The Grass

I have had a house full of people, so I taped Wimbleton and watched the first several days in the last two nights. The grass was really green and slippery on the first days, but yesterday--not so much any more. It was dust at the base line--next week it will be awful.

Nadal pulled out due to an injury. I think that is better than watching him lose. Hewitt is on a tear--beating Del Potro last night in straight sets. There were some commentators who felt that Del Potro was playing so well, he would break through to the semi's at Wimbleton--not so. Roddick is playing well and I'll look for him to go farther and Murray is a favorite too. But we all know that Fed owns the show.

On the women's side, Sharapova is out early--I don't think she has recovered from her last injury. Hopefully Jankovic will go farther and I like Petrova and Kunznesova (I can't spell that) but my heart belongs to Venus and Serena--all have a great chance. The field is very level. I do hope that Dani Safina does well--she always looks like a spoiled child ready to cry, but she is a very dynamic player.

I haven't checked the internet today--I'm waiting until later tonight when I'll be able to watch the tivo from today. I'm busy this whole weekend, so it is late night with tivo for me for a while. Since there's no Nadal, I'm kind of already looking forward to the US Open and we're not even done with Wimbleton yet. Oh well.

French at Last

Sorry I forgot to blog about the French Open. I have tivo now so I was able to get all the tennis that was on espn2 and nbc EXCEPT the final match with Fedderer, because the cable card in the tivo is tempermental and my tv doesn't always work. It picked the mens final not to work.

Anyhoo, we started the French with Nadal coming off some loses due to injury. We were very worried, but we neededn't have been because he looked so great. Fedderer on the other hand was looking iffy right from the start. Good news for me a huge Nadal fan. On the women's side we had lots of talent but no front runners. Dani Safina is number one, but she's so new to winning and the French is so tough. She was my favorite all the way through, but she lost in the final. The Williams sisters played well, but Venus was out, I think in the third round and Serena out in the semi's. They played doubles as well, many times on the same days as their singles matches--so not fair. Also, the crowd was against Serena in the first or second round--again, so not fair. She lives in Paris; she loves the French.

On the mens side, Nadal's matches, even when he blew away the competition were great. Roddick looked terrific until his last match. Gonzo was in to the semi's, but they didn't televise his matches. Fed seemed to struggle, but pulled out when his opponents ran out of steam. It seems like any top player can play great for a few sets, but the champions have deeper wells. There were a lot of five set matches. Safin says he is retiring after the French and so they showed his last match. He was Urs' favorite player (and he is also Dani Safina's older brother).

Then came Soderling--cocky, arrogant, a little bit mean. Nadal knew to be on his guard, but Soderling played the match of his life, while Nadal was having an off day. Nadal was out in the second week early. He had a really great line that went something like, you have to lose some bitter battles, to be able to savor sweet victories. I think I added the alliteration to my memory, but the gist is the same. Surprisingly Soderling followed up by winning the semi-final and he was in the final against Fedderer. Again, I didn't get any of that match, but it must have been short, because NBC replayed the Nadal/Fedderer Wimbolton final from last year to fill time (that I saw when I finally rolled out of bed later on in the day--no I did not get up at 6 a.m. to watch Fedderer and Soderling, but if it had been Nadal... I probably would have made the effort.)

Next up, the grass.

Organization OR A Few Of My Favorite Things

I recently turned 50. It popped into my head that I should have a plan for the decade--like a mission statement with an annual theme. My ABWA has stuff like Decade of Discovery with yearly themes going along with the decade theme.

This being a pretty monumentous birthday and all, I had to sit down and say, Kathy what would you like for your birthday. Since I pretty much get myself whatever things I want when I want them, it had to be something unusual. [Actually I do not get myself whatever I want when I want it--I usually talk myself out of things--too expensive, looks better in the store than it will at home, I can always watch that movie on dvd--that's what I have netflix for, etc., but I digress.]

So something monumentous that I just can't buy for myself--organization. I love being organized. A place for everything and everything in its place is a lovely occasion. I tentatively named this decade the Decade of Organization. I tentatively started assigning different areas of my life into annual themes. This year will be the year that I organize my office. I have staff coming in on the weekends and we are going through all my old files. I spent a whole day organizing all the stuff that I have kept for my law class in my office. But alas, I have only scratched the surface. A year may not be enough. Meanwhile, I look longingly at the mess that is my house wondering if the year of organizing each room in the house will come soon enough.

You would think that by age 50, I would have developed a little patience--but only one week into my Decade of Organization I am concerned that I'll never be organized