Category Archives: Basketball

And they won

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

George has been watching. various college and pro sports over the weekend. If I hadn’t out with him, it really can’t be avoided. Some won, some lost.

I hiked down the hill to the UCBerkeley Campus, then across the campus to Haas Pavilion to watch Cal play the Riverside Highlanders. As per usual, I was there for the band, but didn’t mind seeing the Cal Women’s Basketball team win their game. It is a rebuilding year since two key players graduated last spring and one transferred.  Plus  a new coach. There were definitely rough edges.

Cross stitch at a game doesn’t work – but knitting does. I hauled along the “Hitchhiking beyond” that I started while George was in the hospital. I didn’t like the way it was shaping up, so frogged it from 3/4 down back to about 1/3 and happily enjoyed my garter stitch while watching.

Cross stitch? –

Bouncing Balls

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

Women’s Basketball (not dogs chasing toys)

Today marked the last of the exhibition games before the official opening of the basketball season. Specially the UCBerkeley Golden Bears. From here on it, I will generally refer to them just as Cal. Yes, there are other UC schools in the system. At last count there are ten campuses, five medical centers, three national labs, and the stray law school here and there. It makes for an extensive system, which, according to their press info covers more than 280,000 students.

Ok, that is a lot of information that you really didn’t need or care to know.

Anyway – we live up the hill on Euclid from Cal (UCBerkeley). It is a fairly easy roll down the hill to various campus events but a much more demanding hike back up. Since George is on limited house arrest (doctor’s appointments only) I look Maus with me. She is in town for about 10 days. Both spending time with her dad and considering the logistics of a move to the area.

The women’s basketball team was playing the Vanguard Lions. I will acknowledge that I had to look up the Lions (Costa Mesa). Their team over all was quite a bit shorter and incredibly scrappy. The Bears won.

More importantly, the Straw Hat band was there. I enjoy the band. For the last two years, I have made lapel pins for them. Miriam and Angel designed the pin for this year

Straw Hat Pin 2019-2020

Wandering over to where the band members were gathering, I ran into Benjamin. A trombone player and a sophomore, he is an occasional member of the Right Field Bleachers crew. He will delighted to get a pin and happily announced to the whole gathering that I had brought neat pins.  I get just enough made to cover most of the band members who play at the women’s basketball games including the alumni who cover during the winter holiday season.

Hiking all the way home got to me; Dani kindly rescued us partway up the hill.

Rememberance Poppies

And, if you can’t find a poppy, but know how to knit or crochet – go to Ravelry, there are literally dozens of free patterns. If you don’t do handcrafts, draft your nearest and dearest who does. A couple of suggestions include Carol Spillane’s crocheted poppy or Susan Resaul’s knitted poppy.

Not their best performance

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

Anyone can forgive a pitcher one lousy pitch. Even if it is one of the first pitches in the top of the first and results in a right fielder (not ours) hitting a home run. That would be ok. That can be overcome. Even a runner on base and another lovely out of the park ball resulting in the Astro’s pulling ahead 3:0. From there – hello? As Batters? Please hit something. Pitchers? It is really NOT a good idea to load up the bases before providing an Astro’s batter the opportunity to swing for the fences. Embarrassing. Seriously embarrassing.

It was the crown on an already challenging day which started with a migraine resulting in me missing both a deadline and a class, moved on to the fire alarm system going off in 198 Macallister in the afternoon thus killing any opportunity for the two afternoon classes which I audit.

My husband provided me the crowning experience. We both have enjoyed the Cal’s Women’s Basketball Team. They had a “thank-you” type dinner tonight as a kind of end of year function for the team plus families and supporters. The food was ok, the company at our table was excellent. Speeches that go on, and on, and on? Shoot me now.

At least my phone lasted through the evening so that I was able to observe the travesty of the A’s-Astro’s match up while not being able to hear much of anything in the reception area due to the level of noise provided by the D.J. under the guise of “music.”

Close your eyes

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

Don’t watch. Seriously, you don’t want to see this.

Cal was at Stanford today for the second of their two games. The first, Thursday, was at Haas Pavilion with Cal pulling out a win on Asha Thomas’ buzzer beating last basket. Today the favor was returned in spades. No clue what was going on, but baskets were missed, passes easily intercepted, literally a dozen opportunities lost. Stanford had its act together. It wasn’t pretty.

Then there was the heartbreaker of the Blackhawks beating the Wild 4-3 in overtime (Hockey, for those who don’t recognize the teams).

Otherwise, I spent a small amount of time on homework, but mostly worked on various embroidery projects. All told, six items completed. The cutest –

x two. reversed colors

were a pair of flour sack towels. The purple is called Orchid – that orange? Allegedly it is Devil Red.

Clowns on Muni

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

There is a Clown School in San Francisco – link here. They are located near the N-Judah Muni Line. The website really, really needs work, but it gives you the basics.

A couple of stops after George and I boarded near UCSF, a clown alley (yes, that is what a group of clowns is called. Trust me – well, ok, but I did look it up!) boarded the Muni and started working their way up and down the car. Young women they were. I don’t think that any of them were over 23. Each one of them was unique in her clothing, appearance and make-up. Hats and noses varied as well. Not everyone (thank goodness) was wearing the classic red bulb nose.

A few of the passengers reacted quite negatively; a number of the rest just pretended that the clowns weren’t there. I thought I counted seven but wasn’t completely sure since there was a lot of moving around involved. A spritely woman likely somewhere in her 40s was moving through the car as well making suggestions, keeping an eye on the group. I asked her if she was their keeper. She laughed and said this was one of their first outings. I would have pictures, but when someone else took out her phone for a picture, she was politely but firmly asked to refrain.

I exited the Muni at Civic Center, heading back to class. George stayed on, headed across the Bay. He was able to watch the chaos accompanying the clowns as they searched for the correct stop (Powell St Station).

After class, I met George in Berkeley. Dropping my backpack off in the car, we headed to Haas Pavilion and the Cal Women’s Basketball Game. It was hard fought, neither team ever leading by more than 6 points. Cal won 81-80 on a buzzer beating score by Asha Thomas.

Four Thousand Screaming kids

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

In what is reputed to be an annual affair, there were literally thousands of school children at today’s Cal Women’s Basketball Game. Schools from San Jose south of us to Fairfield on the north (plus several Richmond primary schools), all the Berkeley Elementary Schools, a number from Oakland and (surprisingly to me) a number from both San Francisco and the peninsula. Since they announced all the schools, accompanied by lots more screaming, it was easy to determine who was missing (Albany, Marin, and about 1/2 the private schools).

As is there wasn’t enough noise, it was also Fire Prevention Education Day. Yes, Smokey walking around large as life was a real hit. I didn’t mind all the hints, but demonstrating sirens and fire alarms? That was a bit much.

Did I mention that the game started at 1130 which obviously put it at an excellent time for schools. It wasn’t a great time for the Straw Hat Band. They were out on their annual ski trip. As far as their usual alumni taking over, well, most had to work. I was really impressed that they managed to field about 20 with a bit of rearrangement as to who played what so that the important instruments (percussion & brass) were covered.

For a change, the referring was even handed and quite good. Very few questionable calls, and refs who were strict, The Cal Women’s managed to pull off a win over Washington State. Interesting to note, the Cougars didn’t have one native Washington State player on the team (Portugal, Australia, Israel, Eastern Europe – kind of like the University of Utah).

Timed it perfectly to catch the #65 up the hill to home. George spent the day doing various assorted meetings in San Francisco so he wasn’t home till late. My last missing textbook finally showed up. I thought about studying….

And more rain

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

Nothing like looking at the forecast and seeing rain.

Or, for that matter, looking out the window which just confirms what you already know – it is quite wet out there. There is a strong temptation just to curl up in front of the fireplace with a nice book, blanket. Or audiobook and knitting if I believed for even a minute that it would be possible to knit a complicated lace pattern and do anything else at the same time.

So instead I ran errands, replenished my bead supply (see knitting mentioned above and Wild Swan from a couple of days ago). By the end of the day I had made it to row 69.

The highlight (or not) of the afternoon was getting soaked on my way to the Cal Basketball game (which they managed to not lose).

from the opposite bleachers

and then it was home followed by a late in the dark run to OAK to pick up Noah.

I should be studying

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

At least that is what I am telling myself. So far I have reviewed five pages of outlines, several misc. documents, read through my notes, played computer games and skimmed some junk genre fiction.

So much for good intentions.

And there was also the Cal’s Women’s Basketball game this afternoon (they pulled off a win, but their % from the floor left a bit to be desired. Had the opponent been one of the PAC-12, it would not have turned out so well). But the Straw Hat Band was there, tho not in numbers. I gifted out the first batch of pins made from Miriam’s design

thought about studying some more, but had dinner instead and going to sleep relatively early.

Minnesota Lynx

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

No, not four footed creatures but a team in the Women’s National Basketball Association. If you are not US based, you are excused for not knowing that there has been professional women’s basketball for several decades. The Minnesota Lynx date from 1999 as an active team. I have friends in St. Paul who have been fans since the team’s founding. Since there was a game tonight, it made total and complete sense (ok, as much sense as anything else I do) to attend this evenings game with them.

After all, flying from SFO to MSP is not enough to totally wipe me out for a day even given BART on the home and dealing with a rental car on arrival.

Since it is not winter but rather the season known as road construction, I was not surprised to find that the basic driving route that I had planned provided a few challenges. Never the less, I made it safely to St Paul in plenty of time. Time enough to see that the apartment that I occupied in 1978 across the street from the Commodore Hotel is still standing. I heard it went condo a couple of decades or more ago.

Back to the Lynx – it was a pretty full arena. The fans are loud. Now this is Minnesota and – Garrison Keillor aside – people are pretty polite. These folks were LOUD. Nice, but loud. Not the bad language and name calling that has come to be associated with professional sports (men – baseball and US style football. We will completely ignore the UK’s soccer) but high levels of positive cheering.

Of course, winning does help.

Zumba?

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

half-time at the Cal Women’s Basketball game

I don’t think so.

What it was – a joyous bunch of people jumping and dancing around. To include little kids, dozens of us old farts and a goodly number of the Straw Hat Band.

The Cal Women won – but it was close. Interesting thing that I noticed – Utah didn’t have one player from Utah on the team – 3 Canadians and a Finn but not one person from Utah.

Cal is mostly Californians + a Kiwi, and Aussie and a fabulous player from Phoenix.

Balls

Holly Doyne Posted on by 4

In this case, basketball was fine. The Cal women won on Friday evening although they struggled a bit in the middle. The Cal women won again this morning. The game, being at 1030 in the morning was better attended than I expected. Since there was another apparently important game scheduled this afternoon – they had moved the time up to accommodate the men’s team needing to get in their game against Colorado. TPTB were so concerned that they offered free admission to the afternoon game to anyone who came to the women’s game.

We stayed to watch the men. It was a good game. They won. The Straw Hat Band was more than entertaining

This was followed by errand running and back to the house. I never did get back to the cross stitch but spent sometime figuring out my next stitching project while starting another knit hat.

I’ve house clean up to do, more boxes to sort and perhaps some socks to match up.

Gee – isn’t my life so thrilling?

No news

Holly Doyne Posted on by 2

I’m sitting here thinking about heading to bed. I have heard nothing out of the VA today which actually doesn’t bother me a bit. Bad news travels rather rapidly. Stable conditions and good new take a bit longer especially when one is dealing with results from a radiology department study. So I am assuming that everything is ok unless I hear otherwise.

No, I don’t consider this being an ostrich. Or chicken.

So instead, I had a chance to talk to the EBMUD (East Bay Municiple District) men working in front of our drive. They have been dealing with emergencies secondary to all the rain. Since the next four days are supposed to be clear, they are trying to proceed as fast as they can. What is important is that they should be finished in front of our garage by the end of today. After that, it won’t be making my life hard since I will be able to get in and out of the drive way again.

Tower in the full moon

A friend with a scheduling conflict gave us his tickets to the Cal Men’s Basketball Game tonight.  We parked and walked across campus.

They won. But still, I think I prefer the women’s game. There was just too much hype, replay camera work and glitzy type of competitions. Plus, I am sorry, but “media breaks” which stop play because the TV folks need to stick in a commercial or three really disrupt momentum. Plus there were twice as many cheerleaders. Seriously, how much hair flipping do I really need to see?

Haven’t done a whole lot more on the cross stitch.

12 Jan 17

 

But did manage to get the band finished on the beret and most of the crown.

Oregon State 66, Cal 56

Holly Doyne Posted on by 20

It was not a great night for the Cal Women’s Basketball team. It wasn’t that they weren’t active and out on that court. It was more that they just weren’t sinking the baskets.

Why am I telling you this? Senior tickets (when they are available) to the men’s games are ~$18. It cost $5 to buy a ticket to the women’s game. Besides, to be honest, the women look like they are having more fun. Yes, the game is taken seriously but there isn’t some announcer talking potential and scouting and distracting all of us from watching the play on the floor.

With tickets in general admission, our choices were wide open on either end of the arena. I could have easily lived without the cheerleaders. I mean, really. What in the world does one need with six (yep, 6) skinny long haired girls wiggling around with pom-pons. On the floor are two teams of serious athletes while on the sideline are ladies specializing in hair twirling… The half-time entertainment consisted of dancing out on the court by just about any one (mostly kids) who wanted to be there.

kids doing their own dance thing

But I digress. The other fun thing was the Cal Straw Hat Band. Yes, as you guessed it – they wear straw hats along with vests covered in pins and buttons.

The Straw Hat Band

and some of the hats – which are obviously personal choice

George and I had a good time and probably will go to more of the home games. I’m thinking the only game where the attendance will be significant would be the Cal-Stanford game later this year. Sorry to say, but I think there will probably be more Stanford supporters than Cal.

On the other fronts – the Klimt Virgins is done

the last 18 rows

and the final with my choosing to replace a few of the original color choices

As is Bill’s Hat.

warm hat knit of merino sock wool. Goes in the mail tomorrow….