Television, Telly-vision!

"Hey Mr. General Public do you realize,
That we've got a generation here of staring eyes?

Anybody else remember that Stan Freeberg song? (Yes, I'm dating my humor. Sorry!) It's one of my favorites and is hilarous to boot. There's just something about having a burglar come into your home and have grandma throw him down with wrestling moves she learned from the TV (The step-over toe throw to be precise!).

Anyway, last night was the beginning of just one of my summer TV obsessions - So You Think You Can Dance. I love, love, LOVE this show. Mainly because I'm not a dancer but yeah, I like to dance. I would put my abilities to dance on about the same par as the couple on last night's show that they were broken up but still dancing together and did the ballroom type stuff. Except exchange "ballroom" for "ethnic and American folkdance" and you've got where my talent lies. Yes, I can dance a mean Aluenul around you, by God! The Maple Leaf Rag? I'm your girl.

But because I'm aware of where my abilities lie, I would never, EVER in a millionbilliontrillion years try out for one of these shows. NEVER. That's because I am fully aware that my abilites come nowhere near any of the others, and why waste my time and the judges' time, and end up getting humiliated to boot? Unlike that fool last night who tried out for the second year in a row. "Sexy." *shudder* I took one look at him, and just cringed. Because either there is something wrong with the boy (a mental retardation of some sort, autism, something of that nature) or there is something just WRONG with him. And if the latter is the case, then ew. Just, Ew.

He's 33 years old, and obviously still living with his mother. His "dream" is to become a "dancer" and last year's effort involved him doing the world's most awkward jumping toe touches I've ever seen. This year's effort showed that yes, he has been taking lessons, and yes, he has actually improved himself because while he's still awkwardly bad, he's not puke-worthy bad. But to come on a show to find the best amateur dance talent out there? I don't think so. And of course he and his mother have decided that he is the best. THE BEST, people! And no one can take his dream away! Especially not mean, nasty Nigel. Oh, no. The judges are all wrong and mean and nasty. Only to fools, my boy. Fools.

But last night we also saw some awesome dancing - especially from the ballroom dancing front. There were two girls that just sizzled (Stanislav's sister and the other girl) that were of course put through immediately. There was also the krumping guy who attempted the most hilarious and ingenious swing dance I've ever seen in order to prove that he could do other types of dancing. The Husband and I were crying with laughter it was so good and fun and spectacular. Talk about being inventive. This guy took the cake. I would have put him straight through to Vegas after that.

I think they're off to a good start. And I can't WAIT to see Benji again. He was so good and deserved to win last year, totally.

SYTYCD is only the first of many, many shows I intent to watch this summer. After my spring breakups with both Jack Bauer (I just couldn't take the intensity anymore. Can the poor guy just get a break? He needs to be able to go home with the girl for once.) and Lost (I am way too frustrated with that show to even begin to discuss it.) I was a bit adrift in my TV schedule. I filled my time with Dancing with the Stars (Apolo totally rocked it! Whoooo!), Deadliest Catch, Criminal Minds, CSI, The Amazing Race and some of my other long-standing favorites.

The next on my list of "must sees" in the coming months is the totally cheesy, totally awful "Pirates" reality show from the king of reality TV, Mark Burnett. I know it's going to be stupid. I don't care. I want to see people have to learn how to sail a masted ship and actually, you know, get callouses on their hands. I want to see drama. I want to see digging in the dirt for gold. Everybody wandering around saying "Arrrrr!" all the time. All those good and nasty things that make up good cheesy reality shows. I live for it!

Then there's Hell's Kitchen. I love Gordon Ramsey. Love him. Love his attitude. Love the little shits he roasts on the spit demanding they make a better risotto. Awesome stuff.

These are only the starting point for my summer obsessions. Anyone care to share theirs? Maybe I can pick up on some new crap to watch.

Whale Tales

I suppose most of us here in California and the West Coast have heard about the two Humpback whales who have been "stuck" in the Sacramento River and who have only just decided to make their way back out to sea. Apparently, we tried to lure them out with sounds of other whales feeding but it didn't work. But then they decided to go ahead and go by themselves.

I have just one question for these whale experts. How in the hell do you figure that these whales got lost? I mean, seriously. Whales of all types have been going up the Sacramento River for years. YEARS. All types. All sizes. Mostly Humpbacks in recent years, true, but why do you figure that they're getting lost when they do that?

How do we not know that these whales have like some giant bet going on between them, that it's all just a ploy to frazzle us and see how much we do to encourage them to go back out to sea.

"Hey, Martha. Psssst! Martha! Take the kid on a stroll up the river this year and get the humans all riled up. Then when you get back to tell us all about it, we can have a huge laugh! It'll be a riot! Then next year we'll get one of the other species to do it because it's their turn already. Man I love doing this!"

We've already proven that dolphins are highly intelligent. And I firmly believe that any animal that has the ability to carry on for over an hour singing a song that is so complex yet perfectly repeated from whale to whale is just as intelligent. They're not freaking lost. They're exploring. They know precisely where they're at.

So quit saying they're lost already. Just because we humans have no real places to explore anymore doesn't mean that other species on earth can't do their own explorations. Let's admit the truth. We just don't want them in "our" territory. They need to be "protected" from us so they have to be out in "their" ocean, not in "our" estuaries.

The only way that's going to happen is if you put up a fence. To keep the rest of the world out of our backyard. How sad.

The Monday Morning Mish-Mash

Or, how Sarah has so many things going round in her little head it's hard to squeeze them all out in one cohesive and logical bundle, thus having to resort to a bulleted list.

• I cannot even begin to tell you the delight that I am currently experiencing knowing that Mr. Fred "Son, the Ruskies don't take a dump without a plan" Thompson is throwing his hat into the ring for the Republican nomination for president. I am totally squeeing over this. And I don't squee much over politics these days because it's just too damn depressing. Finally, someone I can actually vote for and not feel like I'm "settling" for the lesser of two evils! The Husband and I were wistfully wishing for this only a few months ago and by God he's done it! Hooray!

• A huge congratulations goes out to my friend A who had her DS last week. I'm so sorry that I forgot the date because I would have been there at the hospital for you, but call me any time for anything, okay? I'm so happy for you! *mmmwah!*

• Smog checks suck right out loud. That is all.

• It's been 10 months since my DS. And I am honestly starting to forget when the anniversary is. Just two months ago, it was an all-important day to see where I was at, how far I'd come, how much I'd lost, etc. Now, I forget the 19th is even an important day. It's because I'm happy, no, strike that - ecstatic - with me where I'm at right now and know that if it never changes I will still be very happy with my results.

• Yes, I know that the scale hasn't moved in about a month. But considering in that month I have lost TWO INCHES from my waist alone, I will totally rejoice over that. I now have a fucking 38-inch waist, people. Smaller than The Husband's! Holy crap! Can you imagine how much smaller it would be if I corseted on a daily basis? Hmmmm. Maybe I should make me an underbust corset. Hmmmmm. Possibilities, possibilities.

• It's time to re-design the sheep pen. I MUST have separate stalls for lambing season next year. Chasing the babies around the pen is dangerous for them and I can't stand it anymore. Too damn frustrating. Thank goodness I have a teen-aged boy for hire who will be helping me with it.

• And speaking of the sheep, I must get off my ass and find either a shearer or buy a set of sheep shears myself. It's gotten too hot too quick and I wouldn't want that wool coat on me.

• I am running out of patience with the Australian Shepherd. I have to find some way to calm her behavior down because it's affecting the other dogs and in a bad way. She needs to realize that she's not the alpha. I am the alpha female, whether she likes it or not. I'm tired of her riling up the perfectly well-behaved Queensland Heeler and Akita. Nevermind the torment she visits on the Mini-Doxie. I'll either find the answer to this myself, or I'll find a good trainer. She may be a puppy still, but she will learn to behave, by God.

• School is almost out for the girls. At last Thing One will be set free from the torment of a demented teacher. Having to put up with his nit-picking has driven us all to the point of insanity. I mean, have you ever had a teacher insist that you use a straight-edge to draw the lines in division problems? I can understand for graphing and other line problems, but for division? Yeah, that would be him. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Between that and her new hormones (puberty is hitting her hard - name that movie!) it's been a tough year for her and we just want her out of that situation.

Well, that's life in a nutshell around here. I'm vowing (yet again!) to post more often. Hopefully I'll stick to it, eh?

Of Bombs, Blood and Motherhood

DISCLAIMER: To any agencies that would flag this blog due to the use of the words "bombs" and "blood" in close proximity together, don't bother. I wouldn't know gelignite from jello if you whacked me over the head with them. All I'm doing is rounding things up from last week, which is why there is a kluge of seemingly related yet unrelated words in the title of this post. Thank you for your understanding.

Ahem. Now that that's over with. . .

So Monday the Seventh of May found The Husband and I waking up in our spa suite on the 30th floor of the Luxor hotel. Anybody remember that date? Yeah. That Monday. The Monday a backpack bomb went off on the top floor of the parking structure killing one man and severely wounding a woman.

As we looked out that morning upon our lovely view of the parking structure and the freeway beyond it (so much for the fucking view of the Strip we were promised), we were startled to notice all this yellow tape. And hey, was that a pool of blood we saw next to an open car door? Holy crap! CSI vans! A staging area! Dude! So cool!

So we sat for about half an hour in our various states of undress watching the scene below unfold before our eyes. At first, we thought that someone had run through the parking lot shooting at somebody, because they were canvassing an area (you know, with a line of people about two feet apart from each other looking for stuff) that was really far away from where the blood pool was. Perhaps there were shell casings they were looking for.

We left the room for a few hours, and by the time we had come back, we noticed that they had abandoned the area they were searching previously entirely and now there was a whole slew of little orange evidence markers clustered around the open car. At least two dozen. Damn. That's a lot of shell casings we remarked. And damn, this is taking a whole lot longer than just a normal shooting. Something really bad went down. Whoo-nelly are some people going to be pissed that they haven't been able to get their cars for this long. Is that one of those stupid neon-y green Chargers down there? I can't believe that somebody actually bought that thing. It is soooo ugly! Ours is totally a stealth Charger and is obviously MUCH better than that. Have they added yet ANOTHER CSI van? Whoa! Oooh! They're towing cars now. Wow. There must be a lot of them with bullet holes in them. (The conversations Husband and I have can leap wildly from subject to subject in case you haven't noticed.)

Did we bother to turn on the TV to look at the news? Find a newspaper? Ask somebody about it? Nah. We prefered to speculate to ourselves about it. It was much more fun. It wasn't until we left the hotel that we discovered all the details about the event and the bomb. I have to say that I'm glad they caught the people responsible. They should rot for the rest of their life for this. All over a girl! Sheesh! Oh wait! Nevada has the death penalty. Buh-bye boys! Good luck with the trial, then.

*****

This past Saturday was a motocross event sponsored by our church. It was held at our local fairgrounds and was open to all comers. We figured that about 100 people would show up, so we planned for food for 200. Over SIX HUNDRED people showed up over the course of the night. Wowzers. Talk about being under prepared!

We were pretty well organized. The plan was that participants would divide up into their different ability levels. The pros, the amateurs, the novices, the beginners. There were three tracks - the baby track for the little ones just learning on their 50s, a middle track for the 80-90cc crowd, and then the big monster track.

The girls were going to stick to the middle track for the most part, although there was a period where the beginners and novices got to ride the big track, with parental units in tow if necessary. I followed Thing 2 around the track because after my turn around the big track with the quad group, I knew that she could get into trouble really easy. The big track was way too much for me on my quad, mainly because I prefer to ride trails and the track was all big jumps and tabletops - not many soft hills and turns like I like. And it seemed to go on forever. So when I followed Thing 2, I switched to the The Husband's Grizzly and it was much more forgiving. Thank God. I was banged up enough already from my go-around on the Trail Boss.

After we got done with the big track, the girls of course wanted to keep riding, so they went back on the middle size track and I went to lick my wounds and get some hydration. Just at about the time my mommy senses began tingling that it was time to insist the girls come in for a drink break, I got distracted by something and put it off for about 10 minutes. By the time I was getting ready to go back out and grab them, a friend came tearing up to me to tell me that Thing 2 had rolled and was down on the track. Fuck.

I hop on the Grizzly and dash out to the track. Thing 2 is shaking and crying, a blood everywhere. The culprit? A couple of small gashes on her chin, making everything look a whole lot more gory and worse than it was. She had taken a jump a little bit too fast, landed too hard and ended up hitting her chin on the handlebars and falling off the quad as it rolled. Fuck, fuck fuck. She's more scared than hurt, I'm being calm and collected but demand that somebody go relive The Husband from his flagging post on the big track so that he can be here too. He gets there in time for us all to head for the medic trailer so we can get her cleaned up and assessed further. The EMT on scene had already looked at her for possible concussion and her eyes were good, and all extremities were working fine, so we went ahead and moved her. The back of her head was a mess of dried blood, so we showered her off a little bit and off to the emergency room we went as a precaution. The Husband stayed at the track to hurredly pack up all our gear, then bring a change of clothes for Thing 2, and deliver a car for me to drive home in after we're all done. I wasn't about to make him stay with her after he had been out in the hot sun all day flagging for the track. He was more exhausted than I was at that point.

SEVEN FUCKING HOURS LATER at 2:30 in the morning, I manage to take my child - who only needed a bit of superglue to shut one of the wounds - home so that she can fall asleep exhaused. And thus began my Mother's Day. Whoo freaking hoo. At least mine was better than the mother of the 16-year-old kid who did a stunt jump off one of the big jumps on the big track and came off his bike down onto his forearm and snapped it like dry tinder. She had the joy of driving down to Loma Linda so that her son could be put back together. Luckily, he got one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the area to do it so I'm very sure he'll be just fine.

But damn. Is nothing easy in this life anymore? Guess not, or else it wouldn't be exciting, now would it? But personally, trips to the ER that could have been avoided by following up on tingling mommy senses are totally off my list of things to do ever again.

At least she still wants to go quad riding again. That's my Tank Girl. Gotta love her!

Survival of the Fittest

I am now convinced that planning a wedding-type activity is what is used in our society to determine who precisely is meant to live on this earth. Because those who survive truly prove Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest.

It was a lovely time. Stress level once everything was at the church dropped to nil. I took my time getting dressed. The Husband looked dashing. Brother-in-Law looked swashbuckle-y, Friend looked bone-crushing-y. Thing One and Thing Two were attitude-y but gorgeous-y. In-laws were in abundance. Father was not, however Mother made up for absence of my side of the family in spades.

More than ever, I am convinced that this was the right thing to do. Renewing our promises to each other in front of witnesses that see us every day (that part for the first time) was something important to us. I got my big white dress. I looked like I felt - radiantly happy. What more can a girl ask for?

There were certain things that were odd, however. Specifically when it came to me, my weight loss, and how people perceived me.

When I saw my brother-in-law, and The Husband was bragging on how much I had lost, BIL had no clue what Husband was talking about and couldn't figure it out for a bit. The person he saw was the person he had always seen. His brain, much like mine, had never really registered that I had gotten as large as I had. He was seeing me, Sarah, as the same Sarah his brother married 13 years ago. Just a little bit older, but the same person none-the-less. Who I look like now is the picture he's carried of me around in his head, even though he's seen me at least once a year and has seen me at my highest weight. To him, I'm the same person I've always been.

My mother, who hadn't seen me since a week out of surgery, was the same way. She knew precisely what I would be looking like at this weight and had already adjusted her mental image to the one that was in her memory banks. There was no exclamations of "you look so skinny!" which was actually the kind of reaction I was afraid I was going to get as I am beginning to hate hearing that all the time. I didn't know how I would feel hearing something like that coming out of my mother's mouth. She is just happy that I am now happier with where I'm at and that I am once again comfortable in my body.

As I corseted my flabby skin into my beautiful dress that I finished in the nick of time, I felt like this was one of the first real steps back into who I really am. The me that's been hidden in the fat suit. It wasn't me, but was just attached to me, a monkey on my back (elephant perhaps?) that dragged me down.

And all throughout our trip to Vegas I was reminded that I'm back. Men stopped and looked like they used to. I mean, I'm no beauty queen, but when you have a confidence in yourself, you get noticed and appreciated visually. Strangers that would have ignored me previously struck up conversations. I could walk for forever and not have to stop and take a break so my feet would stop hurting.

The real kicker came the day we checked out of the hotel on Tuesday. From there we went to the Las Vegas Speedway so that I could get to ride along in a real NASCAR on the track. Three things occurred that after it was all said and done made me cry.

First, there was no struggle to find a safety suit that would fit me. Straight off the rack it came, and it was even loose.

Second, even though I was trepadacious about how I was going to get into the car, all it took was a quick leg over and whoosh I was in through the window as if I had been slipping into race cars all my life and it was second nature. Bo and Luke Duke had nuthin' on me!

Third, the only complication of getting out of the car was figuring out how to get my head out at the right angle with the helmet and HANS device still on. Once that was done, everything else was a breeze.

No pry bars were needed. No extra-large suit had to be found or pieced together to actually fit me. Easy coordination and off the rack apparel was all it took.

I'm normal again.

The Husband and I had a good cry over this. Him because he's so happy that I can enjoy things again, and me because I have ME back.

If you've been thinking that surgery is your only way out of the prison your body has become, do it. Do it now. I cry for the wasted years of my life, even though there were only relatively few of them compared to some of you out there. But the things that I missed doing! I'll never get them back. Now? Now I live for me. I live for my husband. I live for my children. And that life is GOOD. And it's spread out in front of me, a smorgasbord of delights that I can taste again.

Why don't you dive into your own? I'll be here for you.

Still alive. Slightly kicking. Or is that twitching?

Sweet mother of God. We will never do this again. Between a slight panic that we wouldn't have our officiant for this weekend (he has had a neck surgery postponed several times now and it almost happened this week but has now been bumped to next week), and all the usual last-minute scrambling to make sure everything is done, I'm exhausted.

We have a Costco run to make tomorrow, my mother and BIL's family arrive tomorrow, my father isn't going to make it, The Husband's parents and oldest sister arrive Friday, and I still have to call my children's school to let them know that they won't be there on Friday. I have an RV to clean, beds to make, floors to vacuum, a dress to bustle and beads to add to, a vest to make if I find the time, nails to get done, a church to decorate and a partridge in a pear tree.

In the end, we'll all have fun. Then we'll send everybody away and The Husband and I will escape to Las Vegas. In a hot tub. With lots of alcoholic drinks. And slot machines and roulette wheels. And hot stone massages. Live! Nude! Girls! Oh! And shopping! My kind of a vacation!

And to end it all? I get to go 170+ miles per hour at Las Vegas Speedway. Holy cow! And wheeee!

See y'all around this time next week!