What really has me this morning as I ponder the end of my bowling fun this year, is what will the Prince and I do for our dates?  I’ve come to look forward to the 30 minute drive there to chat and the 30 minute drive home to chat.  I’ve enjoyed having somewhere to go with real live adults every week — that Prince gets to join me in this is a nice benefit.  I will certainly miss it for the summer and I’m already trying to figure out how we can do this again next year (although with a different babysitter).

Moving on to matters of current events, I’ve been reading lots of stuff about Vonnegut dying and I’ve got nothing to add.  First, I have literally never read a single one of his books — yes, so I’m illiterate, moving on, please.  Secondly, I think the most telling thing about my reaction was when Prince told me, our babysitter was getting paid and leaving.

My reaction: Oh, really?  How old was he?  He wasn’t dead already?  (Yes, I know I’m insensitive, again, moving on.)

Her reaction: Hmm.  (I was forced to wonder, do you have any idea who this person is?  And if you do, can you tell me, because apparently I live under a rock where the only things we read are the Shopaholic books.)

So, there you have it folks further proof that royality don’t always have their finger on the pulse of the world — however, it seems we do have our fingers inside bowling balls.

Now, the question remains if I’ll bowl in a league again, and the answer is probably yes.  Though, I’d really like to bowl better, I’m thrilled to be leaving this season with an average that is 15 pins over my entry average.  To me that is a great improvement.

Prince is in the running for a points award and I will probably end the season with a pin and a patch from my accomplishments (one for my high series and one for a high game).  All and all, it has been a good season.

Here’s the life lessons I think I have learned at bowling night:

• Hurry up, we are paying too much for babysitting.
• Never have a fight with the spouse then try to bowl.
• Relax and have fun — I can not bowl well, if I’m not smiling.
• Even if bowling 40 pins over his average, Prince will ALWAYS declare he is doing poorly.  This is a fact I’ve tried to fix too many times, causing the fights — now I’m choosing to accept it — and more importantly ignore it.
• If you are hungry, ask the kitchen if pizza or burgers will come out first.  Shockingly, they know the right answer and are willing to help.
• If the bar lady says you must have a wrist band for a pitcher of water,  you must have a wrist band for a pitcher of water — it is too much energy wasted to argue the non-alcoholic nature of the water and the hair-pulling nature of the wrist band.
• Knitting and bowling don’t mix as well as one might hope.  And for the record, I’m over hearing “Less yarn, more bowling.”
• And finally, the math geek in me really digs the physics of all of this.

Yes, I’ve had a good season.  I’m sad that it is coming to an end, but it is time for me to do other things, like SeaSocks and have a summer and more travel…oh, my.

So, I plan to clean the bowling balls today, have a good game, and celebrate the successful end to my very first league season.

So while at bowling this week, Prince reminds me of this joke which caused me to laugh and laugh — as if it were really all that funny. But the relaxing and laughing pushed me into have a good night again — which was good, because I had been tanking for a few weeks.

Anyway, I thought I’d bring you a few things from bowling this week that you might want to tuck away as things not to do in public.

• Perhaps it is not my finest hour to complain about a new bar policy (the policy requires everyone over 21 to wear a wrist band regardless if the person is drinking. Now this matters because the wrist band pulls hairs and bugs me when I bowl. I drink a pitcher of water on bowling night — hardly a big drinker.) to the guy who made the policy.
• Perhaps it was not the best thing that when we were matched up to bowl, I bowled against this same person. And perhaps, after the first game when he beat me and his wife beat Prince, that I might have declared that we were going to beat them next game.
• And perhaps telling this same man that perhaps he could put his ball in the gutter more — because after all it isn’t nice to beat-up on a little girl.
• And finally, I may or may not have done the happy dance when we beat them for the next TWO games and perhaps that didn’t redeem me for my earlier, “this policy is crap” statement.

However, that it not the point.  The point is that I have a headache.  Yes, perhaps not having had caffeine in nearly 48 hours might have added to my eyeballs wishing to be released from the depths of my skull; but surely this isn’t withdrawl, right?

Again, not the point?

Duke has invented a new game: Tricycle Bowling.

Goal: Just like real bowling, knock down the pins.

Needs: 1 tricycle; 2 OLD bowling pins; a flatish surface; and a Mommy

How to Play:  Ride tricycle around for a bit to warm up.  Get off tricycle and run around with a bowling pin (for what it’s worth, bowling pins are 4ish pounds).  Declare your intention to “Knock down pins.”  Place ONE pin in the middle of room.  Get back on tricycle and ride into pin.  Cheer loudly and squeal “I knocked down pins.” at the top of lungs.

Alternate Methods of play:  With extreme cuteness, somehow rope Mommy into setting up the pins for you in different patterns (per your request, getting mad if she doesn’t understand that “right there” is code for “kindly put the pins in a line about 12″ apart”).  Knock down pins as before, but add to the cheering, “Mama, pick pins up again.”  As you are parked on top of the pins kicking with glee.

Score:

Duke 402

Mommy: 1 headache, 1 backache, and a strong conviction never to learn to juggle bowling pins, lest I have to do that for 2 hours straight.

Note to self:  When seeing Duke having a grand time making up his own game, NEVER decide to step in and show him how it could be better lest I have to continue “making it better” for the rest of my life.

Amoung these “in my element” places are NOT car repair locations NOR a bowling alley.

Let’s review for a moment:

In getting one of the tires repaired on the car yesterday morning I strolled into the place that will fix said tire. I walk in and look around (attempting to be confident, because I’m convinced that dogs these men can smell fear). I see three men, ranging in age from 60 to 25, behind the counter. In front of me are two men talking to two of the worker types. I walk in and the room goes to complete hush. I think, um — this is NOT normal. I do a quick review, I’m dressed (even wearing pants), I have nothing hanging from my nose, I seriously doubt that just walking in has transformed me into a supermodel — so what the heck. Then I take a look around — I’m the ONLY woman in the room. The waiting room has one guy reading the paper, thus, I began to feel the estrogen vacuum in this place.

Ok, I think, PROJECT CAR KNOWLEDGE. So, finally after what seems like an hour (which was in fact less than a few seconds), ONE guy –I should note not the one not talking to a customer, but one guy who stopped dealing with a customer — spoke to me. “How can we help you today?” “Um, my tire. It, um, needs to be PLUGGED.” (Yep, my high end car knowledge amounted to the vocab word “plugged.” Oh, I’m cool.

After waiting about 30 minutes, I’m told my car is done. (Yippie, I can get out of here and go to my next location.) I speak to man #2 (who could also be the money man), he suddenly stops talking to me and walks over to the window and stares at the back of my car. Then strikes up some conversation about my plate. Ok, yes, it is a personalized plate — and yes, in fact, you are the ONLY person I’ve met who doesn’t get the joke — but still. Then he informs me of some random body style change in my car that is about to be released. Topping off his show of knowledge saying, “And they are coming out with a 4 door model too!” Triumphly, I declare (possibly a little gleefully and loudly) “NO. It will be suicide doors and there’s still talk if it will be one or two — though I think it will be two.” Then I promptly turned on my heels and walked out. I believe my use of both plugged and suicide doors made *THIS* place MINE. Right?

Case, the second.

Promptly after leaving the garage, I headed off to my first ever bowling lesson. I was ready. I was coming off a good night of bowling where I bowled at least 10 pins more than my average all night AND took all three of my points. So, I drive — feeling still a little cocky. As I pull in to park, I see this tiny, very old, very homeless looking man smoking outside. Suddenly, I think “I have no idea what my bowling coach looks like.” No problem, I can fake my way through this.

I walk in the door of a bowling alley at 11am. It seems a little busy to me, but ok, whatever. I walk by two lanes of SERIOUS bowler types. By the third or fourth lane, I’m seeing the expected retired guys getting out of the house group. One old guy saw me looking around and actually smille and says, “Hey, how YOU doing?” I died. Ok, step away from the creepy old guy and HOPE he isn’t the coach. Deep breath. I walk straight up to the counter and inquire. Nice lady (at the time the only other woman there — so I felt we had a bond) tells me he’ll be right back wait here. Ok, no problem. A few minutes later I meet the coach, who is nice. As we are walking to the lane, he turns and says — “You aren’t at all what I expected.” (I need to note, we’ve spoken on the phone ONCE.) “Pray tell how?” “Well, for one, you are beautiful and I thought you were in your 60’s.” Um — ok, old guy…I’m beautiful because I’m 33 and this is the land of bowling and the average age is like 100. And do I SOUND 60? on the phone? Hmm — need to do some research on that one.

Creepy feeling left as we began our lesson and I started to really learn stuff. Here’s the neat things I’ve learned:

1. Bowling is geometry. Heck, I’m good in math! I can do this.
2. Proper bowling position really is a work out — want to talk to me about how sore I was within an hour afterwards. Yup, still sore today too.
3. I was doing nearly everything WRONG. Though, my coach will say I wasn’t wrong — but now it is better.
4. When I finally relaxed and began to feel like this wasn’t some place out of my element (the math thing helped a lot), I had fun. I had fun without the trash talk, without the dinner out with Prince, without thinking about score or points. I had fun just trying to hit what I was aiming for.
5. My coach really dug my Bowling is like Golf thing.
6. It took a bit, but I think I’m finally over my horror that I had to have a lesson for a sport in which one could drink beer. I mean seriously in the grand scheme of things who thinks they need a coach for bowling. However, I learned there’s some BIG money in this — even at the lower levels — so coaching isn’t a bad thing at all.
7. And finally, TRIVIA (oh, my do I love a little trivia): in a lake any bowling bowl 12 lbs. or less will FLOAT — who knew. 12.1 lbs? Will sink to the bottom. Recently they dredged the lake outside the alley I was at and found 50+ balls. All of them 15 to 16 pounds. Now I ask, if you bowl with a 10 lbs. ball and get mad enough to through it in the lake — how much would it tick you off that would float back up mocking you?

So, my lesson was done. I have homework and hopefully by the end of it all I shall claim another place “in my element.” However, just to confirm that I in fact still was uber-cool — I went knitting — which frankly folks – I’m COMPLETELY in my element there — perhaps boardering on the over-bearing thing. But it seems they love me for it — either that or I’m just comic relief.