No damn cat, no damn cradle

A tennis day at last. I needed the exercise and the chance to interact with the other tennis playing codgers. We commiserate with each other. The remark that "getting old is not for sissies" gets nods of understanding and mentions of sore knees, ankles and shoulders. We smile or grimace and go hit some overhead smashes. The retired English professor, who has been sidelined with a rotator cuff problem for a couple of months is now back working on being competitive. He's the oldest guy, but doesn't spend any time talking about quitting. He says he has so many aching parts that the only cross training he can do is his daily regimen of 30 sit-ups. His stomach muscles are fine, it's just that his limbs and joints are a little achy. He played pretty well today.

After playing today, we chatted about the impending lottery drawing tonight. There is a chance that someone in the USA will win 550 million dollars. Anyone with a lottery ticket has a one in 175 million chance of being the one who is saddled with instant large wealth. We retired guys decided that it might be more trouble than it's worth to win. You'd have to hire a bunch of people to handle the money, and a bunch of people to protect you from the other people. And you might have to move somewhere else and maybe have to give up our twice a week tennis outing. So far as everyone said, not one of the four of us had a ticket, and I think we're all passing. Good luck to the rest of you.

After nearly two sets of tennis we quit. As it turns out it was a bit early, because one of the guys tweaked his shoulder and had to stop hitting tennis balls. So I went looking for a photo to use in this blog.

Fort Snelling State Park is less than a mile from the tennis center, so I drove there to get a photo before the sun descended below the horizon. I just made it in time to get a photo of the chapel in the waning light and a look at some of the memorials to early settlers and explorers that are found there.

The sunset comes earlier and earlier, and will for the next three weeks or so. This one caught me as I was tromping about near the Fort Snelling Chapel, so I took its photo across the highway with the athletic field lights at Fort Snelling sticking up in the distance.

There's not much of connection between tennis and the Fort Snelling chapel, except proximity. It's sort of like that children's game of cat's cradle. Try to find some relationship between the strings between your fingers and the name of the activity. And also the blog every day in November activity for that matter.  No damn cat, no damn cradle.