Olympic dreams and random thoughts as I watch the Opening Ceremonies

I just sat down to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. The opening credits made me teary. What is it about these games that tugs on my heart strings so? Is it what was repeated 100 times "Not the triumph but the struggle"? Is it the enormity of the events themselves? Is it that I'm a completely hormonal woman who got teary as her daughter took her very first shower this evening? Or all of the above? Regardless, I will be silently weeping through a majority of these games. I put myself in the shoes of the athletes as I always have my whole life. What does standing on that platform feel like? I am in awe of thier ability to hold it together with dignity and grace as their National Athem plays and millions are crying for them. And I put myself in the shoes of the proud parents watching as their child is crowned best in the world. The whole world! If that were my child, I wouldn't have a coherent thought. Chuck would have to just sit there, holding a wreck of a sobbing woman, looking at the camera inevitably pointed as us and just shrug and pretend he didn't know me.

And then there's Bob Costas. Although he so far appears to be behaving, I will never forget his horrible joke from the '96 Olympics. During the Parade of Nations, he spoke of the rule passed to the Canadian athletes - no sex during the games. He then remarked that there would be no "O Canada"'s being heard from outside their bedroom windows. *groan*

U.S. uniforms - driving caps. Awesome. Really, they are but it's a look that sends memories of my late Grandpa Campbell into my head. More emotions flooding in. It's going to be a roller coaster of a month.

Despite the tears and insanity in my head what I keep thinking is this:

How F**king cool are these Opening Ceremonies? Damn China, you put on a good show!

Foto Friday

Lights in the sky

Who's bad?

This is Layla's "I'm being bad now mommy" face.

She tries really hard to be a cranky 2-year-old but it just makes her more adorable, I think. I may have mentioned it before but it's seriously like someone just informed her of the phrase "Terrible Two's" and so she feels she must play the part. She's starting to throw some temper tantrums but mostly she just scowls and says "I'm bad." But I know the truth.

Morons of the week

It's time again for the stupid Chamblee crimal report! This one has a lot of stupid victims. Here are my favorites:

It's always nice to share - Police found a man bleeding from the face and nose and called paramedics to help him. The 40 year old victim told police that he had two beers and went to hide in the bushes to drink them. Two men saw him and asked him to share. He said no and they beat him up.

DUH - A man reported that he left his 2000 white GMC van running while he went into Lowes. When he came back, it was gone. He said that he left it running because it had a bad starter.

This is actually a smart victim. When in doubt, start yelling - A 38 year old man reported that he and his wife were standing behind their apartment building when three masked men jumped out of a vehicle and robbed them. One of the men had a pistol and another demanded the man’s wallet. The man told them that he had no wallet and began screaming “ROBBERY”. The robbers returned to their car and fled.

You can't count on your friends - Officer W. found a man urinating in public and arrested him. After being booked into the city jail, the man’s friend came to bail him out. The friend asked for the man but called him by a different name that the offender had told the officer. The friend, realizing his mistake, then asked for the man by the name given to the officer. Officer W., suspecting that the offender had lied about his real name, went into the jail and called the man by the other name. The offender quickly replied “YES, THAT’S ME.” Needless to say, the offender was also charged with giving a false name to a police officer.

Cheetahlicious? Really?

Last night we turned on the TV to relax before bed time. It was already on the Disney Channel since the girls had been watching Jo Jo's Circus or something that morning. The Cheetah Girls 2 was on. Gag gag gag. Much to my horror, Mia jumped up and said "Cheetah Girls?! Jennifer & I used to sing all their songs at school!" Wha wha what?! NO! We're too young for this debauchery. I timidly asked her, "So you want to watch this movie?" "YES!" and then she proceeded to dance around the room. Layla looked at me and said, "I want Elmo." Me too Layla. Me too.
Yesterday my friend Katie sent her daugther off to Kindergarten and cried her eyes out. I was about to do the same. My baby is growing up and God help me that seems to involve mind numbing, bad acting, cheap looking teen comedies. After about 5 minutes of the movie when I was trying to decide if I wanted to cry or vomit, Mia asked to watch "The Goodnight Show" which is a toddler focused program. And the heavens opened up, a light shown down on us, and life was normal again. I know it's just a stay of execution but I'll take it. I need all the time I can get.

I do it for Love

A couple weeks ago we enrolled Mia in tennis camp. She insisted she did not need tennis camp because she already knew how to play tennis. During each session of camp she whined to the coach that she didn't know how to do anything. Until he tried to show her how and then she boldly told him she already knew that already! The poor poor man. I actually heard him exclaim "I don't need this aggravation!" Luckily at that point he was talking to the mother of two boys who were throwing tennis balls at each other so my little ball of crazy was safe for the moment.
Yesterday I heard her teaching Layla, "you can't swing because then the ball will go too far. You have to punch. Punch."

There were only five kids in the group but that still leaves time to wait for the other kids to take their turns. Want to know what bored kids do with tennis rackets?

Yep, they rub them on their butts while they dance. This was the most tame of their racket antics. It's all innocent to the kids but I'm looking on in shock and awe. Please stop sitting on your racket like that. It really looks bad.

RAIN!

On Saturday we were supposed to hold our big comeback for the Movie in the Park. We were showing Goonies - that awesome classic from my generation's childhood! Then this happened.

We won't go into how long it took me to get this shot but it's just a sample of the completely crazy storm we had. The screen tech was all, "this will blow over in 10 minutes." Sure it will, but how many people are still going to come? An hour and a half later when it was still shooting bolts all around us, he finally packed up his stuff and went home so I could do the same.