Passing of the Gavel at Rio
Posted on September 1, 2020 by Ching under Events, Hobbies.
We said thank you and farewell (for now) to our Rotary Club’s outgoing president Josh Vargo on Thursday. The gavel was officially passed to Norm Duncan, who has been our acting president for a few months now since Josh resigned because his work responsibilities had changed. Anyway, the year runs July through June so, even though Norm has been performing the role of president, his term didn’t officially start until July. Of course it’s already September. There were several factors that prevented us from getting together and making the transition official, the COVID-19 pandemic not being the least of them. Anyway, I’m hoping that Josh will rejoin the club soon because he is a great guy and it has been wonderful working with him on our various community events and getting to know him.
Speaking of, I have pickleball league at Chicken N Pickle every Thursday at 6:30 PM but I wanted to attend the social to make sure that I got picture of the passing of the gavel for our club’s Facebook page. It’s kind of my responsibility being PR Chair. I really didn’t want to eat anything because I was worried about not being able to move and playing terribly but I was starving. So my plan to simply stick to just eating chips and salsa went out the window. I ordered my favorite thing to get, which is the Burrito California, and quickly scarfed it up (to put as much distance from the eating and playing as possible). And it was so delicious that I lost all self control and ate all of it, instead of just eating half. That burrito is so good!
Thankfully, we didn’t have to play teams that were as intense as last week. The previous week we had to play the two other undefeated teams in our league – Undercover Secret Weapon (Jimmy Cho and Fong Witte) and Dropping L’s (Donnie and Tiffany Lesperance). They are probably our toughest competitors on Thursday nights. Both of our matches lasted over an hour because we went three games both times. And all of the games were really close. Overall we had to play about two and half hours, which is the longest I’ve ever had to play in league. Tom and I were victorious and so we are the only undefeated team left in that league.
I knew it was going to be a tough night so I mentally prepared myself by making some wagers (because I often play better when properly motivated). Tiffany and Donnie had been wanting my Engage Encore MX 6.0 paddle forever. I think they called dibs on it before it was even delivered. Tiffany already had the purple one but she also wanted the green one, which is the one I got. So Donnie immediately asked me to sell it to them whenever I’m ready to move on to a new paddle. I go through paddles like most people go through underwear so I think he knew that it wouldn’t be long before I would be ready to part with it.
Since I knew that they wanted my paddle, I made it the wager when I found out we would be playing against one another. I told Tiffany and Donnie that if they won our match then they would get my paddle but, if Tom and I won, then they would pay me $75 for it. Brian thought it was a stupid wager because he felt that I would get nothing out of it since Tiffany and Donnie wanted to buy my paddle anyway. I could just sell them my paddle and not risk it on a silly bet. I told Brian that I didn’t intend to lose and just laughed it off.
Anyway, to properly motivate myself, I told myself that if Tom and I won both matches that night I could buy this new outfit that I’d been eyeing. To motivate Tom, I told him I would buy him dinner and drinks if we won both of our matches that night. At the time I didn’t realize that he doesn’t drink. LOL. So that wasn’t very motivating. We won both matches so I ordered my outfit that evening. I received it pretty quickly and actually wore it to league this past Thursday. Tom is yet to collect on his reward.
Here’s the outfit. It’s super cute. I ordered both the top and the skort in medium because the website said that this style ran “very small” and I was worried about not having sized up enough but both pieces fit me perfectly. I absolutely love this outfit! Specially since I earned it.
This is the paddle that I sold on that wager. Tiffany cleaned up and customized it with her fancy edge guard and overgrip. She removed my name and phone number that I wrote on one side but she kept my name on the other side because she said that my autograph might be worth something one day. She’s joking, of course, but I got a kick out of it.
All of the teams in our league are pretty strong so, while we weren’t playing the toughest teams again, I still didn’t want to be moving around slow because my belly is full of that giant burrito I just ate. I did tell myself (and also Tom) that if we lost our matches that night it would be because I didn’t have enough self-discipline not to eat before league. If there’s anything that I cannot resist, it’s delicious food. I do love to eat! And that night, I happened to show up to the social starving.
Thankfully, we didn’t play too bad. We won against Chudley Cannons (Kyle Long and Rachel McMahon) and C&K (Chris Wilson and Kim Knotts) in two straight sets. I was relieved that we didn’t have to play longer than 30 minutes each time. There was no way I was surviving an hour-long match that night with my belly full of food. Let alone two of them.
We are about halfway through this session and so far we are doing well. I’ll keep you posted on how the rest of the league session (and our league tournment) goes. Wish us luck! GNG.
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