SIDE-HILL LIES
Wednesday Nov. 21, 2018
Side-hill lie is a term most golfers understand. And dread.
Ball on a slope, you are either standing above it or below it. Either way you hate it.
Besides that awkward stance, questions of which club to hit, how to hold it, how to swing and which way your ball might go swirling in your head, a concentration mind-bender and getting the ball to advance a decent distance somewhere near the fairway is considered a victory.
Recently I’ve found a new use for this term.
Since she was pup Gusta has always chosen her drop zone the same way – a vantage point for being sure she is alone, private and safe from approaching foes (all animals are cautious that way I expect), and on a flat surface. Sometimes in dead of winter with deep snow everywhere, she chooses the middle of a street which unsettles me …
Gusta has recently discovered the side-hill lie.
On a slope along our ritual morning path – she plants herself on that slope at an angle and does her business. Sometimes she struggles with balance, but mostly she completes her task without falling but there is always a shaky stumbling bit. What she doesn’t realize is her body is at angle so things don’t come out on the same trajectory and she seems to not understand why. But she manages, stumbles a little and completes her task. She doesn’t seem to mind my laughter …
Reader feedback:
WE CAN DO IT ALONE
This is a good one. I miss you!, JC, Toronto, ON
MY MESSAGE TO THE WORLD
Good article. I think of the pressure, the fun, the laughs, the toing and froing, and piggy backing off others’ thoughts and ideas. Stressful yet immensely rewarding to collaborate on writing teams for a series like Fraser or Seinfeld. Many of the scripts were brilliant and laugh-out-loud funny. Tough to do that all alone, RT, Vancouver, BC
