WIP Wednesday: Game, set, matching mitts

You think you've had a productive week.  You think you've accomplished a small something worth feeling good about.  And then you watch a player in her grand slam debut upset the #12 seed and you hear that she was born in 1999.  And suddenly you feel just a little bit lazy and unambitious.

That's what happens when you watch sports as you get older, I suppose.  But I'll leave the tennis prodigy-ing to CiCi Bellis and watch her as I make progress on my knitting and spinning.  And I have made progress.  I finally blocked my Mittacles, so now I just have the pesky task of weaving all of the ends in:

My Vlad Helsing is moving along as well.  I've gone through the chart nearly three of the prescribed four times:

Aside from the momentary confusion with the placement of the repeat on two of the rows, I've really enjoyed this.  My only worry is that it won't use up enough of my yarn to get to the color change in the skein that starts a little late.

So, do young upstart athletes, movie stars, or other random celebrities ever make you feel lazy?  Or are you confident in your awesomeness?  For more WIP Wednesdays, go to Tami's Amis.

Game, set, match, history

It took 77 years and four match points, but it happened: a Brit won Wimbledon.

I wasn't on Henman Hill, but I was cheering right along with them.  From my first time watching Wimbledon, I've been rooting for the home team.  I almost don't know what we're all going to do next year with a defending champion.  But there's a lot more tennis to be played until then.  Next stop: the US Open series on the road to New York.

I'll be thinking of them grinding it out on the hard courts as I pound the pavement myself.  I've found the plan I'm going to follow: Hal Higdon's Beginner Supreme.  I like that it's longer than most other programs, because it pairs a 12-week starter set that will get me up to snuff for the 18-week set that more experienced runners can train from.  I have my calendar marked, Week 1 starts on the 22nd.

Which also happens to be the first week of the US Open series, which starts with the BB&T Atlanta Open, which was the last title that my other Andy, Roddick, won before retiring.  Coincidence, or another sign of the aligning stars in the new world order of sports?

There's no crying in running!

If it wasn't for rain, I could have watched Andy Roddick's final match in the comfort and safety of my own room.  I could have maintained some dignity knowing that only the cat and my father would know just how many tears I shed.

But no.  Instead it rained for most of Tuesday night and the final point was called this afternoon while I was running on the treadmill in the gym before my group exercise class.  I made sure to tune one of the TVs there to ESPN2, and prepared myself for a run fueled by emotion rather than adrenaline.

It was Andy's last service game, and I imagined that I could ensure that he held serve by running with just a little more determination.  It worked, but it was only to be followed by what everyone knew was almost certainly Andy's last professional game.  I couldn't hear the crowd, and had only the best efforts of the closed captioner to relay the commentary to me, but I could feel what everyone in Arthur Ashe was feeling.  I was right there with them.  And when it was all over, I was just as distraught as Brooklyn in Andy's player's box.  Only I didn't have any sunglasses to hide behind, and I was running on a treadmill in the middle of the gym.

It turns out that you can't really sob and run at the same time, while I was running it was like my body refusing to give into a complete bawling breakdown.  That makes sense, you need your lungs to taking in air, after all.  But the tears still came, and I must have looked more than a little ridiculous to anyone who happened to see me.  But the gym is like a crowded train, most people tend to avoid actually looking at anyone else.  That's what I tell myself, anyway.

Afterwards I took a moment to go ahead and be a big baby about it.  You guys, this is Andy.  This is Wimbledon, this is the Davis Cup, this is the US Open, this is 150 pounds.  I needed a moment.  And then I splashed some water on my face and went in for a little Fitness Fundamentals, where I was happily able to keep some sense of decorum as I lunged, lifted, and crunched.

So Andy goes out the last American man to win a grand slam, and I become the girl that cries when she runs...

Love's Labor Day weekend lost

Ah, Labor Day.  At this point almost completely devoid of any political association to labor organizations or unions, the basic idea seems to be a day of rest to commemorate all the work we do the rest of the year.  If I'm to trust in the commercials, that rest should be gotten by holding neighborhood barbecues, shopping for all of the best limited-time-only deals, watching college football and counting down to NFL football.

Hmm, I think I did my Labor Day wrong.  Because here's a rundown of some of the things I've been up to the past three days:

Watching tennis.  I did see some college football, and I did of course make sure to keep track of the score in the Longhorns' game (hook 'em!), but mostly I was concerned with my dear Andy's winning Friday night and Sunday afternoon, as well as a few other matches.  I'm still annoyed that the Tennis Channel takes the night coverage on the first weekend, since I lack the multi-million channel package that requires that particular network to be available to me.

Drafting blog posts.  Because I love you.

Organizing my online recipe database.  A few months ago I decided that I would use a Gmail account to collect recipes online.  It was recommended to me because of the labels you can attach to messages, so I can e-mail myself a recipe and tag it as being 'Sweet', 'Cookie', 'Chocolate', and 'Caramel'.  Then when I decide that I simply must make something caramel, I can scan through my options easily.  Plus, I can reply to the thread to take notes when I try the recipe and rate how it went.  So now I'm going through all of my bookmarks and Instapaper clippings, composing e-mails and then agonizing over whether caramel, butterscotch, and toffee each deserve their own label.  Decision: they do.


Baking.  Because it's a three-day weekend, not an existential crisis, people.  I'm still me, and my co-workers still need tasty treats to survive the next work week.


Knitting.  See my previous statement about this not being an existential crisis.  There's always a cycle when I'm at my dad's house.  It starts with Friday night thinking that I might possibly finish my project before returning to my mom's house and 'Oh no, I might have to go an entire day without knitting to do!' panic taking hold.  It peters out, though, as I fill the weekend with a few other tasks and end up still not at cast off by the time I'm safely with my stash again.

Going out for froyo and a film.  The big adventure of the weekend.  Went to see 'Sleepwalk with Me', I'll have more thoughts on that, and of course a review of the frozen dairy treat, later this week.  On the subject of films, I also watched the restored version of 'Metropolis' last night.  Nothing like a 1927 silent German classic of cinema to give you that warm sense of self-righteousness in your cultural consumption.

Painting my nails.  I'm actually in the middle of this right now.  Right hand needs a top coat, then onto the left.  OPI's Steady As She Rose, in case anyone is wondering.

Whew!  Who says I haven't been laboring this weekend?

The end of an era

Calling the retirement of Andy Roddick from tennis the 'end of an era' probably sounds a little inflated. But I'm not talking about an era in the history of tennis, though that certainly can be argued.  After all, he's the last American man to have won a grand slam, to have held the number one world ranking, and he's been the driving force of the Davis Cup for years.

But no, this is the end of an era for me personally.  The commentators talk about watching Andy grow up on the court, and the truth is that I grew up along with him as a tennis fan.  Andy's the first player I really ever rooted for.  Yes, I loved Sampras, the king of Wimbledon, but Andy was my guy.  I cheered like nothing else when he won the US Open.  I cried like no other with each Wimbledon final.  I've seen him play three times: once at an exhibition match while I was in high school, then at the US Open years later just before starting another year in college, and finally when he bring the Davis Cup to Austin. 

And there's a part of me that owes something very special to Andy.  Because the night before Andy played in that last Wimbledon final, I was making all of those prayerful promises that fans make when they really want something.  Please, just let Andy win.  If Andy wins, I'll clean out my closet.  If Andy wins, I'll floss twice a day.  If Andy wins....I'll lose the weight.

If you know me in real life, you already know, but otherwise, I should tell you.  I used to weigh much more than I do now.  I lost a lot of weight in high school and then gained it all back plus interest throughout college.  There was no particular reason why this, the first summer after graduation, should be the moment when I really did lose the weight and keep it off.  There are, I'm sure, many more blogs' worth of things to say about it.  But what matters is that that promise, not even spoken aloud, just made to myself, that I would do it for Andy, somehow that carried through even the disappointment of his loss.  

I started slow, I began writing down everything I ate, I counted my calories and had my base metabolism tested.  I wore a pedometer and made 10,000 steps a day a requirement.  And each day that I did it built upon each other, making it easier to keep going just by virtue of momentum.  Until finally, a year, maybe a year and a half, later, I was a hundred and fifty pounds down.  I know, it's still a crazy number for me.  But that's what it is, and I've managed to maintain it.  

Is Andy Roddick the reason I lost the weight?  Of course not.  But it's just one of those associations that makes the news that this US Open will be his last even more emotional for me.  Because yes, it's about the game.  But it's also about the part of my life that happened alongside that game, and the milestones I marked with his victories and losses.  And that makes it hard to say goodbye.

Are you ready for some...tennis?!

Yes, yes, I know that football is coming.  And I'm excited, sure I am.  I have become one of the legion of Americans waiting to see if the officials will come back from their lockout, how Peyton will play for the Broncos, and how long it will take for it to be Tebow time in New York.

But right now, what's important is an Olympian still seeking a grand slam gold, a missing Rafa, and an ever-more-obvious lack of roof.  That's right, it's the US Open.  As the commercials say, it must be love.  No matter how deeply I am pulled into the mainstream sports, my ultimate loyalties will always be to the slightly more indie game which has been with me from the start.

If football is a high school jock, what is tennis?  Maybe the preppy nice girl.  I don't know, I'm still distracted by the fact that the school year is just starting here.  Forgive me, I'm a student for life.  Seriously, if I could make a living taking classes, that's what I'd do.  Preferably at Sarah Lawrence.

And if I did that, I'd go to the US Open every year.  I went once, and got to see Berdych, Federer, and Roddick play, and Murray on the practice courts.  Got Tommy Robredo's autograph as well.  Unfortunately, it didn't give him luck enough to win, but I still cherish it.  Here's an action shot of Roddick from then:

I'll be following Andy with ever-escalating hopes, as well as the rest of the players, for the next two weeks.  Hopefully this morning's deluge of rain will be the last we see until the winners have safely raised their trophies.  Because as amusing as it is to see Tom Rinaldi standing in the middle of Arthur Ashe in full flood regalia, I'd rather be watching match play.

The Olympic sport of sports coverage

When I think about the Olympics this year, it's mostly connected with Ravelympics/Ravellenics.  I'm almost done with my Union Jack improvised monster, and have already started my second project, a pair of dishcloths.  I can knit things up so much faster now, it's amazing.

It seems like there are two things everyone not crafting is talking about when it comes to the Olympics: the Queen jumping out of a helicopter with James Bond, and how awful NBC's coverage is.

For my international readers, and any Americans not watching, NBC Universal is showing live coverage of the Olympics online as well as on their basketful of other networks, like MSNBC and Bravo.  NBC itself also has live coverage throughout the day, with occasional breaks for local news, etc.  However, they are saving what they feel are the most popular events to show on tape delay in primetime.  Basically, pretending like we don't already know what happened earlier in the day.  Because we don't go online, watch ESPN, or listen to NPR.  We also wear corsets and have candles in the streetlamps.

This is nothing new for NBC.  Their desire to pretend that we live in the dark ages of information is something tennis fans know all too well.  Until this year, we were being held hostage by their coverage of the last week of Wimbledon, when they would put semi-finals and even the finals themselves on tape delay and block any means of watching live.  Thankfully tennis seems to be the one sport with great TV coverage because it's taken over daytime on Bravo.

Live is an important concept for sports-watching.  Aside from it being far less fun when you know the result, you lose that irrational suspension of disbelief that makes you feel like you can actually impact the way your team or player performs if you just shout a little louder, clap a little harder, or think more empowering thoughts.  And without that, a lot of the magic is gone.

You know who's good at magic?  Mickey Mouse.  Disney and ABC are one and the same, and they also include among their ranks the powerhouse of sports programming: ESPN.  ESPN, which, starting this year, had the entire Championships live.  They had it on ESPN2, then simultaneously on both ESPN and ESPN2 in the second week to catch all the important matches.  They even had it online on ESPN3 where you could choose to watch matches that would never make it onto the air.  The finals were live on ESPN and then rebroadcast on tape delay on ABC. So those who only get those basic networks still got to sleep in and watch on their own time with the same kind of coverage, while a whole lot of us got something a million times better.

All I'm saying is, NBC likes to pretend that gymnasts are actually getting their medals at 4 in the morning in London.  If they keep pretending, soon they are also only going to be pretending to have contracts for all of these events.  They have until 2020 to get it together...

Spin and sob Sunday

Oh well...

I'm just going to admit it right now: Andy was sobbing, the crowd was sobbing, I was totally sobbing.  There was just something so poignant about seeing just how much Murray wanted to do it not only for himself, but for the fans.  And then to see the fans expressing so much gratitude for what he's done already, lifting him up and thanking him for the effort.  We are, indeed, getting closer.

I think it was the second final that Roddick lost to Federer that I didn't eat the rest of the day.  I was just so disappointed I was almost sick to my stomach.  Until later in the evening, and I ate an entire box of Kraft Deluxe macaroni and cheese.  To try and quell the starvation and despair

Times have changed, though, so instead I watched the trophy ceremony with a bowl of strawberries and cream, because that seemed appropriate and a little more healthy, since it was fat-free whipped cream as well.  And for dinner tonight it's another round of spaghetti squash.  Yum!

Then I used my emotions to fuel my most productive Tour de Fleece day yet.  I finished spinning my second single cop, and decided to go ahead and ply my first cop from earlier in the week.  I have no idea if I'm doing it 'right', but I spun the two ends of my center-pull ball together in the opposite direction that I spun.  Then I wrapped that onto a borrowed niddy noddy.  Now it's resting in it's warm bath, because it's just as stressed out as I am after that match:

I'm hoping that I've made yarn, but who knows, maybe it will dry and turn out to be a hippopotamus!

Don't count your strawberries before the cream's been poured

Tomorrow could be the day.  It could be the day that 74 years of disappointment ends and an entire nation's hopes will finally be realized.

Sorry.  It's just so easy to fall into the pomp and grandeur of a British man playing in the Championship's final match.  When it comes down to it, I know that it's just a sporting result.  But that's not how it feels.  It feels like a foundational shift in the truth of tennis.  The fact that I've never experienced a British Wimbledon champ isn't that impressive, seeing as I only just caught the tail end of Sampras.  But at 74 years, we're teetering on the edge of living memory even for sports fans who were born and bred to it.

And then there's the fact that there are so many millions of people investing their emotions into it, spending ridiculous amounts on Centre Court tickets, or camping out religiously for a grounds pass.  And even though I don't have the money to fork out for a fancy seat next to Kate and Wills, or the opportunity to sit in line (with my knitting) for two days straight, I'm right there with them all in rooting Andy on.

Of course, there's the matter of Roger Federer.  You know, Rog, over the years, you've dashed a lot of my hopes.  Especially at Wimbledon.  Not once, but three times, you raised the trophy next to Andy Roddick as the runner-up.  And I know you would like to raise it again, prove that you are still the King of Grass.  All I'm saying is, let this Andy win, and I'll forgive you all the pain and suffering of the past.  Just this once.

For the Queen.