The Sting of Defeat

I felt for Venus losing to someone I'd never seen before. Then this morning Fed loses to Berdych. I've seen Berdych before and he's a solid player, but I've never seen him win, much less handle Federer so easily. So lots of upsets in the quarters--Kim, oh that one was sad.

Now that I've actually seen the Kvitova/Kanepi match, I do know Kvitova. That is one determined woman. Good luck Serena. On the other side, I of course like Zvonareva who was 5th seed before an injury and moving back up the rankings with a bullet.

Murray has dispatched Tsonga, but I like Nadal's chances against Murray in the Semi Final. Since I've seen little of Berdych in all these years I've known his name, I have to go with Djok in that match, but for Nadal's sake, I'll root for Berdych. (The guys on NPR couldn't pronouce his name--very sad.)

The grass is getting hard. The commentators are saying that the field is playing like a hard court. Too bad that Roddick is out. He's great on hard court.

Venus and Serena lost in doubles today, but I hope for the sake of sisterhood that Venus sticks around to be there for Serena winning the whole thing again. I'm pretty confident that Uncle Tony (Nadal's uncle and coach) will be there for Nadal winning the whole thing and then I want Nadal to get very fit over the summer to finally get that US Open win. Federer has fallen in two majors--this is the year that Nadal goes the distance.

The women's side is also becoming wide open. A one hit wonder takes the French and three relatively unknowns are in the Semi-finals at Wimbledon. It's the end of the world as we know it.

Middle Sunday

At Wimbledon, the middle Sunday is a day off for everyone. This makes for a very exciting Second Monday, because everyone who has made it through to the round of 16 plays. Since all the top seeds have made it through--this is probably the greatest day in tennis (since Second Monday last year).

So I woke up at 5:30 a.m.--very unusual, but I immediately thought TENNIS. I turned on the coverage (that was only lasting until 7:00 a.m., boo hoo). Venus pulled out a win with the necessity of some effort. Kim dominated Henin during the time that I was able to watch, though the score looks like Justine was playing better in the first set. They only showed the end of Janokovic retiring, but the commentator wasn't buying it--he said she was getting embarrassed out there, so she quit. I want to hope that wasn't the case, but the score seems to tell the story. And Wozniacki--out to who in the heck is Kvitova? The field in Women's is wide open for the Williams sisters and Kim Clijsters. If there are no upsets, Kim will play Venus in the Semi-final and if she wins, she'll probably face Serena--talk about up hill battle.

I am at work now with no tv coverage, but the webcite has Roddick really struggling--yikes. Querrey seems to be no match for Murray, but it is early and Ferrer is giving Soderling some challenge. I wouldn't mind Soderling being out.

When the tv turned on this morning at 5:30 a.m., my eyes not yet quite really open, it looked like Federer was down a set to Melzer, but it was my eyes. Fed won in straight sets and is looking stronger than ever. Meanwhile, Nadal's last match was tough and he is looking a bit beat up. We will see. His match today hasn't started yet.

There are so many great matchs today that are already over, but I'm not sure if tv will show me any part of them--Djokovic v. Hewitt, Tsonga got a win, Berdych got a win--I see the score for Soderling v. Ferrer, but will we actually see any of the match? I'm sure that they will show us Serena and Sharapova, but there are no guarentees. What a great day of tennis--it is like having too many choices at a buffet. I hope ESPN2 knows what I like.

p.s. I just checked the doubles--Petrova and Stosur out. I don't know when that happened, but heartbreak. On the mens side Nestor/Zimonjic the number one seeds--out--Good luck Bryan brothers with a little less competition.

Big John

He weighs 250 lbs. He's the tallest player in the current field. They played for almost seven hours yesterday surpassing the longest game in history. Twice stopped for darkness. A three day first round match. Five match points--only three breaks of serve in the entire match. 218 aces between them. They both surpassed the record for aces in a game--in the final set. I'm so glad that John Isner won on a back hand slice and not a double fault. Mahut didn't have many double faults, but with so many aces, a few double faults are the price you pay.

70 to 68 in the fifth set. Unbelievable and yet, the risk that Wimbledon takes by having no tie break in the fifth set. At the end of the first game today, the ref said, "60 - 59 in the final set" and the crowd laughed. Classic.

The rest of the news is anti-climactic. No real upsets. Fedderer is playing more five set matches then usual, but he takes care of business. Stosur is out early, but her wins at the French were pretty unusual for her. Oudin is out in the second round, but again, she's not been a force since her surprise wins last year. Marty Fish didn't survive the second round--disappointing, yes, surprising, no. We have some great matches in the pipeline--Sharapova and Serena and Petrova and Henin, then the winners of those two matches. Any one of the four of them could win the whole thing. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing Sharapova beat Serena, but I won't hold my breath or anything foolish and I would love to see Petrova beat Henin and then play Serena. A Petrova/Venus final would be something, indeed. Anyway, that is a very tough section of the draw. On the mens side, Monfils and Hewitt and then the winner will probably play Djokovic, but otherwise just keep an eye on the remaining American men, Roddick, Querrey and Isner. Isner and Querrey are supposed to play doubles today and then Isner is supposed to play his second round match tomorrow and if he wins, he's in line to play Nadal in the fourth round, if he gets through. No rest for the weary. Unless he loses. I won't be surprised, but I will be disappointed.

It is Royal Thursday, since the Queen is in attendance. She hasn't attended since the Seventies. Not even for Pete Sampras and Stephi Graff--her loss. Except that maybe she likes her tennis the way I like my tennis--from my sitting room on TV.

I've been in mediation and court in the past 24 hours--try following tennis from an iphone. It's not impossible, but it is very challenging. I had to keep hitting the refresh key to follow the score of the Isner match and then when I found out he won today, I was in court and it was all I could do to not leap up for joy. The judge did not appear to be a tennis fan and I had to bite my tongue not to wax on about the match when it was my turn to speak--I mean really, who cares about the stupid cases--ISNER WON an absolutely EPIC match! But I kept my mouth shut. Then on the very long drive back to the office, at every stop light (there were many on my route, thank goodness), I was trolling google to get a news report of how Isner won. There was so little news--just an AP report with the score for the longest time. Then about an hour after the match ended, the stories started streaming in on google so fast that I couldn't get the latest story to click on before another scrolled on. Finally, I got a more detailed account and just then the radio graced me with a report and they had interview remarks. Now I'm back at the office and I finally have my fill...and now you have yours...(but I digress).

Wake Up Tennis

Wimbledon is 8 hours ahead of us, so noon starts at 4 a.m. here. When my alarm goes off at 6:30, my normal practice is to turn over and hit snooze several times before actually waking up for real. Not this morning. This morning, my first waking thought was TURN ON TENNIS. It's the first day. It is just the opening round. Nothing exciting ever happens on the opening day, I tell myself not really wanting to open my eyes. But my love of watching tennis not only propells me over to the remote (within arms reach), but it also pries my eyes open against their better judgment.

Now I'm wide awake--Fed is down two sets to none and they are on serve in the third, but Falla is taking him to deuce in his service games. Oh my, oh my. I find myself rooting for Federer. He is so skinny. They show a clip of the Fish match. Marty Fish has always been a bit chunky and a bit sloppy--lots of power and great game, but sloppy. No more, he's not. He has slimmed down a lot. I get up and go to the gym.

I know the technology is coming, but I'd really like to be able to watch the match on my cell phone. I have the up to the minute scores, but the wimbledon site didn't show the scores on a point by point basis--ugh. Now I've found the espn site that does, but still--I'd rather see them play. I have it all taping while I am at work, but I don't think I'll have time to watch the whole nine hours of coverage each night. I'm missing it already and its only the first day.

Lots of upsets in my little draw picks, but no major upsets of the big dogs. I need to be a little less sentimental in my picks--just because I've seen them play doesn't mean that they are going to win against someone I haven't seen. Although I really thought Cilic was going places. He's very intense and very tall--he made it to the semi-finals of the Australian. Out in the first round. Oh well. At least Roddick won't have to go through him. And Schiavone--one hit wonder--out in the first round, although she did take it to three sets. Is it mean to think that she might not even try at the US Open? The French is that odd major that the bigs don't always win, but the odd ones who do rarely go on to excel on other surfaces EXCEPT for my absolute hero Nadal. The French was his ticket into the majors. Oh darn--I have to go to work now.

Standards

What are minimum standards? When we compromise those standards for ourselves can we really complain when other people dip below those standards as well?

That's right I'm talking about casual friday. I have worn jeans to work on casual friday, but I have never worn a tee shirt. Once I wore a festive sweatshirt, but I felt uncomfortable. However, with my weight gain over the last couple of years, I must be completely honest and admit that my appearance has deteriorated. I still wear suits and I still wear a pin on my blouse (my idea of a tie) and nothing is wrinkled, but as I've needed to purchase larger sizes, the quality of my suits has deteriorated into, well, they are pretty cheap. And sometimes, if I know I have no client meetings, I wear a sweater instead of a suit jacket. Yesterday, I had a hot flash and I forgot to put my suit jacket back on before my client meeting. He didn't die from meeting with me in just my blouse and slacks, but I digress.

Our receptionist is wearing a sloppy tee shirt. When Marisa was the receptionist called in a moments notice, she wore a top that almost reached the back of her slacks. When I see girls wearing flip flops, I inwardly gag. In theory I applaud women's rights to wear whatever they want. I am thrilled at the freedom young women have to wear flip flops with panache. BUT I must be pretty old, because I just can't stand it. I try to teach my class that there is a dress code for a law office, but I also tell them to dress for the company they interview with. You don't think of Apple as a three piece suit kind of company and that's a good thing, but a sloppy tee shirt as the first person you see in a law office where you have a certain expectation of professionalism???

Truth be told, I was pretty lucky to have a suit and a blouse that fits to wear myself today, because it is laundry day, so I get it. But I really don't.

There are no chocolate chip cookies. I like to keep you in the loop.

P.S. Peanuts joke yesterday: Lucy saying "Look at those stupid bugs..." "They don't have the slightest idea what is going on in this world!" and Charlie Brown says "What IS going on in this world?" and Lucy says "I don't have the slightest idea."

Going Green

We are all about going green at my house. We use florescent bulbs in every lamp. Since Caitlyn has been potty trained, I don't flush for number 1 only number 2 to try to even out the flushing of a 4 year old (who I have to admit is actually not flush happy or abusive of water--I even have her trained so that when she brushes her teeth, the water isn't running). We do have a freezer because, well there are four adults and three small children living in the house, but our refrigerator is relatively new and energy star approved (whatever that means). We run the dishwasher in the middle of the night (I think, since I never hear it going) and we only water the lawn three days a week. We don't have air conditioning, except in one room and I rarely turn it on (although occasionally that room is nicely cooled when I get home from work, so someone may turn it on when I'm not home, but surreptitiously, so it is still not too much). We recycle a lot and we are aware.

So when our power company did an energy survey and sent me a letter that said I was using too much energy, I was very concerned. They showed my household energy use compared to our neighbors and we use a lot more. Then I turned it over and on the back it said that our energy use had DECREASED by 23% since last year. We have seven people in our house--of course we use more than our neighbor who has one person living in her house.

It is nice that they can give us statistics to help us attain goals, but meaningless information is just mean. Ugh.

Last Comic Standing

"I'm Pro-Life." pause "Except for those two times." I'm still laughing at that joke from last nights Last Comic Standing. If you have ever seen the movie Punchline, then you know how gut renching this process must be for these comics, so it is like watching a train wreck, but you can't look away (and sometimes there are extremely funny lines).

So I gave my speech last night. All the way up to minutes before I gave it, there was no clear purpose or closing. It was a story in which the truth of how I would vote on a jury completely undercut my belief system. I was thinking that this was a deep personal flaw, but Leon told me that of course it is harder to take a moral stand with a real threat standing in front of you. I have been tested before and in my own mind I have failed, but knowing my limitations and weaknesses, I hope that I don't allow myself to be put into the situations of compromise. "I'm pro-life, except for those two times." (I'm sorry however ironic, that is still so funny).

P.S. For those of you who don't know me--I'm pro-choice--no compromise (allowed). And I'm against the death penalty, except if I have a stone cold killer staring me in the face--so I don't carry a gun, ever. I know my limitations, besides if I had a gun, I would be oh so tempted to find that Ms. Rude Pants person, but I digress.

A Speech

So I am the president of my Toastmasters club and two speakers backed out for this week. As the president, I feel an obligation to step up where ever needed so I agreed to be one of the speakers. So first I need a topic. I have so many to choose from, but I just did a speech on tennis, so I can't do that again. I have done three impromtu speechs in the last year and they've worked out fine, so I feel confident in saying yes to giving a speech with very little notice, but I do need a topic.

So I could give them a synopsis of a movie or book that I've recently encountered, but that's been done. I could give them a description of the class I teach or a subject from the class I teach--been done, been done. I could give them a description of the trial we witnessed last week on our field trip--interesting. It is a death penalty case. We saw the defense putting on the defendants family to testfy why they would miss him if he was executed. OMG! That would be good, but I'm pretty liberal on this subject and it might digress into an anti-death penalty speech, which I have already done with lots of research and this defendant that we saw is not exactly poster boy foder--complete, irreversable scum was what I saw and we were there for the defense's case. Imagine how I would have felt listening to the victims point of view. Certainly plenty to speak about, but I need a thesis, intro, body and conclusion to pull it off.

Now Leon makes me jealous in this regard. He has a ton of great stories with funny asides and a moral at the end of his stories. That's what I need to develop.

Ha

Well today is Friday and yes there were cookies--so very delicious. I am wondering if they are so good that they can be used as a bribe not to eat anything else for the rest of the week like that girl in the Carl's Jr. commercial who is as skinny as a twig in her skimpy bikini, but she doesn't give up her Carl's Jr. hamberger to keep her figure. Probably not true, but I digress.

Thanks to Uncle John, I figured out how to change the title. I thought that was my user name, so I couldn't change it. If I had just read the directions...

Of course, now that I've named the blog, I'm writing this after all my work for the week is completed and I have a half hour before heading out to the Dodger game. It is a freeway game (against the Angels), but we are going to set a world record for the loudest, longest scream tonight--I'm sure it will lead the news tonight. Ossy Osborne (or someone just like him) has a new album called--you guessed it: Scream and as a promotion, he is eliciting the loudest, longest group scream for the worlds record tonight in the 5th inning at the Dodger's game.

You may ask yourself, self, Kathy doesn't like baseball--what gives? [And parantetically how in the world does she know about the screaming thing or for that matter who the Dodgers are playing.] Well, self, I was given free tickets to the Dodger game and Adam enjoys them very much, so I always accept free tickets. And this afternoon I was driving a lot, so I was listening to the radio. I flip between NPR, KCET which is the public radio and 1070 which is a CBS affiliate all news radio for traffic and weather (as though I need the radio to tell me the weather, but there it is). So between those two stations--guess who gave me all the great info on the game tonight--the high brow, intellectual public radio station! I know, who knew. Anyhoo, I am not normally a baseball fan and I am certainly not a fan of screaming, but there are worse ways to spend a Friday night in LA.

And, my two best friends are coming to the game with me and we always love catching up. Dodger dogs, best friends and my nephew to fill us in on all the baseball stuff. Life is good.

A Name

So a lot of other blogs have names. I was thinking the other day, why doesn't my blog have a name and then I thought, what would I name it? After a while without coming up with anything cute, I forgot about it and then out of the blue, it came to me this morning: Procrastination.

I went away for the weekend last weekend and I brought my laptop, because I intended to write a few blogs. I have lots of ideas for blogs that I want to write. I compose blogs in the car, in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening--all the time, but I never have time to write all the ones in my head, so I thought--great, a nice quiet weekend with nothing to do--I'll write out a few of those blogs and become the famous writer that I am in my head. But I didn't. I didn't have anything to do, so I did nothing (and loved every minute of doing nothing, but I digress).

So why couldn't I write the blogs in my head? Then I realized that the only time that I write blogs is about 10 or 10:30 at the office. I've been at my desk for a little bit. I usually already have my glass of ice and diet coke. There's a pile of work on my desk to be done. The phone is quiet (the quiet before the storm). There is plenty of time to get the mail out (must be in the box by 5 p.m.). I'm not in court or out at a meeting, so it is just all the stuff on my desk to be addressed. Taking fifteen minutes or so to write the blog will not ruin my day or put me behind in my work. Work. There is a ton of it on my desk. Every six or seven years, I work my way to near the bottom of my list of things to do. Twice in my 20 years here I have only had one more thing on my list to do and then it would be completely blank. Luckily that's never happened, but I fantasize about it anyway. I mean it would be awful if I ran out of work, but to finish all this ****, I mean work, on my list would be very satisfying as well.

I have this fantasy that I write profound things, but as much as I love reading my past work, the fact is, it is just OK--mildly amusing (so I've been told--thanks commentators), but mostly forgettable.

So why do I do it? It so obvious, of course, procrastination. The bane of my existence. I can never get to the bottom of my list because I am terrified of having nothing to do, even though having nothing to do is completely wonderful. Procrastination doesn't really make any sense. I mean putting things off and off should either mean that you don't want to do them or you don't want them to be over. The fact is the things I don't want to do, I would love for them to be over and the things that I don't want to be over are the things I love to do! So Procrastination is really stupid.

Do you know that it is still not friday! Friday is almost never the day of the week, that it is--only one in seven. Those are terrible odds. And there were chocolate chip cookies at Kiwanis yesterday that looked just like the cookies at Portos. But they were not Portos cookies--big waste of calories. AND Adam went to Portos this morning, but he didn't get any cookies for me. The universe is just messing with me. Is it any wonder I can't get my work done.

Musings

I found myself mad at a driver I was facing coming towards the intercetion because he veered to his left to make a left hand turn, but he didn't have his turn signal on. Idiot--that is a really short light and I am making a left hand turn, but no, I had to wait for him to go through the intercetion, which he didn't, since he was also turning left.

And then I realized that I too, did not have my turn signal on. I hate when that happens.

A few minutes later I turned off the radio in disgust. I was listening to the BBC and the commentator (whom I dislike because he sounds all smug and conceited--could be the accent, but I think not) said that there was a big development in a story out of Milasia. I hadn't heard any stories out of Milasia, so I am intrigued. (As Jon Stewart was say, go on....) Apparently there were two guys who declared their "engagement" and were jailed for being homosexuals and sentenced to 14 years in prison. But that's not the story. That's the back story. Then the President of the country pardoned them due to international outcry. But that's not the story--still back story. No the story is that one guy broke off their engagement and ran away with a 23 year old woman. That's the story that makes international news. My favorite commentator (not--need that sarcasm font) interviews another journalist who has in the past talked with these guys to find out why the guy broke off his illegal homosexual engagement and ran off with a 23 year old woman. It was soon apparent that the journalist that he was grilling hadn't spoken with the guy after he broke off his engagement. So we have second hand speculation from not a family member who's known all of the people forever--no second hand speculation from a journalist who once interviewed the guys about their incarceration. Apparently they didn't like going to jail. Stop the presses. (Sarcasm font). This is news? This is international news?

Now I am as gay rights as the next uber liberal guy on the block, but the balance of internation gay rights hinging upon the relationship of a gay couple that went to prison for being gay and one wants to run off with a 23 year old woman which inspires international commentary and speculation? I'm not feeling it. I am not going to see that movie. [Does make me wonder if my not favorite commentator is gay. That would be a much more interesting story if I were gay. Not that I'm ever going to Malasia--gay or not.]

It's wednesday. There are no cookies on wednesday.

Nothing is Impossible

But that doesn't always make it fun. Sciavone (spelling is probably wrong) won the Women's French Open. If we ever hear from her again, I will be surprized. She's already 29 years old and this is so by and far her best showing of her career that she can pretty much call it a day and try not to embarass herself for the rest of her life. Is that harsh? I mean it was bad enough that Stosur beat Serena and Jankovic (though I was cheering pretty loudly when she beat Henin), but that Stosur couldn't dig any deeper one more time, was disheartening. Any one of the three big names that Stosur beat would have wiped the floor with bagels beating Sciavone. [Bagels are when you get beat at love or zero.]

Nadal made short work of Soderling, who to be fair had some very difficult matches leading up to the final whereas Rafa, not so much. I was very happy that Rafa won again and that he is again the number 1 seed, but it would have been more fun to watch him beat Roger. Maybe in a few weeks at Wimbolton.

Oh well, two weeks to get ready for the all English club. What kind of a name for a club is that? Especially for tennis, which is so completely international.