Stretch

It was good to get out there.

After a few weeks of colder and wetter weather, we had a pleasant weekend in San Francisco, coinciding with our first softball practice of the new year.

It was a great turnout and I was feeling good physically. I’m roughly at the same weight I was at the end of the season. Naturally, this was intentional. All my walks, change in diet have produced a trimmer me. It’s been a boon, a positive for running around the baseball diamond in my mid-50’s.

I was not rusty after stretching. There has been no softball since the first week of September. But I was practicing like I was in mid-season form. I had quick reactions to ground balls. At bat, I kept back patiently, then made good contact through the zone. I found holes up the middle, between first, second base and down the third base line.

Temperature-wise our high at the park was about 58 degrees, which for me is fine for playing. I felt like I could be out there for hours.

In less then a month a group of us will be in Palm Springs, playing in the Winter Classic. It’s a tournament that’s always marked the opening of the softball season. By then many San Francisco teams are gearing up for a new season. I feel like I’m ready to play but this weekend, it was great to play catch, stretch and get kinks out.

January 11, 2022 0

Thursday

It’s a Thursday in late July, Fog City was doing its best to represent with a cool 55-degree outlook. The coffee was flowing because I care deeply for all the living things around me. Garry, who was awake earlier, left some for me in the coffee maker. I think I’ll keep him.

My half week at work turned out to be pretty busy and that’s normal for post-end-of-year inventory. I mean it makes perfect sense when we are in the middle of inventory, every other thing stops. When we are done with that, the floodgates open. The next few weeks will be more of the same.

I’ve got some website updates to do today for a client but otherwise, the weekend has begun. The only thing I’ve got scheduled over the weekend is a softball game Sunday. The potential for a really lazy weekend exists but I’ll throw in a few chores to keep it real.

We will actually miss the Russian River Softball Tournament this year. This is that weekend but the team didn’t vote to do it this year so the league kept us on schedule with a regular-season game. My wallet is alright with this decision. We did Denver. We did Seattle. At the end of August, we will be in Columbus, Ohio for an entire week and absolutely none of it’s free. The river would have tacked on an extra $700-900 to my softball budget. I enjoy the river but I definitely choose the Gay World Series over it.

It’s been a fun softball year. Our team has undergone some changes with new fun additions. There continues to be a sense of relief and gratefulness of being able to play this year. We started the season a month later due to COVID restrictions from the winter. The league was able to open up in April. We had almost a month off between mid-June and mid-July, in what was deemed as the first half of the season and the second half. It will be the first time the schedule pulls us into August, as our last game is the first of the month.

Thankfully, I’m playing pain and injury-free. I’m in my mid-50’s and still running around the bases with these youngsters. I’ll do it for as long as I can.

For now, though the coffee is flowing, the sun will break through the clouds in the next hour or so, my pitbull will finally wake up and look at me as if to say; “let’s get cracking, I’ve got to get out there and smell stuff.” It’s Thursday.

July 22, 2021 0

Octoberness

October in San Francisco: it seems like we’re getting past the days of bad quality air days. The Glass Fire is about 70-75% contained. Covid restrictions continue in the city but things are beginning to open up…carefully. Our numbers in town have been lower than other parts of the state.

Personally, we’ve continued our semi-shelter here at home. There are no trips planned (yes, no softball tournaments and no London Theater trips) and while this is a depressing thought I don’t fancy the idea of a hospital stay. What I tell myself is this…those places aren’t going anywhere. The show must go on. It’s the stage and we’re all the players. We can press pause or stop or go.

It’s a semi-shelter because I still go into work when I physically need to and I’m still arranging “safe” softball workouts at Balboa Park for my Cougar CUBS. We distance, we wear masks and there is no hugging (tough for our softball guys). If a new season happens it will be in March so this is not practicing for that, this is practicing for sanity.

Softballers miss the game. No season? No game? You pull the rug out and you will find an attempt by some to get back on the field. We’ve been at it for a few months but we were pretty strict about what we wanted, safety wise and any players that wouldn’t comply would not be invited. Fortunately for our group, it was preaching to the converted. There have been zero issues.

In other news: I don’t have the energy to go on about the Trumpster fire in the White House. VOTE. We received our absentee ballot in the mail. We filled it out. On Monday, October the 5th, I walked both signed and dated closed ballots to City Hall: the main ballot drop in San Francisco…end of story.

I understand complaining, it can be therapeutic but make a plan and do something about it. VOTE. Here endeth my voting ad.

Anyway the rainy season is right around the corner in the Bay Area and I have to say that I’m looking forward to it. It should do a number on some of the leftover fires and maybe save a few trees in the process. We’ve got a few weeds to pluck in the garden and more will show up because that’s an ongoing natural cycle of growth back there.

At the end of the month I’ve got a week off from all things work. It will be a staycation. Perhaps I’ll dream about being in Spain or watching a Shakespeare Play at the Globe Theatre in London. A break is still a break so I’ll take it.

October 9, 2020 0

Fogust

We are back to some “safe” ground balls after a two week hiatus. Physically this works for me as I’d like to keep going, whether we end up having a softball season or not (not likely). It’s good to get back out there with the guys and stretch it out. I don’t leave the house without a mask and it looks like that piece of cloth has become another softball accessory. Don’t leave home without it.

In a normal year, August is really the beginning of the off-season in San Francisco. Generally, softballers here are putting away their gloves, after a full season of play and 3 tournaments in July. There is even some softball burnout. It’s a total blank slate this year.

Fogust is alive.
Green wet grass and Softballers masks
Make gray blue.

Mother nature has nothing to do with what’s going on with people, it’s not her department. It’s August or as some of us call it here: Fogust. The cool breeze and the fluffy gray and white sky permeates everything in the mornings. Playing in the Bay Area for the last 20 years, I prefer this coolness. When you’re playing on the road and have to do a game in a much warmer climate, you really feel the heat more than locals. When I see people talk about 114 degrees, in say Palm Springs, this time of year I think: “ouch”.

Otherwise we continue to shelter. The numbers in California aren’t good so it doesn’t make sense to change anything we’re doing at the moment. I know more folks are going out and about, it’s a personal choice but my hope is that folks are remaining diligent about masks and distancing. I’m not advocating living like a hermit, only that folks be careful.

I continue to dream about travel.

It’s now a year since our last trip. We were in London for a week, then NYC for 4 days. There were a number of wonderful shows highlighted by Falsettos in the UK and both parts of the Inheritance in New York. Not having plays and musicals right now is a bummer. As a theatre lover, I have seen a lot of online performances during the pandemic and while it’s been good and I’m absolutely grateful for it, it’s not quite the same animal as being there in front of a live performance. I guess I’m a traditionalist about it.

The close ups in those online performances are weird. I always think: “no…let me look at what I want to see…don’t make that decision for me.” In some ways, it’s like being in a museum with someone standing next to you, pushing your face into what moves that individual. “Look at the color the artist uses for her feet.” I like doing that without the leash.

The dreams are nice actually and almost feel like I’m really there and not in 2020. I do always wake up in 2020 though. 🙂

August 2, 2020 0

The light thru the fog

This last week has been one, physically for me, mired in a sick funk. It grabbed me last weekend like some cheesey horror flick villain and held on tight with mucus tentacles and Vicks vapo rub breath.

I still made it into work for a few days (days that I was scheduled) armed with Wal-phed and determination. And even though I pretty much collapsed upon returning home, it was good for my spirit to do something other than lay in bed and cough.

It is better today. I feel stronger. I’ll be getting on an exercise bike today and sweating some. There is a softball practice on the schedule for Sunday but the rain is also coming. I will take what comes but the main thing for me is feeling 100 percent better.

My Coasters’ tournament softball team is set to play in Las Vegas in two weeks. I’m already psychologically ready for it, now the physical part of it has to come.

This is not my local softball team. It’s the traveling team my buddy John and I have organized since 2001. We average a city a year but we’re now looking at a Memorial Day weekend tournament for this year as well. I try not to coincide this with any my local team (Cougars) want to do.

Play ball!

January 5, 2019 0