I'm tired of rock-n-rolling...let's go bowling!

Before I go any further, let me say this: you have not lived until you’ve played tennis while wearing trifocals.

Vacation week is coming to an end. That’s good because I’ve gained three pounds in five days (must have been that once-a-day-minimum-ice cream consumption and those three frappaccinos WITH whipped cream—don’t forget that funnel cake and the two giant helpings of frozen custard from Culvers) and since I can no longer use the muscles in my legs because they are so sore (from my efforts to be sporty). I need a nap and a bowl of sugar.

Thursday found us at the International Gay Games being held in Chicago. Actually, Thursday found us standing in giant puddles of water where the softball fields used to be. As the rain had flooded the fields scheduled for use by the Gay games, the festivities had to be played on the grass. (Playing softball on a grass infield sucks. Trust me on this. I had to do it in high school and it sucked then and it sucks now.) The softball event was a bust. I don’t want to say too many negative things because we only went to one event on a rain-soaked day and I’m sure the other events were much better attended and in better condition than the softball fields. I hate to say it but the softball in Rockford is a much higher caliber with just as many queers running around. The only difference between Gay Games Softball and Rockford Softball is that at the Gay Games we got to see the Sydney, Australia team walking to their cars and we saw the Taiwan team sitting in a circle under a tree—you won’t see that in Rockford. No concessions, no souvenirs, no t-shirts, no bleachers, not really any spectators besides me and the wife. Just a bunch of bar teams and one umpire per grass field. Oh well, at least we went. We decided returning on Friday would be futile.

Thus, new activities needed to be found for the remainder of vacation week. Since we were with my family, there is only one thing to do: go bowling! As I’ve said in previous blogs, I am NOT the bowler my family aspires me to be. I hate smoky bowling alleys and those rental shoes make me want to gag. I am so not a bowler—I didn’t get that gene. Oh well, for love of family and in an effort to increase my “sportiness” factor, I agreed to go bowling with the wife and three nieces. It was during the bowling alley’s “non-smoking” hours, which, in a bowling alley terms means no one is currently actively smoking but the three zillion cigarettes smoked yesterday are still a cloud above the alleys. It’s better than the smoking hours, I guess. I went with the 13 lb orange house ball, although it did not match my outfit, and suffered through a pair of bowling shoe rentals. Yikes. I hate feet. I don’t even like my own feet. Why would I like wearing shoes that had been home to other feet? I want to burn my feet after wearing those things. Anyway, I was spanked by the younger crowd but thankfully was able to squeak by the wife’s score. (Good job, Niece #1, tying her all-time high game—while using a finger-tip ball, no less. You non-bowlers have no idea what that means, do you? Well, it’s good, so be impressed.) Between frames and moments of bowling humiliation, I realized that I was going to have sore leg muscles by the next day. It stinks to be bowling and recognize how much of a slug you must be that you are getting sore quads from bowling. That is SO not sporty.

With vacation almost over and so very little time left to be sporty, the wife and I rode our bikes down the street today to play some tennis. Hence, the tennis and trifocals comment at the beginning of this blog. I already suck at tennis—I suck even worse with trifocals and I didn’t think that was possible. Come to think of it, riding the bike with trifocals wasn’t all that fun, either. I’m sticking to drinking frappaccinos and doing McYoga from now on. My thighs are so sore I can barely get up off the couch to get a bowl of ice cream. I am a SLUG! (Pictured is the Santa Cruz Banana Slug, my all time favorite team mascot. I like to think of myself as a banana slug, not your plain ol' garden variety slug.)

Final moments of vacation are being spent doing mundane things such as replacing wiper blades and smearing Rain-X on car windshields (see previous blog for reasons why this was necessary), weeding the garden, flossing teeth and whining about my sore muscles. I am also coming to terms that I am no longer sporty. I’m a sporty-has-been. Face it—if I signed up to participate in the Gay Games, I’d join the marching band instead of a sports team. I’ll leave the sporty stuff to the wife…unless dancing at a Madonna concert is considered sporty—then I am SO in.

We didn’t go to a tropical island. We didn’t ride any roller coasters. We didn’t take an airplane ride. We didn’t stay in a hotel….but, it was a perfect vacation for someone who needed to be a slug for a week. A sporty banana slug, that is.