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Thursday, August 14, 2008
little things
I've been feeling snippety for DAYS but I don't know how many of them I'll remember.
- Chinese Olympic gymnasts: No way (in my opinion) are some of those girls sixteen years of age. JUST NO WAY. I can't watch the Olympics from home, so I haven't seen them in action (bummer, because that's my favorite part of the summer Olympics) but just looking at pictures, um. No. (Still, if they're that talented -- is it easier to do gymnastics like that when you're prepubescent? Cause unless it's an unfair advantage, or bad for their little bodies, or something, I guess it would be reasonable to open the games to anyone who can compete. Maybe I just totally sounded stupid right then, too, though, because people, I have no idea what I'm talking about. "Ooh, flipping! Oooh, flipping around the BARS! That is impressive. The end." That is the extent of my knowledge about gymnastics, other than that I completely suck at it and not just because I'm closer to the Amazon than the petite department when it comes to my luuurvely feminine physique.)
- Yesterday I took my kids to the valley because I had to do a lot of shopping and I like to torment them like that, and we had the BEST. TIME. EVER. You know what's really awesome, is when your kids grow up and have these very individualized senses of humor, and my goodness, they are so FUNNY. I laughed till I cried at some of the jokes we made in the car (not, by the way, the safest possible thing to do when you're driving). Highlight: Scanning through Sirius radio stations (the rental is absolutely loaded, and yes we're still in the rental, more on that later) and appending "Dead Clowns" to the end of whatever part of the song title showed in the display. "32 Acres of Dead Clowns" was our favorite. WE ARE A RIOT OF LAUGHS I TELL YOU.
- The garden is slowing down and becoming persnickety. It seems to need a lot of water, and yet when I give it enough water it seems to develop symptoms of overwatering. The corn is worrying me (but then the corn always worries me, and usually it turns out fine). The tomatoes, on the bright side, are doing OK, after a worrying episode when every single ripe tomato had bad blossom-end rot. The cherry tomatoes are also doing fine. The pepperoncini -- well, I blogged about that particular issue already. The yellow squash and zucchini are as dependable as ever, but the melons are ... not growing. They all achieved a certain size and then stopped. A lot of the fun has gone out of the enterprise, is what I'm saying here. But I'm still glad I did it (um, am still doing it) and Next Year Will Be Better.
- I baked five million (or, OK, fifteen dozen) cookies today, because I am starting The Fair Baking. I froze a half-dozen cookies' worth of pre-shaped dough from each of the four variety of cookies I made today to put in the fair (and half a dozen baked cookies as back-up in case this never-before-tried experiment goes badly awry), and baked the rest, and now we are up to our ears in cookies. And I still have ten other entries to do in the next two weeks.
- It is hot. Really, really hot.
- The car dealership was supposed to have our car done last week. Then it was supposed to be done yesterday. Now it might, if things go extraordinarily well, be done tomorrow. All this annoyance to replace (or I guess now rebuild) the transmission in a car with under 2200 miles on it. This should not have to happen.
- Did you notice that there's not one adjective in the above paragraph? That's because I don't use those words and no others would do. (At least they pay for the rental.)
- The sweater from the last post is coming along fine. It has been an enormous learning experience and I feel all designerish now. I even discovered why knitting charts (which I still don't know if I'll ever be able to read) are considered useful things. People, I kind of designed my own cable-y thing. This is a big milestone. Big. Huge. I have to go shopping now. (Sorry, inadvertent 1991 flashback. Oh, how I loved the clothes in that movie. Well, some of them.)
I know I wanted to ramble on and on about more things but I can't remember what they were. I know, I know, the hardship. I'm sorry. Maybe I'll do better next time.
Comments
1) From what I have read, small bodies are an advantage in gymnastics (lower center of gravity, lighter, etc.). And, more worryingly, I think, the Chinese gymnasts peak much younger than 16 because they are taken from their families at age 3 or something and trained hours and hours a day. That really doesn't sound healthy.
2) At least the ongoing car saga means you get to have the radio fun in the rental...
3) Can't wait to see the sweater. And I don't know what movie that's from. :(
Posted by: Kat with a K at August 15, 2008 06:01 AM
Corn worries me too. What with the murderous children and all.
Posted by: jennifer at August 15, 2008 03:58 PM
I'm not so sure about those gymnasts. You should see what some of my colleagues ere look like, and they are actual adults. Ethnic Chinese women in Taiwan seem to run much smaller and slimmer than Chinese-American women.
(I am a US size 4. Sometimes a 6. I just bought a bathing suit here the other week - size freaking XL.)
Posted by: dichroic at August 20, 2008 10:32 PM
