One and Done, nope, not me

Three and Done (for now). I recently completed my third week of tennis camp. Exhausted doesn’t begin to describe how I ache. But persevere, I have, and I’m sure the makers of Advil are celebrating my stubbornness and my dependence on their miracle drug.

With all that time and money spent, you’d think I’d be scouted to play at Wimbledon, but nope. I am relegated to my usual but fun, regular games. And I am grateful that I can still play, have friends to play with, and have not been sidelined with injuries.

I mentioned earlier that I was a little helter-skelter this year with my garden “design.”

I am now realizing that along with my random planting style and the birds, bees, and squirrels contributing theirs, it will be an interesting season.

Possibly because I planted my cabbage too close, the heads are growing conically instead of roundly. Along with my cone-head cabbages, the volunteer tomato plants are not the beautiful accordion tomatoes but cherry tomatoes. I should have about a million of those to harvest.

I was so excited to see that after planting about ten Armenian cucumber seeds and six plants, the leaves were getting larger, and fruit appeared. But, after a closer look, it’s a breed of zucchini that I didn’t plant.

There are a few potential cucumber plants, but they are only spindly leaves with pathetic flowers. I may have gone from an overabundance of cucumbers the last two years to none this year. I wonder if I can trade someone cherry tomatoes for cucumbers. Any takers?

Under the rule of three, some say, “things happen in threes,” and although I usually don’t subscribe to that philosophy, I may have to rethink my disbelief. A few years ago, I came within inches of hitting a deer (my worst fear after frozen water pipers). It was on a foggy morning drive to the airport for an early flight to Seattle. The deer and I suddenly came face to face, staring each other down, but I could drive around him and made it to the airport in time for my flight. A little shaken, I was lucky that Alaska Air still poured coffee, wine, or beer. The wine was a welcome sedative.

A few weeks ago, I heard a loud thump while driving to Walla Walla for my morning tennis game. I realized a bird had flown into my windshield and was now “roadkill.” At least there was no damage to my windshield. The outcome was not as good yesterday.

While on my way to Walla Walla, enjoying the cool morning temperatures, with my top down, cruising along around 62 miles per hour, I saw something in my peripheral vision heading towards me. I think it was a turkey. It crashed onto my windshield so fast it was hard to be sure. All I saw was a big bird, a long neck, dark feathers, and the rest a blur.

My first reaction was anger over my broken windshield, then I felt bad for the giant bird, and finally, relief that the bird didn’t land inside my car. It would have been a mess to clean up after needing to sweet talk someone into removing the injured or dead bird from my car.

I am three and done with Tennis Camp until October. I hope I’m three and done with animal obstacles and crashes on the highway!