Sunday at Wimbledon

It's the Men's Finals at Wimbledon, and I have been following Roger Federer through this championship.  I was tickled when he won the semi-finals; like me, he is getting a bit older and he has never been as competitive as, say, Nadal, who apparently blew it in the early rounds.


So this is my plan:


DVR the finals so you don't have to spend half your life sitting through commercials.


Don't listen to the news because they will definitely announce the winner at Wimbledon, even if there is another attack by al-Qaeda.


On Sundays, when my kids were here with me in Charleston, we did Sunday matinees, with popcorn.  Now that I am by myself, I don't allow myself those extra couple of hours in front of the TV on a Sunday afternoon.  But today I've got the popcorn popped and a martini in hand, and I am tuned in to Federer v. Murray.


My cat, Molly, who watches TV with me at night, is not with the change of program, and is probably napping on a bed somewhere.


Since I've been watching tennis by myself, I have begun to sound like a guy watching football.  In other words, I'm loud. I don't mind coaching Roger and making crass remarks about Andy Murray, like whipping a serve right past his weaselly moustache.  And Molly, ordinarily skittish, has learned not to jump, or even wake up, when I shout.


The other thing that happens when I'm watching tennis alone is that I can hurl insults at the sportscasters, who are idiots, and even the same insult over and over again, without some child saying, "Mo-o-om."  When I cannot stand another inane comment, I will turn down the volume just low enough that I can still hear the pop of the ball and the sportscasters are reduced to just a couple of really annoying people that are sitting behind you in the stands.


This is fun.  But back when we first moved to Charleston, and I was postponing the expense of cable, we would sit in front of the TV in my bedroom "watching" tennis, and imagining we could see the ball with just the antennae and rabbit ears.  One of my fondest memories is the match where a very cute and charming dude named Ivanisevic fought and sweated to a win, at which point he threw himself to the ground, and I am sure he took his shirt off and threw it into the crowd, which we could see perfectly well without cable.  However, Croatia recalls it differently:

Okay, given the choice, I would much rather recall seeing Ivanevic shirtless than all those balls.