Tag: US Open

  • Tennis, Anyone? Major Fun + Kitten Update

    Tennis, Anyone? Major Fun + Kitten Update


    Time ticking away in 2025 with three out of four Grand Slam events completed for the Women’s WTA and Men’s ATP tennis tournaments this year. From the hard courts of the Australian Open in Melbourne to the red clay at Roland Garros in Paris to the finals of The Championships at Wimbledon played today on the grass courts of the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club in London following two weeks of fierce competition, the one remaining Major is the US Open in New York which begins on August 24th.

    Individuals and their families measure the passage of time through different customs, I’ve observed, but I have two constant measurements every year: (1)the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments and (2) the women’s college basketball season. For me, the year is 3/4 gone in July.

    The Ladies Singles Champion in 2025 was Iga Swiatek

    Swiatek routed my personal favorite Amanda Anisimova

    Jannik Sinner 1st Italian man ever to win

    Singles Championships at Wimbledon

    Sinner defeated my personal favorite Carlos Alcaraz who was trying for a three-peat in the championship this year

    Surprisingly, Sinner broke the jinx of the Pretty Preference by getting the best of Alcaraz in four sets to send Pretty to the winner’s circle.

    Meanwhile, in our backyard this morning while I was glued to the television set, Pretty practiced tennis with our five-year-old granddaughter Ella who has recently started lessons. One of the new baby kittens had fun trying to help Ella with her forehand.

    Ella wore one of Pretty’s dresses this morning after an impromptu sleepover last night following a pool party with her family and friends yesterday that was so much fun she decided to spend the night. Alas, Pretty’s dress didn’t help Ella’s tennis focus, but necessity is the mother of invention, right?

    There really is no smooth transition from tennis to kittens, so pardon the abrupt break from Wimbledon to two cats that still need forever homes.

    Having a snooze on Pretty’s lap this afternoon

    loving the open air on the screen porch

    The kittens will go for their first vet visit this week but no longer need to be bottle fed. Great progress, but my allergies persist.

    Congratulations again to Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek for Wimbledon championships – they provided Major fun for our family in the past two weeks!

  • FOG ALERT!


    For all my friends who heard the sad story of my throwing away 20 years of mine and Pretty’s movie ticket stubs when I came home from my knee replacement surgery in May, I have good news. I found the box of missing ticket stubs last week in my office in the same place I thought they should be – except that they were hidden under a decorative gift bag I had been saving since our 10th anniversary celebration ten years ago. I swear I have been looking for that box of memories everywhere and nowhere apparently but was thrilled to find them before tomorrow.

    Tomorrow is the day for my second knee replacement surgery which is proving to be as fun as the first one was.

    I have instructed Pretty to keep me away from the computer for the next couple of weeks since I clearly am not responsible for the fog that anaesthesia brings. Thank goodness for the US Open – so far my favorites, the Williams Sisters and Rafael Nadal, are through to the second round. Life is good.

    Catch you on the flip side.

    Stay tuned.

     

  • Okay – So Here’s The Deal


    OMG, the US Open ended Sunday after two weeks of intensive and extensive TV coverage that demanded my attention from sun- up to sundown every day. Beyond the obvious “live” matches that were fantastic, I had to get the late-night  commentary reviewing the day’s completed matches that occasionally went into the wee hours of the next morning and of course had to get the previews of the day’s matches every morning starting in the wee hours on the Tennis Channel. Honestly, Pretty and I were exhausted after the men’s final Sunday afternoon, but the tennis Grand Slams are my one weakness.

    Okay. So here’s the deal. I am somewhat of a morning person – not necessarily early morning –  but the dogs and I usually start our routine around 7:30. Pretty typically prefers the 9 o’clock range; consequently Charly and Spike and I are left to our own ramblings for the first hour and a half every day. As long as tennis commentary is on during that time, all goes well.

    Beep, Beep, Beep…danger lurks when there are no tennis matches for retired tennis pros to discuss on an early morning sports talk show because that means I will be surfing for…I’m not sure what for…just channel surfing.

    When I began the search this morning, the first image to pop up was a semi-attractive woman leaning on a small stand that held an open Bible which she was apparently using as a reference manual for her message to depressed people to get up and get going with their lives. No more lying around in bed until 9 o’clock. Absolutely not. Get out of bed and make something of yourselves. Depressed people of the world, unite – it was like a Create Space on steroids for adults.

    My goodness, I said to Charly who was lying on the floor next to my chair. Maybe Pretty needs to get up right this minute and we need to busy ourselves doing something. But before I could pursue going upstairs to wake her, the woman on the TV began promoting her new book that could be mine if I made a donation to keep her show on the air so I lost interest and switched the channel. No thanks, I have my own books to sell. Plus, my doctor prescribed wellbutrin for depression and that means I rise and shine every day full of piss and vinegar – well, piss certainly.

    Ding, Ding, Ding – step away from the TV, Charly said to me.  Oh, if only I’d listened to her. Instead,  I decided to watch a news show called Morning Joe because the ostensible co-host Mika the Meek was hosting in Morning Joe’s absence. My apologies to the Morning Joe lovers in cyberspace, but I find him to be rather rude. I may even agree with some of the comments he makes, but I do wonder why Mika Brzezinski stays with him sometimes. Perhaps it has something to do with the $2 million she receives every year whether she says a word or not. Which is mostly not word one when Morning Joe is around; Mika turns to mush when he’s at the table. I have to fight the urge to tweet: Mika, be no longer Meek. Speak up, your opinions are just as valuable as Joe’s.

    But I don’t know how to tweet on my cell phone so she’ll never know how much I’m longing for the day when she will speak  up and out loudly above the men who regularly sit at the MSNBC desk with her. This is a woman who writes about equality for women and then lets her cohorts ignore her.  Sweet Lady Gaga.

    Surprise, surprise. This morning’s topic was the 2016 presidential election and the ongoing public concern with the health of the two leading candidates – a concern that became a firestorm of news items after Secretary Clinton had to leave a 9-11 ceremony in New York this past weekend due to a highly classified secret that she had pneumonia. She needed three days of bed rest before rejoining the fray that is her life right now. I hope no one tells the semi-attractive Bible lady that HRC was in bed – the Bible lady might just vote for Trump who is not in bed and is in a dead heat with Hillary according to the most recent polls.

    Noted famous TV personality Dr. Oz interviewed Donald Trump about his general health on his wildly popular TV show and Mr. Trump produced a two-page note signed by his mother releasing him to run for President. Just kidding – the note was signed by a certified doctor who proclaimed him fit to serve…for something.

    Sigh. Then the Morning Joe conversation went downhill from there when visiting opinionated person Donny Deutsch interjected the interesting fact that 40 – 60% of men Donald Trump’s  70 years of age have erectile dysfunction.  Neither Mika nor I wanted to think about that fact. Charly barked at the TV and ran upstairs to get back in bed with Pretty. Spike jumped down from the living room sofa and walked back to get into his crate in the laundry room. Alas, only Mika and I wandered in the wilderness of erectile dysfunction together until the clock struck 9 and thankfully, Morning Joe was over.

    Tomorrow I plan to sleep until 9 o’clock. How many days until the Australian Open in 2017…hm…too many. Maybe I can get the Singapore tournament on the Tennis Channel – it’s almost like a Grand Slam.