On a normal day I would have told them to go ahead and pawn my kidney while they were at it, but for the first time in my life, I more than willingly handed $6 to the parking attendant. Being moments away from catching the best tennis player that has ever lived in action kinda put me in a better than usual mood.

Today’s semi-final featured Xavier Malisse and some local guy who had won Wimbledon 7 times. What was as exciting as the match itself was that this was to be Hui Chin’s first ATP tennis match. (It would have been a first for me had I not been all impatient and caught the earlier rounds.)

Malisse could have made more of a match of it but it was still truly amazing watching “dee” man in action. We weren’t close enough to see Pete’s tongue but we were able to catch his infamous eye brow wipe where he lifts sweat off his brow with the back of his hand.

Hui Chin and I stayed for doubles afterwards, O’Brien/Gimelstob vs. Roddick/Gambill. Oh, I forgot to mention that we bought dinner from the stands at the tennis grounds. Oddly enough, my Thai BBQ chicken pizza came up to $6, the same price for parking. The pizza was tasteless and covered with burnt carrot strips. I guess those bastards get you one way or the other.

I took a personal day to go watch the second round of the Mercedez Open with Herbie. It really felt unreal seeing Kuerten, Safin and Haas on a tennis court, in flesh and blood and not just as electrons bouncing off the TV screen.

To start the day, I almost bumped into Taylor Dent as he was making his way to play Max Mirnyi on one of the outer courts. Because I had never seen him before on TV, my initial impression when I first saw him was that he was some no name doubles player. Anyway, we were able to catch Dent-Mirnyi 6 rows from courtside, so close that you could here the ball whizzing through the air after they hit it.

We scurried over to stadium court afterwards to catch World #1 Guga, dressed in his signature yellow, walking behind the baseline between points like a flimsy piece of melty rubber. I think this guy is made of just tendons and bones, just like the skeleton dummy in biology class.

After the Kuerten match, we caught Safin-Malisse where Malisse upset Safin in two sets. A lot of baseline groundstroke brilliance in that one.

I don’t know, but it may have turned into an annual event, which may actually be nice. Muriel and her Canadian exchange students spent last night at #3, a welcome break from work life monotony actually, and an event always full of surprises. This group was smaller than last years, and we had less time to bond, given that last year we joined them for dinner the first night, camped with them at the Valencia campground and then had them over to the apartment the following night.

Muriel, nutty and always unpredictable, arrived bearing gifts; three bottles of champagne, two bottles of Merlot, and six bottles of beer. All the kids were too young to drink, Bob and Hui Chin aren’t big drinkers, leaving lots of alcohol for Muriel and JC. In a mere two hours, Muriel popped open two bottles of champagne and a bottle of Merlot.