Tennis circuit, home alone, fish rescue, weekend

After a good month or two of honing my online tennis skills I am finally able to win more than I lose. When I started I was ranked as high as 32,000 out of the 41,000 online players. Currently I am up to 2800 in the rankings. I really enjoy it. It’s funny how you can tell the difference between countries when playing online. Every single Brit I have played has been great. Every a-hole I have played is either Korean or American. Last night I was playing some kid that dropped racial slurs constantly, later I played someone who didn’t talk the entire match until after he beat me in a tough match. Then he popped on for a second to scream “WHO’S YOUR DADDY?!!” I just laughed and said “good game”. It’s cool that I actually know enough about the game now that I can offer tips and advice to the players ranked below me.

Alison is still out of town, she won’t be back till Sunday. It’s not much fun doing everything alone. Naturally it takes much longer to get the stuff done by myself. Nicki is depressed since Ali isn’t around. When I get home and let her out she sprints back to the door anxiously looking inside, hoping to see Alison there. She’s all bummed when she runs around the house and can’t find her. In mid-October Ali is going to be going back up to PA for almost 2 weeks so it’s going to be more of the same.

Last night when I got home, I noticed the drainage ditches in the front were almost dried out, meaning I could actually mow down the high, white trash looking, grass that was in there. I took the tractor down and went to work. After I knocked down the grass I noticed movement in the wet muck, more FISH! My property has this weird phenomenon where fish appear wherever there is standing water on the property. There were tons of catfish flopping around, trying to bury themselves into what was left of the water. Well of course I couldn’t just left them suffocate. I went and got my fish net and started retrieving them. 2,3,5,10…… I dumped over 10 of them into the goldfish pond. When I went back I saw a ton more. So I got a bucket, filled it with water and snagged a bunch more, at least 20. There were more but they were in areas that still had some water and were burying themselves deep in the muck so I wasn’t able to get all of them. I took the bucket out to the fill pit/pond in the back of the property to relocate them. I drove out there on the tractor. It was just about dusk. As I disturbed the high grass I set off a mosquito rampage. As I am trying to drive the tractor and hold the bucket I also am furiously trying to swat off the mosquitoes that saw me as dinner. I dumped the fish into their new home and felt happy for doing my good deed for the day.

My neighbors are going to be able to let out the dog tomorrow while I am in Clearwater playing volleyball which is a big relief. It is the championship weekend for one of the two Florida tours. I really want to do well but I haven’t played in close to a month so I am afraid there will be a lot of rust. One thing I am determined to do is keep my emotions under control. I don’t need any more embarrassing outbursts.

Yesterday I got a census from the Republican National Committee. It was basically a questionnaire on various topics asking if I agreed, disagreed or was undecided on a bunch of issues. I disagreed with more than I agreed. One question that struck me as odd was if I supported Bush implementing President Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense plan. I thought that idea was scrapped for good. At the end of the survey they asked if I wanted to donate money. I checked NO and instead wrote in “VOTE KERRY” I guess I need to get around to changing my party affiliation, Reagan was the first and only republican candidate I ever liked.