I play tennis on Sunday mornings with Scott, Cheryl and Pat. It is possible that we talk as much as we play, but I have never timed the breaks between every other game and every set, so I can’t know for sure. Nobody seems to mind, and we learn a lot about each other and our families, and of course solve the problems of the world every week.

Here we are after this week’s three sets:

Pat opened today with a doozy of a story about what happened at her house this morning. She was preparing her morning coffee — feeling a little fuzzy-headed yet, it being so early — at the same time as she was looking for her cell phone. “I can never find my phone,” she said. Bumbling around, still half dazed, her routine is to zap her coffee in the microwave for 30 seconds, which is what she thought she had done. Thirty seconds isn’t very long, but at the end of it, there was a bad smell and she opened the microwave to discover her melted cell phone in there!

This is what NOT to do, even when you don’t want to talk 🙂

Scott said his morning wasn’t quite that bad, but when he went to get his coffee, which he prepares in the drip maker the night before, he said to himself, “I wonder if I remembered to put the coffee in.” When he got to the kitchen he discovered that he had indeed not remembered to put the coffee in, nor the water (!), which of course did not result in a cup of coffee at his usual time.

I am a tea drinker, and often use a terrific little strainer that my sister Lynn got me. It sits in the cup. You put the loose tea leaves in it and pour the water over the top. Then you can take out the strainer and the leaves come with it. Left behind in your cup is the hot drink that has been my steadiest companion for years.

Only today I poured the hot water into the cup without the strainer in it. Dope. So I got the strainer and the tin of loose tea and put a spoonful of leaves into the hot water in my cup and put the strainer in after that. A lot of good the strainer does if the tea leaves are not in it!

The leaves float to the top, so if the leaves are in the strainer it will not look like this:

It will look like this:

Cheryl said she went to feed the dog and found herself pouring Cheerios into his bowl!

We told those stories, cracked up and started hitting balls to warm up. The weather was perfect, low 80s, sunny, light breeze. We then played three sets of really good tennis, lots of great shots, close games and good points. We did what people around the world do every single day, and what every sensible person should do: Do not let your morning bumbles get in the way of your fun!