LifePundit

Back from Holden Beach, North Carolina

You probably figured it out, but I've been on vacation. This required a flurry beforehand as I prepared for vacation, then the vacation itself, then the flurry afterwards as I tried to remember what I do when I'm either not in a flurry or on vacation.

We went to Holden Beach, N.C., and stayed at The Barnacle, my favorite place. I was a little girl when Jak Smyrl, my cousin and idol, carved this sea captain's head on a support beam of the house. I think I'd gotten into trouble the week before for writing on the walls, so seeing Jak carve up part of his house left quite an impression. I'd like to go to the house every year, but we don't seem to make it that often. When I see the crusty old sea captain's face, I feel like I'm visiting an old friend.

Here's my favorite reading place. I love the beach but sunburn easily. Holden Beach has a rough, challenging ocean and is often windy. Here are the before and after pictures. As you can see, I was blown out of my reading spot.

Should It Matter if You Make a Grunting Noise on the Tennis Court?

A girl in Australia has been told she can't continue to place tennis at her club if she keeps up the grunting sounds while she plays. Here's an excerpt from Fox:

(Her father says) "There's no rule against it, so they've made a rule against it."

 

Edwards said the club had asked him for an assurance Lauryn would remain silent on the court.

 

"They told me to guarantee she won't grunt or she can't play," he said.

 

"How can I guarantee that? She's been doing it since she was really little. She's her own person. What do they want me to do? Put Band-Aids over her mouth? They made her cry on the court when they told her."

 

Lauryn, who has attention deficit disorder, has been playing tennis since the age of four, after it was recommended by her school psychologist at Sunbury Primary to burn energy and keep her focused.

 

Dubbed Lauryn Sharapova by an old coach, she said she played better when grunting.

 

"It feels natural to do my noise. I'm not faking it," Lauryn said. "It makes me play better. When I don't do it, I don't play my best tennis. And now people have told me I can't play if I do it."

Oh, PLEASE! If I were really nice this post would read: What!? They're telling an 8-year-old girl she can't make obnoxious grunting noises on the tennis court while she plays?

Her parents should sue them for damaging her self-esteem and some kind of restraint-of-play thing. It's just awful. You can't make guttural sounds on the tennis court when you play? This is against all human dignity. Plus she's got ADD -- you people are just cruel.

But instead, I'm going to say, "Can you make that universal?" Aerobics instructors shouldn't squeal. And tennis players shouldn't grunt.

Do surgeons need to make odd, offensive noises while they operate? Do dressage riders have to grunt when they're asking for a really hard movement (the answer is "no" and they'd be penalized if they did)? Shut up on the tennis courts, okay? All of you. If you get hit in the belly really, really hard, then, okay. You can grunt. But otherwise, how about restoring some class and dignity to the game?

Do You Want to Kiss Everyone in the Room?

I'd rather watch the ads than the SuperBowl. Paul and I discussed having a SuperBowl party this year, but after reading this from the New York Times about the germs you'll get from people double-dipping their chips (or carrot sticks) in the dip, well, we may as well be talking about throwing an orgy. Read this excerpt:

Professor Dawson said that Timmy (from Seinfeld) was essentially correct. “The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you.”

Hat tip to Al Dente.

They'll be no such party at our house! (Translation: I found an excuse not to have to clean up and cook.)

Tennis, Christianity and "Grand Slams"

Until my parents got so infirm, I was on a tennis team. I'm a terrible tennis player but tennis is fun. (My father once watched a match and commented, "You sure are better at riding horses.")

There's something that I've been mulling over about tennis, Christianity, sportsmanship and appropriate strategy. In tennis in my town some people will intentionally hit you with a ball. One coach in town teaches his teams to aim at the other players and we were all extra prepared whenever we had to face them. A tennis ball can hurt -- or do serious damage to an eye. The justification for "grand slams" at you is to intimidate you, get you to move to a less aggressive location on the tennis court or to punish you for line calls or other behavior they don't like.

It's widely done. My husband found out he was playing against a doubles team where the woman had the reputation for hitting other players -- on purpose. Sure enough, she aimed at him four or five times (he was playing at the net). On the sixth try she hit him hard in the privates, and then acted surprised and apologetic.

He walked around for a while trying to calm down as much as anything else. He wasn't going to let her win this mental game through bad sportsmanship and intimidation.

When they resumed play, the woman's partner sent an easy lob to my husband. He says he doesn't know what came over him, but that ball was just hanging in the air, and the next thing he knew, he hit it harder than he has ever hit a ball and aimed it right at the woman who'd hit him. She got a racquet on it, so she wasn't hit, but she lost the point. She was furious. She yelled, "I said I'm sorry."

He said, "You might have been sorry for the time you hit me, but I don't think you're sorry for the five times you tried to hit me and missed. If you're going to live by the sword, you'd better be prepared to die by the sword."

She didn't hit any more shots at my husband or his partner. My husband feels bad about all this as it wasn't very gentlemanly or very Christian of him. I said it wasn't very ladylike of her.  Especially since she has a reputation for such things. Still, it's hard to think that intentionally hitting anyone is ever okay. We wouldn't tolerate this in our children.

I don't know her, but I know some Christian women players who have no guilt with hitting their opponents. One bragged to me about how she slammed one woman who kept making bad line calls. I was shocked by this. She plays as often as she can and she plays to win. She has called me to play with her, telling me she can teach me how to win. I have declined.

I was even more shocked when Lily was playing volleyball with this Christian woman's daughter, and the daughter slammed the ball into Lily. Apparently, she thought Lily was intentionally messing up their game. (Lily has my lack of skills in games involving balls.) Lily was physically and mentally hurt and shocked to be treated this way by a friend. The friend later explained that she had done it on purpose to teach Lily a lesson and apologized since she realized Lily wasn't playing like that on purpose....

When games quit being games, people need to quit playing.