Monday, April 26, 2010

Life stages

Following yesterday's Anzac Day service I met up with four others from the Asperger's group at St Lukes mall. After much discussion regarding the choice of film, we eventually plumped for Date Night which was hilarious in places, though I was hardly in the mood for comedy. It looked like we would see Boy which I must make sure I see before I go away. It was good to meet up with Richard and the others whose Asperger's were at varying levels and affected them in very different ways.

After Saturday's embarrassment I didn't particularly want to talk about my other tennis matches, but on Thursday I played what I imagine was my last ever match with Bazza. I'd rather not mention the score (I mean I'd love to, but we were only playing for the love of the game so the score hardly mattered). To cut a short story even shorter, we were outclassed in our second round match. Bazza was a talismanic figure at the club ("c'mon Belmont!") even if he could get on my nerves at times. Now that he's gone, that's one less reason for me to play there.

Saturday's singles - that match - was also a second-rounder. In the first round I got lucky and faced an inexperienced player. I struggled to an error-strewn 7-5 6-1 win. It wasn't much fun.

My dad flies back from the UK in a few hours' time. I think he's glad to leave and relieved that the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano won't stop him. The last four weeks, with my grandmother, haven't been easy for him. And as for my aunt, the less said about her the better.

Mum arrives here on Wednesday (by accident she booked her flight on the same day Dad returns from the UK). I'm looking forward to seeing her.

Tomorrow I'll be seeing a careers advisor. For once I'll be brutally honest and tell her what I want to do (and what I don't). I'll have to go to Mt Eden for this appointment (they recently closed the Takapuna office). On Wednesday, just before Mum gets here, I'll be meeting with my counsellor.

It's been a pain not having a car. Buses wouldn't be such a problem if I was making the same journey all the time, such as going to and from work, but as that's not the case I've found it all a bit of a struggle. I see people waltz onto the bus and ask nonchalantly for one or two or three stages. How do they know how many stages it is? I've never seen a sign telling me I'm about to enter the such-and-such stage. And what's to stop you from staying on for an extra stage or two? I can't imagine the driver remembering exactly who has paid for what. On occasions I've bought an all-day ticket that lets you bypass all that stage malarkey, but even some of the drivers don't know about this ticket, or at least they pretend not to.

On Thursday I entered an 18-man private tournament which one of the badugi regulars set up. It was a limit tournament with rapidly increasing blinds at the start, so luck would play a huge part in the outcome. I got a lot of luck, almost an embarrassing amount of it. When we got down to three I had over 80% of the chips in play, and soon it was all over. I followed that win with a fifth-place finish in last night's pot-limit tournament. That good fortune hasn't flowed through to the cash games. My overall profit did top $600 for the first time today, but nine of the last ten hands I showed down were losers and I ended the session at $599.

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