I have a secret

I used to watch “The Bachelor.” The first season was a novelty, and then my friends and I would have tv parties to watch it in college. But I gave it up. I tried to to watch the season with the English guy but I just couldn’t do it. Seeing the girls fawn all over this guy drives me crazy. And all the kissing. I remember the first season it was shocking to the world that Alex kissed like 3 girls, now its like all kissing all the time. Oh and “The most dramatic rose ceremony ever” please. So when people like my mom ask me if I watch (which is often phrased more like “You don’t watch the bachelor do you?”) I give the obligatory eye roll of disgust with my “of course not.”

But I have a secret. I have been watching “The Bachelorette.” It’s good for the eye candy and seeing the control on the other side for a change. Plus all the the girls have been returners from past seasons so we already care about them and want them to find a happy ending. And who would not love Trista, Ryan, and their cute little baby. But I have to say even that is getting hard to watch.

I guess I’m pretty much a real life grown-up now and the people on the show are actually my age. Plus it is just so unreal. (You mean everyone doesn’t hang out in the Bahamas? I know it’s shocking.) But mostly why are we breaking people’s hearts for the sake of television. It’s enevitable that 24 of these guys are going to get cut. Maybe it’s the fame? But they have to know that there is so many ex-reality stars and nobody cares about 99 percent of them. So why aren’t these guys dating their friends from school, church… their sister’s co-worker, whatever!? Hey guys, find a peer. We’re out here.

Ice Antics

My ice spit on me… like 2 feet from my hand to my face. It took me a few seconds to realize what was going on. But some bubble thing or something happened and it spit this stream of water at my eye. Crazy. It would have been nice to have someone to laugh with.

Let’s Compare

Now that’s vintage.

Hey Jealousy

I saw two things today… right in a row that put together made me cry. I know this is vague, but you never know, right? So now that I just finished watching “The Notebook” that makes two cries in one day. That’s a record for me in the past… well since I was teething. And my emotional accessibility is just a whole other post for some other self-centered day.

So here is what happened… I overheard someone offering someone something that I want (bad I know but we’ll leave it at that since its all about me and not about them.) Then like 30 seconds later in the next room I overheard a different someone actually giving someone else something that was offered to me. And these two incidents made me cry… not full-out sobbing but that seething, woe-is-me couple of tears.

Jealous tears… not cute. And then I got mad at myself because the reason for incident 2 was likely the fact that I didn’t return a call. And I’m still mad at my sense of entitlement. “Why didn’t they think of me?” I wish for my self more initiative and assertiveness. I want to cry over things I try instead of things I miss out on.

Swimming

I got to go swimming with the VBS aftercare kids. But we had a squirt gun crisis. The rules were laid out very clearly. You can only squirt other people who have squirt guns, and if you don’t want to be squirted then put down your squirt gun. Easy enough right? Well not for an eight year old.

This particular eight year old did not want to be squirted but nor did he want do give up his squirt gun. So copious yelling of “Don’t squirt me!” ensued. “Put down your squirt gun.” “No, I don’t want to.” …. “Don’t squirt me!” Us counselors finally just quit trying. Until he changed tactics, “It’s not fair, they are all squirting me.” “Look they are squirting each other too.” “NO they are not… It’s not fair.” I was at a lose because he kindda was right.

The eight year old solution was to hurl the squirt gun across the pool and start sobbing. I went over to sit by him because he was sitting chin deep on the steps and gasping between his alligator tears which I recognized as a drowning hazard (scary.) “This is why I hate teachers,” he said. “They never take my side.”

But you have to follow the rules. Was I supposed to jump in and tell the boys to stop? I am satisfied that no one drown. If the boy had not been screaming through the whole game maybe he wouldn’t have been the favorite target. You’ve got to choose your battles. He’ll learn.

Erin blogs about golf

The Buick Open started yesterday. Who cares, right? The commercials are all over (you won’t catch me watching ESPN outside of college football season.) They say “Can Rocco Mediate continue his hot streak?” (That is Rocco Mediate of recent second place US Open fame, as well as a FSC graduate.) Rocco lost to Tiger Woods, but he came heartbreakingly close to a upset victory. They say it was like David and Goliath. Everybody likes Tiger (what’s not to like) but it was good to see him have some competition. The world loves Rocco.

The thing is you can’t have a David without a Goliath. It’s just something about having something to clash with, someone big to come up against. You can’t be an underdog without a champion to beat.

Maybe Rocco will win the Buick Open, maybe not. But there won’t be anymore commercials. Not until Tiger comes back from surgery and they meet again.

Borrow a Baby

The premise is the teenage couples get to borrow some kids. One couple wants to get married, one was about to break up and one wants to have a baby now. And I presume that these are 18 year olds because it looks like they live with their parents. It sounded like a good idea for reality tv to me so I’m watching it. But wait… they also get a house of their own. So so far 30 minutes into the show we have seen about ten shot of the couples sleeping, arguing, cuddling, and yelling at each other… in bed together.

These are real live teenagers. You should see the fits they are throwing. They all have a nanny assigned to them. And the baby’s parents get to watch on closed circuit television. So one of the moms just came over because the baby wasn’t eating enough food and our teenager just gave her all sorts of attitude, “He just doesn’t want to eat.” Right, the baby doesn’t want to eat. So her boyfriend come back from the grocery store and she gives the baby to him and goes and pouts on the bed. “I’m not here to get bitched out, I’m not touching it again.”

Oh look in bed together again. Now I am not naive. I’m sure these teens have been in bed before. But who thinks this is a good idea. The whole point of the show is that they are not grown up yet. Do their parents care? It’s just wrong in so many ways. Go get a stinking babysitting job. We have enough playing like your married going on.

I can’t believe it… well maybe I can.

I guess I’ll be staying in Tallahassee. Surprise, surprise.

Walking in a Hurricane

I have lovely white crape-myrtles growing in my front yard. And right now they are in full bloom just like every summer. If you haven’t seen them before they are short bushy trees that are native to the south and the tiny white flowers grow in clusters. One of my favorite things about the flowers is that they get heavy when they are in full bloom and make the tree look like an umbrella of flowers. When you walk under them the individual flowers let go and land on your clothes and stick in your hair. I love it. It’s just such a simple and happy thing.

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I think everyone likes to tease their parents (everyone with a good parental relationship anyway.) As the oldest child I get to give mine a hard time about the ways that they were strict on me and then let up on my younger siblings. But I have to say that my favorite story to tell on them is the time they made me walk home in a hurricane.

It was the summer after I finished eighth grade and I was taking summer PE so that I could take an extra elective my freshman year. I think that it was about three weeks and we would get up and go at 8 and have classroom lessons until lunch and then after lunch we would have physical activity till it was time to go home at about three. My parents never took me to school (never is strong but we are talking about maybe 5 times ever.) So in middle school I walked home from school most days less than a mile with my friends, my cousin, and sometimes my sister and brother. So I continued to do that during summer PE but since it was the summer there was not even a bus option.

So one day we had a hurricane watch. It wasn’t close enough that they canceled summer school before we had to show up but they let us go home shortly after we arrived. So I called home to get a ride… I mean a hurricane was coming. And they told me “just walk home.” Just walk home?! I was so mad. Mad enough to huff and cry as I walked home in the rain that was beginning to fall. So I walked, I cried, and I stewed as the wind started to pick up. “I can’t believe they are making me walk home in a hurricane.” And that’s the end of the story that I tell but it’s not really the end.

About half way home something kind of magical happened. The rain had made the temperature drop to a pleasant seventy instead of the usual nineties and hundreds of a typical Florida summer day. And it was still just drizzling. I walked by some white crapemyrtles that were blooming like they do in the summer. The wind was blowing the whole trees and tiny white flowers were being let go in huge swirling clouds. It was indescribably beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it since; I had to be walking in a hurricane.

Tie Dye

The tie dye shirt from VBS smells just like my fifth grade tie dye shirt. It’s sending me back to my tug-of-war champion days.