Martin had lesson at the Cunningham where I have been playing for the past 10 years or so on the weekend mornings. As family, we’ve there been couple of times for the New York Philharmonic with our neighbors few years ago. It’s bit windy but warm enough for out door tennis. Slowpoke chuckled when she saw so many players were greeting me, “mom, how many people do you know?” lol . . . it’s also first time they saw Slowpoke. When she took lesson, I played with Kevin the Aussie. It’s pretty intense one hour hitting. At the end, he said, “your back seemed holding up nicely.” What back? Do I have one? Oh the painful one. It never exists till it starts bothering me, lol.. After her lesson, Katie came back and they played for an hour. Katie’s mom is also non stop picking up balls, gosh … I must be the laziest mom around. While they were playing, Martha (?) kept telling Katie what to do, to a point when Katie stopped and told her mom to be quiet. Thank god I have enough self restrain, haven’t done so yet. But I do talk with her, in private. Especially when we drive to the lesson, I found it’s a good time to bring up the subject, we always have good chat. Obvious she hasn’t watched enough tennis to know all the terms, so when Martin commented that she has flat forehand, she asked me what does it mean during one of her ball-retrieval trips. Sweet pie, lol .. don’t worry too much, do what’s comfortable n nature to you. She hits her flat forehand deep, which is better than mine. Was that Simon repeatedly telling me, hit it deep to the baseline?? So here you have it, flat might afford less options, but if you can hit it deep, it is effective. She also asked when can she switch to single hand back hand. Have you been reading my blog, baby? She complains that double handed backhand gives her less reach, and less flexibility. Single hand backhand? Sounds like music to my ears.
Archive for Saga
Great to be swimming again
“Are you going to swim?”
This morning kids asked when they saw my dusty duffel bag.
Yes indeed I am.
It’s wonderful, the pool was kind of empty, Jen was there, my favored life guard who is the only one that regulates the pool.
“Did you do the flip turns?” Slowpoke asked me this afternoon.
“No love, my back still feels tender..” so after 20 or so laps, I gave up. In the parking lot, I ran into May and Yolanda the duo, “haven’t seen you in ages..” they exclaimed. Sorry gurls … we used to do lunch/dinner at least once a month. Lord, as I was driving away, thought to myself, is 40-lap a challenge now? Wah called again for tennis, is this going to be a regular thing now? Cool, only my back is not cooperating, 🙁
Love Thy Neighbors, 2006
Something happened yesterday afternoon: Martin (A black prosecutor fm Florida, who teaches tennis while waiting to pass his NY bar exam) was giving tennis lesson to my kids in the North Middle school. There are five courts, all individually separated, all with 2 hops on each side of the court. It was very deserted on the campus, except 4 ladies in one court and anther taken by a coach with a boy. Half way through the lesson, I saw couple of young men walked toward us with basketball. They didn’t pass by us; instead they walked into our court. One of them started talking to Martin while he was feeding balls to my kids.
Young man 1: “When are you finishing up?”
Martin, shrugged, “30 more minutes.”
YM 1: “I am sorry but can you move to another court, hoops in this court are better than the others.”
I was glad that Martin replied, “why can’t you wait for 30 minutes till we finish here?”
YM 2: “But there are 10 of us, we have to wait for 30 minutes?”
Martin “Tough love.”
More young men have arrived and they all piled into our court. Some stood, some sat, some discussing loudly why can’t they have the court and why don’t we just pack up and move. Some even started shooting the hoop.
YM 3: “Why don’t you just move, so we can play. …. It’ll be dark by the time you finished. … We play here every day ….” It was 5pm.
Martin clearly the heaviest and tallest one, but couple of YMs were bumping chest with him with sound bit of f words. A fight were about to begin. I walked toward them, “get off the court now, we are not moving. You wait for your turn.”
The YMs left Martin and turned to me.
YM 1 said, “I can help you to move the stuff to another court.”
YM 3, “if you don’t let us play here, you are not going to play here either.” And he walked toward the net and trying to lie down. I asked the YM 1 where are they from?
“We all from here, this is our school.”
YM 2 who’s very short, came over, shouted at me repeatedly, “you don’t understand.” Pointing to Martin, “maybe you can explain to her …”
“Which part of it you think that I don’ understand?” I asked, trying to contain my anger and disbelieve. I didn’t want to lose my temper in front of my kids.
“Your English is fine, but you just don’t understand. ….”
“Guys, off the court. Is this the way you’d like your mother be treated?” Martin asked.
Actually few of them got bit quieter. But YM 2 and 3 won’t relent. YM 2 shouting, “my mother would have moved, she is reasonable …” There were 9 of them, some are seniors and others are off to college. All in shape, white (or Persian) and mostly are tall. I felt very threatened. So I called police, without a notion as what the police would do.
YM1, “you don’t have to call police. I was nice to you. We’ll move.” So by the time police got here with one female officer, in 4 cars – FOUR CARS – the group has moved to the next court. The officers, had to raise their voice, told them to go home. As they were reluctantly departing, YM 1 who was the last to leave, holding the basketball, said to me, “would you please ask the officer to allow us, the few nice ones to play here? Some of us are leaving next week for college…” I started to walk toward the officers who were also leaving, but then I changed my mind.
I stood on the grass, as did the officers, watching them got into their shimmering convertibles, roadsters and SUVs, and sped off.
I asked the officer who stood next to me, “has this type of thing happened before?”
“No.” he replied sternly.
“Was it appropriate by calling the police?” I was really helpless and felt violated.
“We are here to protect you if you felt threatened.”
Martin said quietly that should those kids are black some of them would have been in jail. Hmmmm. I didn’t know what to say. Part of my anger is from the fact that those thogs put my kids through the ugly bullying. But on the same token, I was glad that I was there to see how they handled it, providing some support. They can’t and won’t live in the glass jar, sooner or later they’ll have to face the world on their own.
We finished our lesson and I was surprised to see the police cars were still around – the courts are on a small mount. The female office didn’t leave till I started the engine. In the car, Martin said (I’ve heard this one few times before) that when he teaches in my town, the kids often ask ‘why’ 10 times till they get what they want. Those are my neighbors.
This is the second time I experienced blatant condescending treatment by my fellow humans. The first time? Munich, 1991, in a restaurant similar to The Palm, the blonde waitress flatly refused to serve us.
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The Bookstore
Barnes and Noble at Lincoln Center
Ever since they could voice their likes and dislikes, bookstore has been my kids’ top destination. The other day, Martin the coach commented that King is nature to tennis, even he’s out of shape and tired, but he never gives up. Pumpkin on the other hand has the attitude as if she’d rather be shopping. When I related this comment to her,
“Shopping?” she rolled her eyes and replied
“I’d rather be in a bookstore.”
Bookstore it is. Today we the girls went there again, for solid 3 hours. I often joked that I’ll pack her a lunch box (plus diaper .. JK .. but just how early on they wanted to go ..) and just leave her there for the day. In fact, they often tell me to go away (guess I’m too embarrassing for them) and will call me when they want to leave.
When we got home, Golfer and King were home from the movie. When King heard we went to the bookstore, he was upset.
“I wanted to go too!”
Oh, sorry honey, next time.
“But I told you yesterday.” He insisted.
Oh boy. Actually he was right. My fault, either over looked or forgot. My senior moment got in the way, -:(
We have no life at home, going to book store is such an exciting trip ..
The sound of music
Ok, pull me down if I sounded bit ecstatic or overjoyed, but my kids finally take to tennis! And they genuinely enjoy it, that’s the part I love the most. I’ve been waiting for this day since the day they were born, or long before they were even born (I played during my first trimester both times and dreamed of playing one day with them), :). Over the years, I’ve taken them to mini camps, lessons, and played with them, but they showed very little enthusiasm. So I didn’t push (can I claim that I nurtured them??). They seemed taking to swimming and ski more than tennis. Now their level of playing getting bit better and there is a lot of fun hitting back and forth, I think the ‘hibernation’ over the years had paid off, the good effect. Sometimes kids take to thing bit slow, actually it is with adults too. I call this as long period of hibernation that you subconsciously digest the info and let it grow a bit; it’ll come together eventually. They both have pretty good forms and especially Slowmo, whose rather powerful drive is “impressive” … ‘excuse me’ as Martin, the pro said to me. Martin called him KingLazy. The sound of ball bouncing off their forehands are the music to my ears, :))) and seeing them happily running around the court, I am more than gratified; I am over the moon!
