It's 9AM
What will we do now, she asked.
I knew the feeling.
This weekend ended the first half of baseball.
It also ended a season of eleven year old (11U) ball.
And it ended an era.
Because we’re 12U next year, it gets competitive.
The hope is a solid year into 13U, then pick up with a showcase team and keep developing.
But this was something special.
Because for the first time, he played with kids his own age, and not older.
Two grand slams.
Not a bad way to end a season, even if we didn’t end the tournament with a win.
And before Fall Ball starts back up, we have what we call dead days.
The dead days are filled with basketball camps and they’re going on a micro-vacation, then school starts in two weeks.
A tryout for a National Team headed to a Houston showcase happens at the end of August and then we’re back to practices once a week and a couple of tournaments that compete with the season.
Seasons.
Deer hunting. Duck hunting. Turkeys. Football. And the beginning of Basketball.
It’s tough to have enough players to play during the Fall because so many of the boys on our team do other things.
Which may explain why #10 is pretty good at baseball.
It’s the only sport he plays.
When he was younger, I talked about the kids from Dominican Republic who play 8 or 9 hours per day instead of going to school.
I was using their equipment as an example, a broomstick and a ball made of rubber bands, but the amount of time is what stuck with him.
He used it as an excuse to stay out of school!
But also because the Padres are packed with guys from other countries who put “traditional education” on a back burner or are from other countries where priorities are different.
Since we don’t want him to burn out, we’re doing basketball camp.
A sport he’s in love with.
My fear is he’s good at it.
And it takes over for baseball, which I like better.
I have to remind myself, it’s not about me.
I’m a fan of dead days for me too, though I don’t get many of them.
Days with nothing planned, and nothing accomplished, just time spent in the sun and reading. Or catching a new show.
When I reflect on the planning phase of all I add to the “to do” list, I could probably add in some dead days.
Fight the guilt on what needs to be done because chilling out is scheduled.
The problem is I can tell my to do it’s a dead day all I want, by my not so idle mind never gets the memo.
Take Saturday morning, for instance.
The to do involved getting the Truck packed up for the tournament and leaving in time for the drive.
And getting ready.
And eating breakfast.
And cleaning up after breakfast.
And the dogs.
A load of clothes, a load of dishes.
A look at the yard because it needs a mow and a trim thanks to the abundant rain this week, pouring for a few hours overnight or a few in the wee hours of the morning, and making everything jungle green.
But…
There’s a writer’s strike going on in Hollywood.
The last time there was a writer’s strike, a lot of those folks wrote books.
Which means more are coming to Amazon as they learn about self publishing.
It also means people are going to be looking for entertainment “options” starting in late August/early September, because viewing habits are going to have to change.
A lot of people are not going to watch reruns.
If I were a studio exec, I’d dig in the vaults to pull an old show out and rerun it as a classic.
But they didn’t let me in that meeting.
I just recall the last time there was a disruption in production, people changed their habits.
Viewership on Youtube and streaming platforms skyrocketed.
So I outlined a new series on Saturday before anyone got up.
With a plan to write very short stories for it.
Put the stories up to read for free somewhere.
Maybe as downloads.
And turn the stories into animated audiobooks.
And then shoot it for little five minute videos series.
It might not work.
It might.
But I caught it all on paper and worked out the plan.
Dead days would be a perfect time to make it happen.
I’m kicking around a Kickstarter idea for it, but right now, that’s just in the thinking about it stage.
Plenty of time to think in another long work week.
Here’s hoping you get some time to yourself.
When was the last time you had nothing to do?
Add this to your To Do List:
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They say that nature abhors a vacuum. Maybe that's why our brains can't handle a blank 'to do' list.
I don't I blame the MS that I have