opposite order. Oh well, it all worked out. Our new pool liner looks great. The gutters held up under Sunday’s heavy rains. The mulch still looks terrific. It’s nice to have everything done and we can just enjoy the outside now.

By the way, it is an interesting process to pump out nearly 30,000 gallons of water when your neighborhood does not have storm sewers. Our guys connected a couple hundred feet of heavy duty hose to direct the water from our back yard to the front. This is when having a gigantic yard really pays off. It took at least 10 hours to empty the pool. The crew started it around 5:30 Monday afternoon and it was still going when I went to bed at 11:30 that night. At some point the water got below the pump and it cut off. I started it again at 6:00 AM Tuesday. When the crew showed up at 9:00 they dropped two more small pumps to get it all out. The birds really enjoyed all that water, as it drove worms to the surface. All our robins looked extra fat and happy.

NBA Finals

Well this was unexpected. I figured the series would be moving to game three in New York tonight tied or the Spurs up 2–0. But the freaking Knicks seem to be a team of destiny and just might have broken the Spurs’ will with two come-from-behind wins in San Antonio last week. I really fear the most likely outcome now is a Knicks sweep. Which, ugh…

Traveller Update

M was in Lisbon over the weekend, where she was supposed to spend the entire spring semester before the country changed its visa rules. We talked to her Saturday morning and she was, again, having a great time. Great food, amazing architecture, wonderful people. Looking forward to seeing all her pics and hearing more stories once she has a chance to catch her breath.