Game time

Summer brings playtime, of which I have had plenty, since I do next to no work whatsoever. At the top of my fun list this summer is softball -- I'm playing on Eric's work co-ed intramural softball team across the river in Jeffersonville. I've never played softball before, have horrible memories of high school gym class softball, and have almost no idea of the inner workings of softball/baseball (just my luck that my boyfriend is a huge baseball freak) in terms of strategy, but I decided, what the heck, it's all for fun. Plus, I've been pleasantly surprised by intramural sports before (flashback to grad school girls' flag football -- very fun times).

We play every Tuesday night, and our team is made up of a mix of younger people, including myself and Eric, his boss Shea, a girl named Ashley whose mom works for the paper, and Ashley's husband Daniel, and older people, like Mike the guy who's running the team, his sister-in-law Marcie, and her husband Terry. Daniel and Shea have obvious softball/baseball experience, and are quite good, even though the guys in this league have to bat opposite-handed. Everyone tries their hardest and generally gets hits, but some of the older people don't run so fast, so we're often tagged out at first base, but it's OK. The other teams are, as far as we can tell, chock-full of ex-softball and -baseball players -- people who may have played at the college varsity level, even. In comparison, we suck. We are 0-4, but we have a great time, and that's what counts, right?

My greatest-softball- moment-ever came last week in the second game of a double-header. We had already lost the first game by quite a few runs. I was playing third base, having come up from left field the week before. I was doing fairly well fielding the ball, other than an early mistake where I threw to first instead of tagging out the runner coming from second, and having a grand time. I don't remember which inning it was, but there were two outs and the next batter came up. He (or she; I don't remember the details) hit the ball hard along the third base line, and without even thinking, I reached my arm up and across and jumped for it. I felt the ball hit my glove and stick, and I looked at it in disbelief as everyone started cheering. I caught an out! Don't think for a moment that I played it cool, either; I started jumping up and down and cheering like the girlie girl I am. I should note that when Eric and I practice catching, I don't always do very well, especially with those "complex" pitches, so I had no expectation of catching anything like that ball in a game, ever. Nevertheless, that catch won me the game ball award. We ended up losing 10-9, and it came down to the last pitch in the last inning (see Eric's comments regarding being the last batter), but it was so much fun.

This week we re-played a team from the very first week, and they beat us just as badly as before, but I'm looking forward to playing that 10-9 team again, because we can definitely beat them, I'm sure of it. (This week I was also moved up to right field, which is better than it sounds, because the guys all bat left-handed, so right field gets a lot of action. Now I have pressure to perform!)

Another fun summertime game is poker. Normally, that sentence wouldn't make too much sense empirically, but it's summer and I'm having fun playing poker, so it works for me. I played Texas Hold'Em in a casino for the first time ever this week, and I did fairly well. I've played in home games with various people and have even played a few hands online (online poker in general holds no attraction for me, though), but the only things I've ever done at a casino are slots and blackjack. Eric convinced me it was time to try, and, with his money at stake instead of mine, my heart was a little more at ease :) We managed to sit down together at a 2-4 limit table (we even had seats next to each other), and at my highest point, I was up at least $60. Unfortunately, it all trickled away so I ended the night down $20, but all in all, it wasn't that bad.

My two big hands were full houses that shocked everyone at the table, and it's always nice to win that way. Especially the second full house, queens full of nines, that totally killed the guy I was going heads-up with. I think he was impressed; I noticed him glancing at me the rest of the night in a way that was not normal poker scrutiny. Eric said guys love having a girl at the table, and apparently it's true. Too bad the casino is too cold for me to take real advantage (read: dress a little skimpier) and play the dumb-girl-who-doesn't-know-how-to-play-poker role. I'd like to at least give it a shot!

At least my poker-playing jitters are gone, and I know I can play (without Eric) if I find myself in that situation again. Eric doesn't like 2-4 limit (neither do I, actually, but I'm too poor to play anything else), so I wouldn't make him play with me again; plus, it's silly to sit at the same table with people you know and pass your money around to each other.

And last night, we walked down to Fourth Street Live for a cheap dinner at Red Star (I bought a $25 gift certificate at Restaurant.com for $5; you have to spend $35 to redeem the $25, and we splurged a bit and bought a half-price bottle of wine so our pre-certificate bill was $49), followed by a couple of rounds of bowling at Lucky Strike. Normally we don't bowl there since it's so expensive, but the wine had left us with a nice buzz and we were feeling adventerous. I normally wouldn't expect to bowl very well after a bottle of wine, but I actually bowled one of my best games ever (a 125; I can't remember if it's my best or not) and kicked Eric's butt in both games, so maybe that's telling me something. My highlight was two strikes in a row followed by a very-near strike. My low point came in the next frame, when the red pin showed up in the center, and I went and got an employee to witness what I was sure would be another strike (in which case, you win a party for 25 people!). Needless to say, not only did I NOT get a strike, I threw a total gutter ball. The guy laughed and gave me a high-five anyway, but I was mad at being jinxed. Oh well.

This weekend, I'm excited for a hot dog-tasting event for the newspaper on Sunday. I'm not sure of the details, but I think I'm going to be eating a lot of hot dogs, so I'm gearing up. It's a competition with my own stomach even if there's no one else to race with.