{"id":1287,"date":"2013-05-03T15:30:29","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T21:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=1287"},"modified":"2013-05-03T15:30:29","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T21:30:29","slug":"love-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=1287","title":{"rendered":"Love-30"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I joined\u00a0the tennis team at the local country club!\u00a0\u00a0Am I living the dream or what?!\u00a0\u00a0Home Mom in the house – makin’ the most of her FREEEEEE\u00a0time!\u00a0 What up,\u00a0what up??<\/p>\n

It’s been “fun” so far, but I’m pretty certain 99-100% of my team wants me gone.\u00a0 Even though the\u00a0tennis pro keeps reminding them that, “We LOOOOVE left-handed people on our tennis team!”\u00a0 She claims it’s because left-handers\u00a0save\u00a0right-handers from serving into the sun…but I think it’s because I save them from having to look like the\u00a0WORST person on the team.\u00a0 Me and my left-handed self have\u00a0that covered.<\/p>\n

You see, I’ve never played tennis before in my life.\u00a0 In fact, when the tennis pro contacted me to find out what level I was at (3.0? 3.5??), I told her I had no idea what she was talking about so that should give her some idea of my skill set.\u00a0 [Turns out I’m a bargain basement 2.0 but you have to be no lower than a 2.5 for league play so she got creative with the math.]<\/p>\n

My racket is literally 22 years old (I remember my then-fiance-now-husband-of-21-years bought it\u00a0for me brand new so we could hit balls around at the tennis courts near his first-apartment-out-of-college).\u00a0 And every time I show up for practice, the tennis pro switches rackets with me.\u00a0 So that I can see how “modern technology feels” (her words, not mine).<\/p>\n

I wear my three-day-dirty yoga pants instead of all the super cute tennis skirts (and tennis DRESSES??!) that the others wear.\u00a0 And to this point I’ve been wearing some old running shoes on the court because I don’t think I’ve ever owned a pair of true TENNIS shoes in my life (unless Keds count.\u00a0 Do they?\u00a0 In which case I ROCKED the white Keds look in the 80’s, but you probably knew that already.\u00a0 R-O-C-K in the U-S-A!\u00a0 And no, you don’t have to buy NEW white Keds when they start getting dingy, you can just BLEACH the white Keds back to new!)<\/p>\n

But the tennis pro keeps making comments every time I come to practice\u00a0that\u00a0all the grooves on my\u00a0running shoes\u00a0are gonna catch on the court and I’m gonna hurt myself.\u00a0 But I mostly think it’s because she doesn’t want me to go down on her watch.\u00a0 Or it could be she’s trying to save me from looking like even\u00a0MORE of\u00a0an a$$ than I\u00a0already do by tripping over my\u00a0own feet.\u00a0 (Remember Gals!\u00a0 We LOOOOVE left-handed people on our team!!!)<\/p>\n

Hard to say.\u00a0 But I finally did break down and get some new tennis shoes.\u00a0 At the local PGA Tour Superstore.\u00a0 They have cheap tennis shoes there.\u00a0 Because they’re a\u00a0GOLF STORE!!!\u00a0 D’oy!\u00a0 But I am NOT spending a ton of money on shoes for a sport that I suck wind at.\u00a0 (Or should that be: at which I suck wind?\u00a0 My mom is back from her trip and she’ll clarify shortly so hang in there.\u00a0 I’ll get back to you soon on this pressing question.)<\/p>\n

Until then,\u00a0here’s an interesting observation about tennis shoes:\u00a0It doesn’t matter\u00a0how cute your hot pink tennis dress and matching visor are…you still look like a nurse from the ankles down.\u00a0 Tennis shoes are not flattering on anyone!\u00a0 And when you have size 10.5 boats like I do…there’s no hope.\u00a0 So go cheap or go home.\u00a0 And imagine my surprise when I was at the golf store and\u00a0I lucked into a pair of ASICS court shoes – size 10.5!\u00a0 All the Sports Authorities and Dickses sports superstores only carry 10’s or 11’s.\u00a0 So the 10.5’s (in the same brand as my super expensive, special-order running shoes) was a true find.\u00a0 Combined with the already deeply discounted $39.99 price tag which was FURTHER discounted by another 25%…and SCORE!!!\u00a0\u00a0Except for all those weird black hairs on the inside of the shoes.\u00a0 Those gave me pause.\u00a0\u00a0At first I thought (hoped?) they were black cat hairs or something.\u00a0 But then I realized they were curly.\u00a0 I have NO IDEA what could have been going on in those shoes, or where the socks of the person who tried them on before me had been (shag carpet of a infrequently cleaned 20-year-old-hotel-bathroom maybe??), but the price was right, so curly-joes be damned!<\/p>\n

And now?\u00a0 Now I look like I’m making my way cross-court to take someone’s blood pressure STAT!\u00a0 While wearing mini-canoes strapped to my feet.\u00a0 But it’s all good.\u00a0 ‘Cept for the scoring.\u00a0 I signed up to play tennis.\u00a0 Not to do math!\u00a0 And there is soooo much math going on I can’t even keep it straight. (And when I say math I mean the nonsensical scoring of traditional tennis: 0, 15, 30, 40 whoaaa.\u00a0 Whaaa?\u00a0 Add-in.\u00a0 Deuce.\u00a0 Add-OUT??\u00a0 WHAAAAA???…as well as how you rotate around the court, who serves first, which side of the court you want when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing blah blah blah.\u00a0 This can all be considered “math” to a left-hander like me.)\u00a0 So I just follow everyone else on the court and hope for the best.\u00a0 When it’s my turn to serve, I do make sure I announce my “second serve” if it comes to that, so the others think I’m somewhat engaged.\u00a0 And I find it useful to float a “30-30” score periodically to see if there’s any dissention from the other side.\u00a0 Or from my own side for that matter.\u00a0\u00a0There usually is – at which point I find out what the REAL score is.\u00a0 Problem solved!\u00a0 Also?\u00a0 NEVER say THIRTY-THIRTY.\u00a0 You sound like a total tennis fool.\u00a0 First off,\u00a0the server always announces their score\u00a0FIRST, and my score never\u00a0gets to\u00a030 for some reason so I’m safe there.\u00a0 But secondly and more importantly,\u00a0it’s THIRTY ALL.\u00a0 %^&#!!\u00a0 More math.<\/p>\n

And if, for example, the\u00a0score is\u00a00-30?\u00a0 Which is more likely to be the case for me.\u00a0 Say LOVE-THIRTY.\u00a0 Because LOVE means NOTHING to a tennis player.\u00a0 Get it?!?\u00a0 Hardy har har.\u00a0 Oh – and speaking of LOOOOVE??\u00a0 Remember Gals!\u00a0 We LOOOOVE left-handed people on our team!!!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I joined\u00a0the tennis team at the local country club!\u00a0\u00a0Am I living the dream or what?!\u00a0\u00a0Home Mom in the house – makin’ the most of her FREEEEEE\u00a0time!\u00a0 What up,\u00a0what up?? It’s been “fun” so far, but I’m pretty certain 99-100% of my team wants me gone.\u00a0 Even though the\u00a0tennis pro keeps reminding them that, “We LOOOOVE […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1291,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions\/1291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}