Scratch

Barb had an urgent need to scratch her back and grabbed a pair of scissors she had beside her chair that she uses for her knitting. Then she gave herself a 2 inch gash on her back. Who uses a pair of scissors to scratch their back?

Jimmy

I went over to Jimmy Parkins house in St Thomas to watch the Tiger Cat playoff football game. Jimmy went out to get something to snack on and while he was out I tried to hook up to his wifi so I could message Barb and tell her I had arrived safe. I checked his router and his passcode was 270012242466210046663859236. I am dyslexic with numbers so you can imagine how many times I had to try the passcode before I got it right.

Peter

We kept getting these strange messages on our answering machine. They were from someone called Peter Sartorelli who we had never heard of. He kept asking us to pick him up and drive him places. We thought it was a one time mistake but he kept phoning again and again. Barb finally found his name in the community phone book and phoned him back. She told him he had the wrong person. He thanked Barb but Barb had to listen to his life story before she could hang up the phone.

Library

I drove to the library to pick up an actual book that I put on hold. I don't read very many real books. I only read ebooks and listen to audio books. So I don't know the library hours. I got to the library at 3:30 and there were no cars in the parking lot. I got out of my car and read the sign on the door and found out the library closed at 3 pm. I was mad but I was glad I hadn't walked to the library like I usually do.

Voting

We went out to vote at the recreation center and there was a guy there who noticed my fastball jacket and we started talking. He used to be a big time fastball coach and his son now plays on the Waterdown Hammer Legends team. We talked until they kicked us out. After we had run out of things to say about fastball, we started to talk about Barb's pickleball. Barb had to describe to him what pickleball was. Barb got mad at me when I said how great it was that Barb can now play in the 65 and over category. Barb said I'm not 65. She is only 60. I guess I meant to say 60 and over but that didn't make Barb any less mad.

Stan

I was having a video chat with my friend Stan and looked up something called Intergovernmental Committee on Futures and Forecasting. I found a selected works of George R. Lindsey who used to be our old boss and the book listed Stan as a contributor. On the cover was a picture of George Lindsey as a young man talking at a blackboard with a drawing of a baseball diamond on the chalk board. George Lindsey was one of the first people to do scientific analysis of baseball statistics back in the 1950's. I had read all of his papers in the journals when I studied baseball statistics back in the 1980's.

Tee Shirt

Barb was commenting on the nice t-shirt her friend had on. Then a couple of days later, Barb got an identical beautiful t-shirt from the friend who has a screen printing business. Unfortunately, it was too small even though it was supposed to be a men's XL.

People in the Way

Laura gave Barb her iPad to film her routine at the competition but Barb found that no matter what she did there were always heads in the way. Then the girl beside us who heard Barb complaining explained to Barb that she had her thumb over the camera.

Cousin

Ali said that his cousin saw us a Starbucks in Milton the other day. He recognized us because of Laura's hair. His cousin said Barb slammed the door on him but he said I was very nice to him. I held the door for him and said I was sorry for Barb and Laura slamming the door. You see it is important to be nice to everyone you meet. You never know who is watching.

Fit to be Tied

Barb was fit to be tied when Laura only got third place in the competition because she thought Laura was so much better than the other competitors. The first and second place winners didn't do any difficult moves and were really boring. The audience didn't appreciate them, the way they reacted to Laura's routine. We were discussing it all the way home from Toronto and it took us a long time to get out of Toronto because we were caught in the traffic jam caused by the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game that ended at the same time as the competition. After a while I understood what happened although Barb still thought it wasn't fair. The judges started every competitor with 10 points and then subtracted points for every little mistake they saw. So Laura had a lot of little mistakes because she did a lot of very difficult moves. The first and second place finishers didn't do any difficult moves so they didn't get any points taken away and ended with a better score than Laura.

Hair

Laura's routine was really well received by the audience. They all were screaming about the great moves she did. After she was finished the lady sitting in front of us turned around and told us how great Laura had done. A girl from one of the earlier competitions came up to us to say that Laura had killed all her moves and she had never seen a better routine. When Laura came back up to sit with us and watch the remaining routines, the guy sitting beside us said he now he not only liked her for her hair but also liked her for her pole ability. They all talked about how great Laura's spatchcock was and Laura had been so worried about it. She talked about it nonstop for the whole week she was with us before the competition but it went great and everyone loved it. We finally found out what a spatchcock was. It has almost as stupid a name as pickleball.

Food

Laura and Barb and I went to Toronto for Laura's pole competition and got there in the afternoon but Laura's event was the very last one and was late in the evening. So we sat and watched all the events in the afternoon and early evening. Laura brought a bag full of snacks which came in handy because we were there right through dinner time. There were rules in the theatre against bringing food in and we had to sneak it because there was a theatre lady standing at the bottom of the stairs watching us all very closely all day.

Ladies

Barb found a video on Facebook that she laughed at which was a take off the Beyonce song but danced by old ladies called All the Wrinkled Ladies.

USB Music Stick

I had to copy all of my music onto a USB memory stick because it was taking up too much room on my computer and I was running out of memory on my hard drive. This was okay because I had two identical music memory sticks one I could leave in the car and one I could use in my computers. On the way home from the airport with Laura, we were listening to my music and Laura laughed because I had the random setting on and the songs went from a heavy metal band Thursday that was Laura's old CD to All the Single Ladies by Beyonce which was one of Barb's songs.

Google Maps

Barb showed me how to use Google Maps on my phone to get directions to the cellphone parking lot at the airport for when I was picking up Laura. Google Maps kept telling me that I was there but it didn't look familiar to me and I had been there before. I drove around and around and eventually found the cell phone parking lot. When Laura texted me to tell me she had arrived I went out of the parking lot and realized that Google Maps had been directing me to a new cell phone parking lot that I didn't know existed.

Women's Championships

I wanted to go and see the Canadian Women's Fastball Championship in Kitchener and drove to the ball park in the evening of the first day and found the park lights on but the park was deserted. There was a big scoreboard up. So I looked at the schedule and all of the games were over because the games were played during the day. There were no evening games on the schedule.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Barb had a pickleball tournament on the same weekend that I was coaching the fastball tournament. Barb came home a winner with $100 and I came home a winner with $50.

Bed Early

I was coaching the Waterloo Wizards in the Burlington Tournament and driving back and forth to Burlington every day. It was about an hour and half drive. We were short of players so I had to play first base as well as coach for a game and a half. I hadn't played first base since I was in Florida in April and this was now October. So even though I only played a game and a half I was tired and sore after the games that day. I went to bed on Saturday night at 8 pm and slept until 8 am.

Fish and Chips

We had our team party for the Red Sox at the local pub in New Hamburg and I had fish and chips which is what I always have when I eat out. I order fish and chips whenever I can because Barb never wants to cook fish and chips for me. While I was eating, we were talking, I tried to say something but I had fish and chips in my mouth and choked on my food. I started coughing and my eyes starting watering but I tried to keep on talking but my voice was very soft and I was struggling to be heard. I was talking and talking while I was choking and the guys on my team sat there and pretended that nothing was happening.

Pause Button

Barb was telling me about her friend who has a button on her headphones that she can push to pause the sound on her phone. She was telling me how great it would be if I had one too because people are often stopping me during my walk and I have to take out my phone and struggle to pause my audio books so that I can talk to them and not miss anything in my book. Then she noticed that I had a button on my headphones too and we tested it and it paused my audio book just like her friend's.

Geese and Ducks

There were hundreds of ducks and geese in the park down by the river in New Hamburg and I took a few pictures on my phone to show Barb when I got home from my walk. I forgot to show them to Barb and many days later Google photos reminded me I hadn't shown the pictures to Barb.

Data

At the park and ride where we were meeting Sarah to go to the Labour Day football game, Barb said could send Laura a message because Laura has data.  So Barb sent Laura a message and then she realized that it didn't work because she (Barb) doesn't have data.

Steps

Barb didn't want to pay for parking when we went to the Labour Day football game in Hamilton. We found a free parking spot on the street but had to walk a long way to get to the stadium. We didn't mind too much because we wanted to get our steps in for our Fitibit Workweek Hustle with Haleigh. Barb was afraid we would not be able to find our car after the game but I was able to retrace our steps and we found our car with no problem.

Expert

Sarah brought us to the Labour Day Tiger Cat game against the Argonauts for my birthday and Barb immediately became a football expert criticizing the Tiger Cats quarterback and their receivers. The Tiger Cats had a poor first half and were losing but they had a great second half and won the game easily.