At The Crack of Doom

Laura had to be on deck for a swim meet at 6:45 this morning, forty-five minutes from our house. When I first opened the email containing the session times, I winced in an exaggerated fashion. Like, I pulled my shoulders up around my ears. I have written before of my dislike of scheduled things, and when the scheduled things are early in the morning, I am like BEYOND GAH.

A meet on a school day is a new thing for us. This particular meet is Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday, and Laura is swimming all three days. At 5:45, I rolled out of bed, put on jeans, and pulled a fleece on over the camisole I slept in. I nudged Laura and in ten minutes, we were out the door into the dark. She had packed her backpack the night before, she has always been easy to get going in the morning. I got her a sausage biscuit on the way because if it is still dark outside, there is no such thing as a healthy breakfast. Just please hand over the grease and bread. I had a banana, because banana and coffee are two of my favorite tastes together.

We got to the meet and found seats in the bleachers. I said, "Didn't you bring anything to read or do?" She said, "I never bring anything." And then she sat there and watched every event. I remembered, duh, this is her sport, she wants to watch it being done. A big sign on the far side of the room had that pool's records for each event, for men and women. We studied the list; Michael Phelps's name was all over it. Then, watching the 15-18 boys swim a long, grueling medley, Laura gestured toward the records and said, "Michael Phelps would be done by now." That made me laugh. I said it sounded like she was quoting the worst coach in the world, just comically non-motivating. "You know, guys, Michael Phelps would be done already. He'd be dried off and eating an entire pizza, probably folded in half like a taco. Step it up."

Then she swam her events and it was all good and we were out of there at 11:30. But even though I had nothing demanding on my schedule for the rest of the day, to my friends I was all, "You GUYS, OMG so early! And driving down to Chamblee! But it's for the children!!!" Then we got Hank, had lunch, saw Fabienne the cleaning lady out the door, relaxed for a little bit, and then went up to the playground and tennis courts for Laura's lesson. I watched some of my friends play and enjoyed the sudden turn to gorgeous weather after the raw, bone-chilling and spirit-breaking, chilly-damp soul funk we've been enduring.

Matt had to get Hank ready for school and this is how that went.

The whole family has been going pretty hard all week. The tennis, y'all, good lord. I had five tennis matches or practices between Tuesday and Thursday night, including two three-set, three hour grinders. (Winning!) Funny how you can feel two different ways about two different matches you won. One I was annoyed about, because we never should have let those ladies take us to a third set--we played like utter goofballs and the pace was so slow you would have cut your own throat--and the other I felt absolutely triumphant and glowing about, because we lost the first set and had our hands full, these girls were good. It did not look good for us, but we adjusted our game and took the match. I ran from side to side for three hours--nobody who has known Becky for a long time would have recognized me. I don't even know, it's like I'm a stranger to myself.

That night I ate the whole world, then climbed into bed feeling various pains. That's not usual for me, but my toes hurt, my legs hurt, and my elbow was sore from overuse. I resolved to take today and tomorrow off from tennis. I turned down a match and I even turned down an invite to a St. Patty's Day party tonight, because I think we were all craving some downtime. Also the party hosts are loud, prone to drunkenness, famously volatile, and on the brink of divorce. Which is basically the same as saying, they're on our mixed doubles team.

I KID. THERE ARE ONLY LIKE TWO COUPLES ON OUR MIXED TEAM WHO FIT THAT DESCRIPTION. lol j/k

Matt is taking Laura to her meet tomorrow, otherwise there is no way I'd be awake and blogging. God bless you all and God bless America. xoxo