The Road to 40 Day 11/365: Basketball and nostalgia

by | May 21, 2025 | Strawberry-Filled Donuts

It’s been a while since I last played basketball, so this day, I decided to pick up my ball and shoot some hoops.

I have a go-to basketball group here in Singapore whom I have been with since I came here. But, they usually play in the afternoon, right when I pick up Vino from school. I usually have to prep food for dinner when we get back, and I can’t leave Vino home alone while I play, so I haven’t played with them in ages. 

One time, I brought Vino with me so he could do other things while I played. He ended up playing on his iPad because there weren’t a lot of players, so there was no one to keep him occupied while I was on the court.

Maybe next time, I’d bring him to another game.

For now, I wanted to sweat out and do something physical again. I initially wanted to walk or run, but I found the pump for the ball so I thought why not, right?

In a 12-man team, I would probably be the 10th or 11th man off the bench. I don’t run super fast, I don’t have a finishing drive, but I am confident on defense and I have my spot on offense.

If you are my teammate, even if you have your eyes closed, you can throw it to that spot and I’ll be able to catch the ball and shoot it.

Knowing that role, I got some shots up to find comfortable shooting forms I can use when I play with people again.

I was confident enough to take a video of my progress because I found my groove, shooting five straight makes. But alas, all that was gone once I started recording the video.

I made a reel out of the video mostly for fun rather than showing off my shooting. I’m not ashamed to say I took about at least 30 shots to get a video of 6 shots going in.

Upon going home, I prepped dinner early so that there would be less work when I got back from picking up Vino.

During this process, my knees reminded me why I should have started with running first instead of going straight to basketball.

Che bought these ice packs for us, but so far, only I have benefitted from them. She said it’s too cold for her, even if she was feeling some pain in her knees one time.

It’s not instant relief, but it does help.

Still, I’m thankful that at 39, I only need to ice my knees. This same day, a friend of mine shared that he suffered an ACL tear on the same morning.

I sweat a lot during my session, but I guess I don’t go as hard as other guys who play.

Basketball is a huge part of my life, but I play it for fun, regardless of the outcome. I love watching it because of the competition, but when I play, I always enjoy the camaraderie it brings.

At night when we sleep, we usually put something on TV or play music. Both Che and I got used to this even before we lived together.

When we had Vino, we would also play music to lullaby us to sleep. It’s no suprise that Vino picked up this habit.

Night time is also K-Drama catchup time. So if Vino is watching a show and he’s sleepy, he’d give his glasses for us to keep and he’ll say we can watch our K-Drama already.

On this night, I decided to watch Ex Ex Lovers on Netflix. I heard about this from a podcast, so I had an idea of what it was going to be.

I never watched Pinoy movies by choice before I got together with Che.

I remember one time our parents gave us money so my sister, my brother, and I could watch a movie when I was about 11. It was Christmas season, so all the movies were Pinoy movies.

We watched Tanging Yaman and while the movie was fine, we left the movie house like we didn’t want to get caught by anyone coming from that cinema.

Che introduced me to Pinoy movies – from Cinema One binge watching at our homes to movie premieres, she would ultimately get me to enjoy watching these things without her forcing me to.

I’m thankful because by the time One More Chance came out, I was totally invested in Pinoy movies.

One of the classic movies that I watched with Che was Marvin and Jolina’s “Labs Kita…Okey Ka Lang?”

If you haven’t watched it and did so only today with the context of today’s movies, this will probably be super cringe-y. It kinda was when I first watched it, but it had its moments.

So the movie Ex Ex Lovers kinda picks up from the story of Bujoy and Ned, but I guess they didn’t get the rights to those names as their names in this movie are Joy and Ced.

It’s almost like 90’s acting and Che got irritated by some of the scenes. I had to remind her that it was the same things she dragged me to watch before.

What’s really surprising was that Vino was enjoying the movie. It was in Tagalog and we had subs, but he said he understood some of the Tagalog parts.

We know he’s enjoying it because he wasn’t handing over his glasses, and he’s reacting to sone scenes. Dude was even eatig up some “kilig” moments.

I’m guessing Filipino movies might be a way for him to learn Tagalog if he’s having fun watching them like this.

If you have non-cringe quality Pinoy movies that are ok for kids, let me know!

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