Tom's Ball Smells Like Apple Pie
by Scott Hardie on August 23, 2014
For the last four months, I've spent Tuesdays at a bowling alley playing in a just-for-fun league. Score was kept, but the mood was friendly and non-competitive, except for one of my teammates who kept competing with us instead of the other teams. :-)
I struggled with it at first, partly because I thought I was signing up for a six-week league and it turned out to be a sixTEEN-week league, and partly because my skills had somehow diminished even though I'm in better shape now. I used to be a halfway decent bowler, earning 120-150 points per game, but in this league I was averaging 70-90 points per game and throwing a lot of gutterballs. It took me a month to make peace with the fact that I was just a worse bowler now, at which point I relaxed and started having more fun with it, although I did eventually get back up to my usual scores in the last few games. Instead of focusing on the points, I set a more modest goal of throwing at least one strike per night, which I managed to pull off every time. My best night saw maybe six strikes. At no point did anyone else in the league approach Chris's level; I think the highest score that I saw was around 245.
It was good to spend time with these guys. It started as a "work league" with two friends from my company, Joandy and Tom, plus Tom's partner Mark as our fourth player. Tom is a more serious bowler who I can tell has played for many years (he's the one who earned that 245 score), while Joandy is a competitive joker who can't help but kid everyone about their scores (and himself on the rare nights when he bowls badly), and Mark is a relaxed and friendly presence. Injuries and a pre-existing condition took a toll on Mark over the season, so Kelly took Mark's place on the team for the final month and was thrilled to get out and get exercise. She would have kept playing with Joandy and Tom in the fall league, but she's going to be busy working overtime. As for me, I'm opting out of future seasons to spend my Tuesdays on long-ignored projects, including a board-game meetup group that I really miss, since I haven't seen them since before the wedding. I had a good time bowling, though, and I'm glad that I did this.
The title of this blog post was my proposed (and rightly rejected) name for the team, which was said aloud on the first night. When Tom originally bought a bowling ball at the pro shop, they offered to make it a scented ball, and for whatever reason, he chose apple pie over other scents. We had fun trying to get Kelly to sniff his ball the first time she played: "No way! I know how guys do that! His ball stinks like sweat or something, and you're telling me that it smells like apple pie so that I'll put my face up to it and sniff, and then you'll laugh at me!" No, really: As creepy as it sounds, Tom's ball really does smell like apple pie.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Redundancy
Can we add "information overload" to the list of phrases retired from the language due to clichéd overuse? It is apparently now used to describe anything remotely intense. Go »Illinois 2014
Kelly and I are home after a week on the road visiting family and friends in Illinois. I wish that we had more time to see more people, but I'm also glad that we got out of town before the sub-freezing temperatures returned. It was important to us to spend time with Kelly's father and brother since this was the first Christmas after her mother passed away, and most of the trip was spent just being a family. Go »Sinners and Losers
Last week, Katherine Harris publicly denounced the first amendment, calling it "a lie" and said that we were supposed to be a nation of religious law. She also said that not to vote for a Christian is to vote for sin. (link) Apparently in Florida that gets you elected: Yesterday she enjoyed a landslide 50% victory over her competitors in the Senate Republican primary despite a bumbling campaign. Go »Only in the Web Era
Victim's cell phone is stolen on subway. Thief takes photos of his own wife, family, dog, and home. Cell phone automatically uploads them to victim's Flickr account. Go »Notes from Milwaukee So Far
Bad flight Friday. Late dinner at the local 24-hour Greek diner, first pasta I've had in a week and so good. Matt thought the waitress was ignoring us; I thought she was attentive. Go »
