Number 8

Seeing as how the time to 29+1 is ticking by quite quickly I decided it was time to get moving on some of my goals.  While Everyday Brother was home I accomplished #8 on The List. 

We bypassed the busy, fancy driving range and visited the driving range with the purple dino putt putt.  One of the reasons I added "golf at a driving range" to my list is because it is something I had never done.  I often want to try new things but am anxious about doing them myself.  This is especially true if it is something where the possibility of embarrassment is high.

Think about it.  When is the last time you have tried something totally new?  I had to figure out how to get balls, borrow (rent?) a club, which club to borrow/rent, which stall to pick, how to swing the club, what the appropriate noise/excitement level was or what the etiquette for hitting the ball when someone is next to you. (Does this sound familiar?)  Luckily Everyday Brother was there to save me from myself (and he only teased me about taking pictures once). We got our balls and were on our way.

When we arrived, there was only one other individual there and judging by the sound of his club hitting the ball, he was no amateur.  So I selected a stall far away from him so I wouldn't disturb him with my lack of golf skills (and general obnoxiousness).

I will admit that trying to hit a tiny ball 7483 yards only to have it land on a small green area sounds difficult.  But I never imagined that driving balls off a tee would leave me sore the next day.  Well...it is kind of a whole body activity.  I just assumed that you swing and if you miss you swing again.  Not quite.  You're supposed to bring back your arms, then shoulders, then twist your hips while lifting up the heel of one foot...and that is just the back swing.  Not only was I unable to master do a proper back swing but trying to then hit the ball was really hard.

So today my arms are a bit sore because apparently I was swinging with my arms instead of using my body's momentum. 

My goal was to hit the ball at least 100 yards.  Well...I maybe hit 85 yards...once.  But after I got the swing of things (get it?) most of my balls passed 50 yards.  So basically I won. 

I'm glad that I did tried something new AND crossed something off The List. 

    

Tuesday is for Bowling

Remember the time I violated several social mores in less than two hours?

Last night I went bowling...as a substitute for an adult, Candlepin bowling league with people from work.  (For you non New England folk:  Candlepin bowling is 10 skinny pins and a tiny ball...not to be confused with big-ball-bowling a.k.a. Duckpin bowling.)

For the last 10 years of my life, any and all bowling has consisted of late nights spent at The Cove (what up Nawaka) drinking drinks and tossing big balls down blacklit, cosmic alleys.  While I haven't been baby ball Candlepin bowling since middle school I thought I would give it a shot.  How hard could it be?

Well.  This was a bowling league.  Sadly, there were no matching polo shirts and K and I were the youngest people by at least 15 years.  To start, there was no automatic scoring system.  I made an older man friend who taught me the finer points of Candlepin scoring.

I also learned that there are A LOT of rules for bowling.  Like don't use the blue balls (because someone brought them from home), don't bowl when the person next to you is bowling, don't step over the line, don't aim for the pins, don't get a frame ahead of your competition, don't throw the ball, take three steps, left leg first, keep your hand flat, ring the bell when you get a strike, knocking pins down with the gutter pins doesn't count, release the ball like you are patting a child's diapered bottom (advice from my old man friend) and don't tell the other teams that you actually bowled 6 balls without knocking down a pin when your scoring sheet only says you bowled three.

The first game I bowled a 44.  Yes.  I bowled 30 balls and knocked down 44 pins.  But I got better!

And despite my overall suckiness, I was invited back...although they said something about a handicap.  Hmm.

Also...do you like how I added 12 + 9 and got 31?  Yes, I teach math to second graders.

   

This Post Is Going To Make Me Some Enemies

Let me preface this by saying I know this is going to sound sacrilegious...especially to my Boston Brethren.  Okay...here we go. 

I couldn't care less about the Bruins.

Before you freak out and start commenting that "OMG they haven't made it to the Stanley Cup in 200 years and it's just like when the Red Sox were in the World Series in 2004", let me explain.  I don't follow hockey.  At all.  Ever. 

The only things I know about hockey are:
My home team is the Bruins.
I think a Bruin is a bear.
But their colors are black and yellow...which seem more reminiscent of a bumble bee.
Skates, pucks, nets, and helmets are involved.
It happens on ice.
Men are allowed to legally assault each other in public...and they get paid for it.

At what point do hockey players start taking boxing lessons?  It's all very Gladiator.  The crowd starts cheering and gets all lynch mobby while the ref stands by watching the fight, stopping them only before the blood hits the ice because I imagine at that point it would become a health code violation and they would have to stop the game to prevent the spread of HIV.

I've only been to two hockey games in my life and both were college games.  If my life depended on naming three hockey players I would be dead.  I can name Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe (only because I've seen the movie Never Been Kissed a million times) and even then, if I didn't Google their names before typing this post I would have spelled them: Wayne Gretski and Gordy Howe.

I know that being in the playoffs extends a sports season but seriously...it is June 9th!  It is 327 degrees out today...any sports involving ice should have ended by March...at the latest!