Home Sweet Home

I've never been so glad to see a place in my whole life! What a week. The good, the bad & the ugly...

HeartbreakerLu's softball team ended their spectacular season late Saturday night in an extra inning, 17-16 loss. My worst fears were realized about her coach (see previous post on Winners). I just hope the experience taught him something and hopefully taught LuLu something too, about a love for the game that supercedes doing whatever it takes to win. Lu's a catcher, although her coach brought in a "ringer" for the playoff games. He switched catchers every inning, theoretically a good idea so neither gets worn out. However, in the very close final 2 innings, Lu lost her catching spot to the ringer and warmed the bench for 1 of those.

The "new" catcher didn't make any spectacular play that inning (or any play at all for that matter)...replacing Lu for that inning didn't change the game outcome in any way. What it DID do was make Lu feel like her coach didn't have faith in her, that he didn't think she could get the job done. She was left feeling lousy and it colored her entire tournament experience in the negative. It's a tough lesson, maybe it's a lesson that has to be learned. Maybe she will take this experience and become a better player because of it. But I'm still livid. It was unnecessary and unjust. She played for him the entire season, every practice, every game. Never complained about the heat or the hours of batting practice. She did whatever he asked and tried her best. She even sat on the bench in that next to last inning and smiled and cheered her teammates. She makes me proud to know her. Love you, Lu.

Music City

Well, it figures that my favorite part of the city turned out to be something architectural. Give me good design any day, be it fabric or houses!! The Hermitage is beautiful, the grounds are breathtaking, and ask for Amy when you do the wagon tour of the slave quarters. She's the best! We also toured Belle Meade, but found the tour to be a little long...roughly 20 minutes per room. While it's nice that you can actually walk through the rooms at Belle Meade and see things up close & personal, it was a little long on storytelling and fact giving. The downside to the Hermitage is that you can't actually go into the rooms, they're sealed. However, it is more casual and family-friendly than Belle Meade. Both are beautiful of course.

A Face Only a Mother Could Love

This is me gettin some lovin' from a baby camel, who just KNEW I was it's mama. I'm hoping it wasn't my rather ripe odor...we're talking 95 degree July in Nashville heat & humidity after 2 hours walking the asphalt without shade. Ya, I wasn't a big bouquet of roses at that point in our trip!! However, Mohabi loved me and I, him, and it was a sad sad parting of ways. Here's another shot of him lovin' on his pen-mate Sahara, a baby girl camel.

And I'm exhausted. Food poisoning was contracted by yours truly first thing on the morning of our departure....making me very, very thankful for the many rest stops & Love's convenience stores on tle exceedingly L-O-N-G 8 hour drive home yesterday. 'Nuff said.

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