I’ve had this depressed square in my yard from a magnolia tree we cut down about 20 years ago.
I’ve grown grass, some pumpkins, and even tomatoes there, but I’ve never liked the look of it. This spring I hacked it down to bare dirt and threw a couple of bags of wildflower seeds down. I watered it until things started to grow, and then I let it just be wild.
It’s been great. Tons of pollinators and the color is a nice break from the crummy green of my neglected lawn. We even had some hummingbirds come through.
There are still some robust blooms in late October.
Saw a matinee showing of Digger this weekend. We try to catch the big releases before there’s too much word of mouth. A clean palate lets us just watch instead of filtering the show through a reviewer’s ideas.
That approach worked well for this one. It’s a wild ride, but I can’t really say anything about the wild parts without giving away the game. I’ll say “I liked it and it’s worth watching”.
I’m an Oasis fan from way, way back. This is the documentary about their 2025 reunion tour. I didn’t catch any of the dates, I saw them plenty as a younger man, but I was surprised at how affecting this movie was. It really did take me back 30 years.
I’ll add the caveat that these documentaries that the subjects make about themselves can’t be 100% honest, The Dr. Dre/Jimmy Iovine one being a prime example, but I love the Oasis songs too much to have let that bug me.
I know. It’s Tuesday, and all of the weekend talk should have been done with yesterday. It was a really big weekend, though, and I needed a day to recover.
Started on Friday morning with the first matches of the Club Challenge, a tournament of the bigger tennis clubs here in town.
It’s a 3-day affair and it’s pretty competitive. We haven’t won it in over 5 years, but we’ve been close the last couple.
The format for the tournament is: 12 clubs split across two sites play a random draw. Top three combined Fri/Sat scores at each site go into a new draw on Sunday to determine the winner.
I’ve been playing well this year. I’m not a highly-rated player, but I’m good for my level. “Best of the worst” as someone said. I was also the captain at my level, so even though I didn’t play on Friday, I was there to cheer the guys. We showed well.
Friday night was Automatic, an LA band that I have enjoyed for a while now. I couldn’t believe they were going to be here, and in a small club? The Camel is a good place to see a band. It was hot, but worth it.
I was a playing captain on Saturday morning for more Club Challenge. We’ve never missed out on Sunday, apparently, but we almost missed it this year. The final scoring was still in question when I had to leave because we had tickets to Iron Blossom.
Iron Blossom is a 2-day music festival here in Richmond that has, inexplicably, drawn bigger and bigger names on the few years it has run. The two headliners this year were LCD Soundsystem and Jack White. Other bands I was excited to see were La Luz, Phantogram, and Die Spitz. It all paid off.
La Luz!Phantogram!Die Spitz!LCD Soundsystem!
I was there and I saw it and I still only half-believe that LCD Soundsystem played here. They were terrific. Played a bunch of songs we wanted to hear and had incredible energy.
We hustled home after because I had to be back at the tennis courts for 7am.
I know.
Neatly groomed in the early morning light.
We drew the toughest matchup at our level, but , as previously mentioned, I’ve been playing well and I have a great partner. Respect to my guy. This is what winners look like:
The lowest level players play first thing in the morning, and over the day the quality of the tennis improves. Our win was important because it set a positive tone for the rest of Sunday.
Action shot!
As the day progressed, our club was stacking wins and the favorite dropped a couple of lines that they should have held. The math was suggesting that we had a clear chance to pull it off.
Which we did.
Winners.
There was much celebration, including a troubling amount of beer drunk from the trophy.
These celebrations went on long enough that I missed the 2nd night of Iron Blossom. Please extend my regrets to Jack White. I heard he was great.
As a grown-up playing recreational sports, I’ve found I don’t get a lot of chances to win trophies. Medals? Sure, but a trophy that has 20+ years of winners on plaques around the base? Not often enough.
I sprung for the National Park Pass while we were out west. NPS could use the bucks and it’s a good deal, besides.
What I didn’t know is that the face of the pass featured an image that I found unacceptable. Luckily, I got hipped to Park Pouches, which let you upload an image of your choosing to a sleeve that covers the less desirable bits.
That’s a photo of the Grand Prismatic that I took while we were in Yellowstone.
