When is a nut not a nut?

When it's a coconut. Really. Well, almost.

The coconut is nut, I mean not, considered a "tree nut." According to US law (no kidding, there's a really a law about this) tree nuts include almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, chestnuts, filberts/hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pine nuts (pignolia nuts), pistachios, and walnuts.

Coconut trees are not technically trees because they don't have bark, branches or secondary growth (the process by which trees increase their diameter through the production of wood and bark). They are, believe it or not, perennials.

Which means those of you who are allergic to nuts (and/or peanuts) are not necessarily allergic to coconut. I bring this up because there's been a lot of chatter (from all those health-nut stringers who camp out in lawn chairs and follow these things) about the health benefits of coconut water. Low in fat, zero cholesterol, electrolyte rich, and more potassium than a banana — this stuff was even used in WWII and Vietnam as a substitute for IV solution. It's being touted as the best hang-over cure, the better "sports drink" drink, and all-round hydration champ.

Consider this: 8 fl oz of Gatorade has about 50 calories, 0g fat, 16g carbohydrates (13g simple, or 'added,' sugar), 93mg chloride, 36.6mg potassium and 95mg sodium.

8 fl oz of coconut water has about 50 calories, 0g fat, 10g carbohydrates, 283mg chloride, 705mg potassium, and 60mg sodium. It is also listed as a good source of vitamin C, riboflavin and calcium, as well as dietary fiber(!) and magnesium.

By the way, peanuts aren't nuts either. They're legumes. Don't get me started.

Sports is art is life is sports is...

Whatever else they do or don't do well, Nike does good TV. This time, they asked Alejandro González Iñárritu to film a micro-short (okay, I just made that up, but you watch it and tell me you'd call it a "commercial") about the World Cup.

I don't know exactly (or at all, frankly) what guidelines Nike offered to Iñárritu, but I imagine they were along the lines of: we would like to send a message that illustrates the universal language created from the shared experience of talent, skill, determination and triumph.

(There should be a video here. If you don't see it, it's worth watching, or I wouldn't have posted it, so click here.)

Message received.

Four peaks and a shopping bag

I don't ordinarily discuss (my) life events here (this just isn't that sort of blog), but as the song says, it's my party, and I'll write what I want to.

Lest this has escaped your notice, I am not what you'd call Miss Pro Athlete, Miss Marathon, or even Miss Athlete or Miss Half-Marathon.

I am, however, Miss "Sure, I'll Try That." Which is how I ended up doing the Summit Challenge in Phoenix, AZ this past weekend with my friend, LW, who will forever more be known as Little Goat.

The Challenge kicked off for us, who were doing the Four Peak Challenge, not the Seven Peak Challenge (are they crazy?), at 8:00am Saturday morning. Luckily, the Challenge was a challenge not a race—at least for us—because Little Goat and I left the house a tad late, then noticed we were low on gas, and then the low-air-in-tyre (my car is German, so, yeah, tYre) alarm went off. Would you believe, not one, not two, but THREE tyres were low? I kid you not. $1.50 worth of air later (and some gas)—we were finally on our way.

We were only perhaps 10, okay maybe 15, minutes late to the starting line, but we didn't let a little thing like that deter us from recognizing that we really couldn't begin our climb before partaking of the complimentary coffee and pastries provided. Breakfast was had. We did truly want to start, however, so we also recognized that walking all the way back to our car to stash the fancy bag of samples and pamphlets we'd been given wasn't the best use of time. We kept the bags and off we went to hike Papago Butte, looking for all the world like we were about to stroll down Fifth Avenue, shopping bags in hand.

We strolled, I mean hiked, around the base of the butte, up the back and down its front. One down, three to go. Turns out navigation is part of the challenge—we had to make our own way to the next peak. Auto GPS, bada-bing, bada-bang, and we were there. And making up for lost time too.

But then, oh dear. Somehow between the second and third peaks, bada-bing, bada-bang, we got lost—we were at the bottom of Phoenix (South Mountain) instead of the top of Phoenix (North Mountain), which sounds like a much dumber move than it was, because we did input the correct intersection into the Auto GPS—but, as it turns out, there are TWO places in Phoenix where 7th Street and Thunderbird Road cross. Who knew? That little boo-boo cost us about 45 minutes of drive time. Still, even with all that, we started at 8:30am and were done at 1:45pm. And the allotted time is from 8:00am to 4:00pm, so Little Goat and I feel pretty good about that.

And Miss "Sure, I'll Try That?"—she's agreed to do all seven next year. What was she smoking?!

and I am so not the sports fan...

Yet here I was again, for the second time in as many weeks, glued to the TV set.

This time, at least, was not quite as unusual -- I grew up watching tennis with my mom. I have incredible memories of watching Connors, McEnroe, Borg, Lendl, Nastase play and peppering my mom with questions - what's a break point? why do they get to serve three times? how can they hit a one-handed back hand? what's love? (Not, mind you, in the vastly existential meaning of the word.) And then later watching Becker, Sampras, Agassi - often on the phone with my mom from wherever I happened to be.

So here comes Sunday, the Wimbledon finals - and Federer's going for an amazing record - six straight Wimbledon championships. And you couldn't have moved me from in front of the television with a crow bar. Federer plays Rafael Nadal in what John McEnroe is calling "the greatest match ever seen," before ultimately losing it, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7.

It is the longest match in Wimbledon history, at 4 hours and 48 minutes, with two rain delays. This was tennis like you dream about. Unreal. Unbelievable. Amazing. Honestly, there aren't enough adjectives. Not to mention, two of the nicest players in tennis history. But it was the tennis that was magical. This was a tennis match that was truly a thing of beauty - worth watching again and again.

Unreturnable serves? Returned. Unreachable shots? Reached. Aces pulled out of thin air at the last possible minute to save the day. Passing shots that must have felt like an assassin's bullet whizzing by. Cross-court shots that cut into the corners by inches. Overhead shots that dug some serious holes in the grass.

It was a tennis match that was as poignant as it was extraordinary - marking the end of Roger Federer's streak of 40 straight wins in a row at the All England Club and his record 65 straight wins on grass - and bringing to a crashing halt his bid to be the first man in well over 100 years to win six straight Wimbledon singles titles.

For the sport of tennis... well, Sunday's match works for me as a response to my question "what's love?"

Did you see that?

It's true.

I confess.

For a long time I thought the only thing less exciting than watching golf was doing laundry. And that's saying something.

Ha!

Let me tell you - I was wrong. W-R-O-N-G. Wrong. The US Open this weekend at Torrey Pines was riveting. My first inkling came in the form of a text from a friend - "Tiger had one of the most exciting rounds of golf ever. People were going nuts... he was down 5 strokes with 6 holes to play. Two eagles and a birdie later, he is one ahead going into the final round."

I managed to catch most of the final round - holy cow, that was still some drama. If you'd written it, they would've tossed it back to you and said, "no way, too melodramatic, tone it down."

Rocco Mediate, 45 years old, ranked 158th, qualifies to play in the US Open only after winning a sudden death play-off. Four rounds of golf later, he's in the lead. There's just one player, one shot, between him and the championship. But the player is Tiger Woods, 32 years old, ranked 1st in the world (for a record 500 weeks). And the shot? Just a birdie on the 18th hole. Which Tiger makes. Of course he does.

And the playoff round is on. 18 more holes. Rocco is ahead by one going into the 18th, where Tiger has a chance to eagle the hole and win, but he misses. Then Rocco has a chance to birdie the hole and win, and he misses. And, ba da bing, the playoff round is tied too.

Now they're on to sudden death. (See what I mean? If I handed you this screenplay, you'd think it was absurd.)

Oh, you want to know what happens? Tiger wins the championship - but (though I'm sure not for him) it seems almost beside the point. ''This is probably the greatest tournament I've ever had,'' said Tiger.

It certainly was some of the greatest drama I've ever watched. There's a reason they say it's the journey that counts, not the destination... It may have been golf, but that seems beside the point too.

Hollywood and baseball - postscript

So, we all know that Marilyn was married to Joe.

I didn't, however, know until today that Richard Widmark's daughter, Ann, was married to Sandy Koufax. My dad has talked about Koufax a lot over the years, so his name has stuck in my brain, though I am really, truly not a baseball fanatic. He played for the Brooklyn (and then the Los Angeles) Dodgers - though whether the LA version really counts as the Dodgers was enough of a topic to get my grandfather rather red in the face and loud in the voice. If you know what I mean.

Nonetheless, according to Wikipedia,

Among NL pitchers with at least 2,000 innings pitched who have debuted since 1913, [Koufax] has the highest career winning percentage (.655) and had the lowest career ERA (2.76) until surpassed by Tom Seaver, whose NL career mark is 2.73. His 2,396 career strikeouts ranked 7th in major league history upon his retirement, and trailed only Warren Spahn's total of 2,583 among left-handers. Retiring at the peak of his career, he became, at age 36 and 20 days, the youngest player ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Pretty impressive. I still think the fact that Richard Widmark was his father-in-law is cooler. That's just me.