Adaptable is My Middle Name

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Ching under Community, Family.

Several weeks ago, I was chatting with my friend Jenny Marcos. She’s the resident pickleball pro at Rose Creek Golf Club, a fancy schmancy country club in Edmond, Oklahoma. Anyway, I found out that she leads cardio pickleball on Saturday mornings. I’ve actually been asked to lead cardio pickleball before, but not having participated in one, I wasn’t really comfortable saying yes. I’ve attended cardio tennis at Genesis Health Clubs. I’m sure it’s similar but I really would rather not take on something, I know little about and have zero experience. When she told me about her class, I naturally asked if I could attend so I could learn more about it and perhaps take some notes so I can facilitate a similar class in the future.

We picked a Saturday in June which turned out to be the same Saturday that we were driving down to Oklahoma to have lunch with Brian’s parents. We were coming down to celebrate Brian’s 50th birthday and his mom and dad’s 51st wedding anniversary. Cardio pickle is at 9 AM in Edmond so I figured we could hit it on the way down to Oklahoma City, then meet for lunch, before driving back home to Wichita. Easy peazy.

The Friday before, I texted Jenny to confirm that cardio pickle is still on and to remind her that I’m coming. That’s when I found out that they actually canceled cardio pickle for that day because she, along with several others, were competing in the USSP tournament at Life Time that weekend. I immediately told Brian the good news — that we could sleep in on Saturday morning. He was actually not too thrilled about having to get up early and driving down first thing in the morning so we could make the 9 AM class but he was being a good sport about it.

Brian told his dad who asked if we still wanted to come down for lunch. He was worried that it was a long drive just to have lunch. To which Brian responded, “I’m sure Ching has some other plans that she hasn’t told me yet. She’ll probably bring it up over lunch. She’ll go, while we are here —”

Brian shared this conversation with me when he got home from work on Friday night. I was like, “Funny you said that. I was going to ask you if we could swing by the pickleball tournament to say hello to friends and watch some matches after lunch. But I wasn’t going to wait until we were there. I had planned to ask you tonight — like right now — because the restaurant is in the same area. We would literally be two minutes away.”

If there is one thing that you should know about me by now, it is that I always have a “Plan B.” I guess another good thing to note about me is that I’m really good at flexing. Famous coach John Wooden once said, “Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.” This describes me to a tee. My life is not without hardships but somehow, whenever negative things happen (or things just don’t work out the way I’d hoped), I am really good at convincing myself that this is good thing. Finding the silver lining in any situation is one of my many talents.

It was June 8 (I know the blog is super far behind). We didn’t have to get up early. Instead, we had a nice leisurely drive down to Oklahoma City. We met Brian’s parents at the P.F. Chang’s and had a lovely lunch. BTW, while we were there, we saw that they were building a Fogo De Chao (which is probably open now) so our next celebratory lunch or dinner will probably be there. I love the whole Brazilian churascaria thing but I just can’t justify going unless it’s a special occasion.

After lunch we went to Life Time to cheer for our Wichita pals. Also go to see some Oklahoma friends who I hadn’t seen in a long time because I’ve been on a tournament sabbatical. But I realized that, just because I’m not playing, doesn’t mean that I can’t come watch and cheer for friends. It was wonderful to see everyone. I even got to see Gene Click who moved to Texas from Oklahoma about two years ago. He just happened to be there as well.