I once missed a wide open layup in a playoff game that ended up being the difference in a loss. That kind of gaffe ties a knot in the gut and temporarily paralyzing sense of helplessness that's salved only by the passage of time. This week was a quaint reminder of that sensation as a simple work deadline established three months ago got missed by a week and was published companywide. That layup occurred about ten years ago. Thankfully this incident will rinse off more quickly now that the antidote is known - chin up, face forward, keep playing hard and good times will roll again.
The poisonous nature of negative thoughts ended up sapping some of the joy out of a properly satisfying experience. Coaching a team to a twenty-five point win is about as good as it gets, but it's easy to get caught up in the slacked second-half defense or the turnovers that kept perfection at bay. In the post-game locker room debriefing I mustered only an assent about a few bad shots rather than adding any number of highlights that had launched our season off to a good start. Fortunately it was a three-game tourney, and I brought the right mix of energy to the remaining games, which was especially useful in the championship game loss.
It was another educational week courtside, as I was employed keeping the shot charts and improved over the weekend in being able to simultaneously study the game while doing so. In wins and losses the team hustled to the end, and role players made key contributions. Losing with grace - such an important life lesson to learn at a young age, and one of the main reasons I got into this gig.
Got some financial affairs in order. I was under the impression that probate court costs of Mom's estate might needlessly consume 5% of its value. Instead it turns out that as long as the assets are relatively simple - bank accounts, mutual funds and a house - then "transfer at death" forms can usually be filled out. In the case of the house, I learned that Mom had placed it into trust with her as trustee, and myself as the successor trustee. With rights of ownership, and sale proceeds distributable equally to Jack and me upon sale, any potential problem seems to have been solved.
The fantasy football team's been rallying recently, now at 6-4 and a game out of the playoffs.
It's nice to have reached a point where I can fairly easily get the heart rate up to 150 beats a minute for a 20-30 minutes at a time on the elliptical machine. As I told someone this week, my cardio goals are almost entirely about heart rate. Target fat-burning zone of 70% of (225 - age) = 130 beats a minute. Not much of an overachiever but am glad to feel like one in this corner of my life!
Thanksgiving. Fifteen years with the Freidingers. A houseful of coaches, athletes, exercisers, investors, increasingly interesting nieces and nephews, and all the food you can eat. The abysmal weather forecasts never quite came true, and the travel conditions to Bloomingdale were ideal. For reasons best left to the pundits to figure out, nowhere do I get better sleep than in my childhood home. With Mom in good spirits and Dena and good health, our threesome celebration is a delightful change-of-pace to the Goodfield bustle for my personality.
December is upon us. Christmas lists are growing, daylight hours are in retreat for only a few more weeks, and the temperatures that hovered below twenty degrees for much of last winter are holding up well enough this deep into the fall. A good time to carry the enthusiasm and grace of this holiday into the next.
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