A Day to Remember
As I said a couple of posts ago, we have had a lot of visitors lately and many wonderful, memorable experiences with them. And I have fallen behind in my documentation.
I will start my attempt at catching up with a day that I will remember the rest of my life. But let's start from the beginning. Some decades ago--maybe twenty-five years, but I can't quite remember--I started taking fitness classes offered by MIT Medical. They were held in a building convenient to the Economics Department, and they were an easy way to shoehorn a little bit of physical exertion into my typical sitting-at-my-computer-for-hours sort of days. I had a few different instructors in the beginning, and classmates would cycle in and out, but gradually a tight-knit community of about eight of us regulars formed, headed by our teacher Dorri. Everyone, by nature of the class, had some type of MIT connection, but they were from all over the Institute--librarians, writers, accountants, healthcare providers, scientists, teachers, administrators--which made our conversations during class interesting and fun. Then, several years ago, Dorri moved to Missouri and that was, we thought, the end of the class.
Covid changed lots of things, many for the worse, but some for the better. Covid ensured that everyone adopted the technologies and learned the possibilities of virtual meetings, and so we resurrected our exercise group over Zoom. (It turns out that Zoom is fantastic for exercise classes. You can join from the comfort of your home or office or even while traveling (or on sabbatical!), and being able to see yourself and your teacher performing the exercises side-by-side on the screen helps a lot with improving form.) If anything, the ties within our group have strengthened over the past few years, as the class provided a much-needed sense of community during the darkest periods of Covid, and we have offered invaluable support to one another during the vicissitudes of our lives.
This was a circuitous way to say that I have a dear friend Julie, also a senior lecturer (recently retired), that I have known for decades. Julie's husband Ron, it turns out, is a fellow Hoosier and tennis player, and she introduced us a few years ago. Since then, Ron and I have enjoyed weekly tennis sessions in the MIT bubble (suspended this year due to the sabbatical, but to resume next fall). And we were thrilled when Julie and Ron said that they would like to visit us in Paris! And also thrilled when they said that their visit would coincide with the French Open! I was very much looking forward to going to Roland Garros with them.
Several months ago, Ron asked me if we would rather see the Womens' Final or the Mens' Final. I said "Womens'." This was my first inkling that, perhaps, he had some source for tickets other than the normal online queue, where you take what you get. We were so happy to have them visit and so grateful for their invitation to the tournament. But, to be honest, I had no idea what was in store.
Then, as the day approached, we started to iron out the logistics. Ron suggested that we meet them at RG late morning to catch some of the Womens' Wheelchair Final. And then we would have lunch. The Womens' Final was to start at 3pm, followed by the Mens' Doubles Final. The day arrived, and I told Glenn that I thought we should dress a bit nicer than we normally would for a sporting event--I had the sense that the crowd at a grand slam final might be a little better turned out than our typical attire.
We followed the instructions on the ticket and arrived at a special gate. We were greeted there by a small army of friendly and helpful employees, offering us concierge service for anything we needed. It was becoming more clear: this was not the typical sports spectator experience. I have been to many, many sporting events in my life, including high-profile ones such as Wimbledon, the Indianapolis 500, Olympics qualifying, the Boston Marathon, NBA playoff games, World Series games, and so forth. But this experience would be different.
And lunch was most definitely not the kind of fare that I'm used to eating at sporting events. Here were two of the four courses, the starter and the dessert:
The food was outstanding, and so was the wine, although I tried to pace myself given that I did not want to sleep through the afternoon.
After lunch, it was time to head to Center Court to get ready for the Womens' Final. We entered the gate listed on our tickets and showed them to the usher who would lead us to our seats. I was sort of following the usher blindly, taking in the ambiance of the stadium, and not paying a lot of attention to where we were going. Finally, we arrived, I looked up, and was stunned. Our seats were courtside directly behind the bench of Iga Swiatek! Here was our view (not using the zoom):
It turns out that, not only did we have an excellent view of the on-court action, the viewers at home also had an excellent view of us--Glenn's brother sent us a photo he took of his television during the broadcast that shows the two of us very clearly behind Iga during a change-over. I was glad that we had chosen slightly elevated clothing for the event instead of jeans shorts and t-shirts with writing. And here is a photo from the awards ceremony showing how it should not be surprising that we had ended up on media feeds.
What a day!
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