Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

House sitting adventures: I’m house sitting cats. These cats are free to come and go as they please as they have a pet door in the back of the house. Usually, however, these cats will wait for me to hold the door open for them before coming in. Well, no, I take that back. They’ll wait for me to hold the door open for them; I’ll oblige; and then they’ll stop a foot from the door and survey me uncertainly. Now I have to coax them to come in and try to convince them that I’m not scary (it’s my first time pet sitting for these cats so we’re just getting used to each other). I’ll spend a minute just standing there, holding the door open as still as I can because any creak will scare them away, and talk to the cats as if I were a part of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. After the cats have either scurried inside or scampered away, I’ll look up, and of course, there’s a neighbor watching me. I leave her so she can laugh openly at this display of human-animal deference also known as the crazy lady talking to cats.

I met with a house/pet sitting client the other day, and as is the case with most of my clients, the wife plays tennis and the husband does not. He could not stop poking fun at the irrational tennis culture his wife and I are a part of.

“What is with you tennis players and your addiction to the game? An orthopedic friend was telling me how a guy with a broken leg was trying to figure out how to keep playing tennis. I mean, you’re not going to keep playing tennis; you have a broken leg!”

Let me try to explain the sickness.

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