It’s back, Getting there

Saturday morning I knew there was tournament taking place at the courts I normally play at but I figured there would be some courts still open for rec play. When I got there I was told all the courts were allocated for the tournament so I resigned myself to just watching some games as I drank my coffee. As I watched I noticed that there were a ton of courts not being used. Perhaps they did not get the type of turnout they anticipated. A few people came up to me and asked if I wanted to go play on one of the courts, I said sure. We figured if someone kicked us off for a tournament game we could move to another empty court.

I wound up playing with the same woman the entire time. She was athletic and had solid skills so it was fun to play with her. In total we played seven games and won five of them. It was nice to get a bunch of games in when at first I thought it was going to be a wash out.

There was some unwelcomed side effects, my right leg/knee/hip did not feel good the rest of the weekend. It felt like a combination of the IT band related pain I have been battling off and on for almost a year and pain deep inside the knee. For a couple months I had been doing pretty well with the lower body issues but after my P6 demo tour, all of that riding which included hopping onto my right leg again and again, my right leg especially was not feeling great. Of course I continued playing pickleball which didn’t do much to help the situation.

Saturday night I had a near constant dull ache that was in the leg/knee/hip even when laying in bed. I had to have my leg in a certain position to escape the sensation. It was pretty miserable. I took Advil just to be able to dull the pain enough to sleep. During the day Sunday the aching was a near constant companion. I am hoping this is just a temporary thing. There have been many, many times where I wake up one morning and pains have magically disappeared. I’m counting on that scenario playing out once again.

I added two inflatables to my exterior Xmas decorations this weekend. I have not used inflatables to decorate since I moved here in 2023. The small Santa and Christmas tree are a simple but nice addition to the holiday house appearance IMO.

I am making nice progress with my holiday gift buying. I am nearly done purchasing items and I have wrapped the stuff that has been delivered thus far. Staying ahead of the holiday curve has always been a feeling I enjoy.

Sunday afternoon I attended a celebration of life event for my old boss who passed away unexpectedly at the relatively young age of 65. There were a LOT of people there, more than I anticipated. Although I had very little contact with her in the decade since she retired she was a great boss to me and obviously touched a lot of people along the way based on the turnout. I got to see some other retired employees that I had not seen in many, many years at the event as well which was a nice bonus. It’s crazy just how fast the years have flown by. During the ceremony someone recalled a saying Shirley had on her desk, it was along the lines of “Live like you are going to die tomorrow, learn like you are going to live forever” Pretty solid advice.