Amazing Race 12, Ep. 6

Too bad for Hendekea and Azzaria; that simple mistake cost them dearly. I checked my tape over, and when Azzaria was saying "economy" to the ticket agent, she was saying "as fast as possible". The agent might have only heard her, and found her the best seats at the time, which were business class.

Wow, Azzaria, you are totally wrong-o on the role of an older brother. An older brother's job is not to "challenge" or "guide" a younger sister, an older brother's job is to A) infuriate her B)embarrass her, C) be condescending to her and D) give her noogies at every available opportunity.

Man, that Jennifer and Nate are both prizes, aren't they? Their dynamics alternately baffle me and sicken me. Can someone exlplain the thought processes that go on with relationships like that, because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why people continue to stay with someone they so clearly dislike. I kind of remember being about 14 and having a "boyfriend" that I didn't like very much, but he liked me, and I enjoyed the status of dating someone, so I put up with him for about a week or so. They kind of remind me of that.
When we were watching, Thing 2, who is 10, asked about Jen "what is wrong with her?". Just about sums it up, doesn't it? I'm surprised neither of them shoved the other one off that cliff.

Personally, if I felt strongly enough about anyone to tell them "I hate you with a passion" and mean it, I sincerely think that would be the last thing I ever said to them. We'd be done.

And Jen? Do not give Phil the stinkeye at the mat. No good will come of that.

It would be fun to keep these two in the race, if only to see the look of bitter acceptance on her face when they come in second at the finale. Also, I want to see him get on a flight to "Brovniak" or some other place which sounds like where he wants to go.

I practiallly stood up and cheered when Phil told them they had to go back down to the bottom of the hill and get a taxi and come right back up. That was a great, big, steaming pile of awesome. And the best part? The taxi driver that wouldn't take them the first time, who did take Ron and Christina? He's the guy that brought them back down. Thank you Anonymous Croatian Taxi Driver!

I also want to thank the guy at the top of the hill with the gun. That? was great. Especially since you startled those two twice. In fact, I loved just about everyone's reaction to the gun. Guns and goats would be a nice combination on this race, no?

Don and Nick have got to stop with the close finishes, they're killing me.

When they were on the Amazing Bathmat, I noticed that the "little pink kitten" has got quite a rack on her, and said so to the Mister. He replied that those two have so much going on he hadn't had time to notice. He was too distracted by Kynt's makeup.

I loved when Ron and Christina were told they won catamarans, and Ron cheered "I know what that is!". Remember when Charla and Mirna won the exact same thing and went "Yay!...wait....what's that?".

Favorite Line of the Night: from Vyxyn- "It's okay. I have a dad, too."

Where was everyone's backpacks?

Until next week!

I'm Ready for My Cape Now

Everyone should be so lucky as to feel like a superhero now and again.....you've shown up, solved some one's problem and made the world a better place and safe for democracy. It's a very nice feeling, and today was such a day.

It started yesterday, when I overheard a woman at the mall lamenting that she hadn't been able to find a particular store, which she had driven in from out of town to go to. It used to be at the mall but had now moved out to it's own site, and I was able to tell her where it was. She beamed at me, and thanked me profusely.
Then, as I was going downtown to pick up Himself from work, I noticed that my Good Friend Wendy was in the van right in front of me. Like any good friend in the 21st century, I picked up my cell phone (stopped at a red light, naturally) and called her and said "Look behind you!". As we laughed and squealed and generally carried on, she said she was bringing her Thing 2 (who happens to be one of my very favorite children of all time.) down to a squash lesson, and was almost out of time and hellishly low on gas, and it dawned on both of us that I could bring him down to the lesson (a few blocks from where I was getting the Mister!) and save her a lot of angst and grief and gnashing of teeth. We pulled in at the next available opportunity, made Thing 2 change vehicles and off we went, me with Wendy's heartfelt "you are my village!" ringing in my ears.
The kids teachers were staying late at school last night conducting parent/teacher interviews, and my Thing 2 has her Girl Guide meetings at the same place on Thursday evenings. Last night they girls were having a Christmas party and everyone was supposed to bring something sweet to share and, as per several requests, we brought fudge. On our way in, Thing 2 thought that maybe we could bring a piece of fudge to her teacher, since she had been there since school ended, and no doubt was in need of some carbohydrate reinforcements. Man, was she ever....that woman couldn't have been more thrilled if we had brought her a Mai Tai and her own cabana boy.
Later in the evening, I got a phone call from another delightful friend, who wanted to know if she had reached "I-800-I-Messed-Up-My-Daughter's-Hair-Colour". I was able to fit in the daughter, (another teenager I would willingly spend all day with) today at work, and after a couple of hours, managed to fix her hair and make her suitable for public consumption once again. She was delighted, as only a teenage girl who has narrowly escaped a life of social ruination can be.

So, tomorrow, I will work in learning to fly.

University or Therapy?

I know that the ritual of the picture of one's happy, smiling offspring on Santa's knee is a cherished one for many parents, particularly the newish parents for whom the whole "kids at Christmas" thing is fairly new and still novel. But small children have a way of blasting your best laid plans to smithereens with split-second mood change, and that new parent had better get familiar with that idea right smart. One of the things I learned really quickly as a parent is that a two-year old will turn on you like a rabid dog, given the slimmest of excuses, and you, the parent, must be ready to abandon any scenario, at any time, at a moments notice, and with equanimity. Such is your lot in life until the little darlings are old enough to understand "I gave you life, you're giving me this."

Sadly, some parents learn this particular lesson way too late. By then, the money set aside for higher education will have to be spent on some pretty intensive therapy to counter-balance their lack of parental resourcefulness.

I found the following pictures on The Sun-Sentinel website, which is a paper out of southern Florida. Now, not all of the pictures come from southern Florida, so I'm not going to hold that against them, but the glee with which the hundreds of pictures in the "Scared of Santa" feature are published does give me pause.

Santa's looking pretty chipper for a guy who's got two absolutely traumatised toddlers on his lap. No doubt the two are wailing the place down with some pretty bone-chilling shrieks, and Santa looks like he's just had a beer at the Sunday School picnic. That's cold, man.

This poor child looks like she is afraid, truly afraid, that Santa is going to eat her. And she may be right. I mean, look at him...does he look like he's ever said "no thanks, I'm full" in his life?

Holy shit, this Santa scares the bejesus out of me, and I know I could deck him if I had to. That kid doesn't stand a chance...... Run, little girl, RUN! Man, where did they find this guy? I'll bet his sister has a house in the woods made of gingerbread.

Check out this Santa.... "God, I'd kill myself if I wasn't so damn tired." That little guy shouldn't be afraid of Santa, Santa's just going to topple over and have a nap real soon. Then he should be able to escape without any problem.

This guy is enjoying his job way too much. I wonder if he strangles kittens for fun in the off season.

I love this kid; she's giving Santa a full-out, direct-frontal assault, while still having the presence of mind to keep a steely grip on that candy cane. I would not want to mess with her, girl has her priorities.

Wow. Psycho Santa. From the unnatural blue-grey of his beard, to his expressionless reptilian gaze to the apparent ease with which he is breaking that child's arm, he is ten kinds of unnerving. It just appears to be dawning on the kid on the right that perhaps this Santa is, in fact, an alien.

I love this one best of all.....a mere facsimile of Santa can make you relive the horror all over again. It's a clear case of PSSD: "Post Santa Stress Disorder".

Just for the record, I wouldn't have put my kids through this sort of trauma just for a picture of them with Santa. I will happily save the trauma for more important things, like bathing suit shopping, or haircuts. Luckily, we've been saving for years.

Serves Him Right.

Like almost everyone else in the Western hemisphere, I've been out and about Christmas shopping lately. I'm pretty lucky, I'm able to be at the stores when everyone else is not, which suits me perfectly.
The other day I was out at Chapters, buying for other people and browsing for me, when I overheard the following exchange between a customer, who was carrying a large book which he was holding open, and a staff member:
Customer: "Hi, I was wondering if you guys had a photocopier around here that I could use?"
Staff Member: (pause, clearly wondering if she had heard correctly.) "Um, no. We sell books here. I believe what you are looking for is a library."

She? is awesome.

Mother Nature is Cruel.

Thing 2 is trying mightily to earn some money to buy Christmas presents. It's not like we make the poor kid buy for all and sundry, or that she's got to spend much on anyone, but we do encourage the kids to put a bit of money away all year, so that they have it when they need it....you know, "savings". (Thing 1 has cottoned onto this idea in spades, but Thing 2 is still struggling with the concept. ) So, now, in the first week of December, she has figured out that she's going to need about 20 bucks real soon.
Yesterday we had our first snowstorm of the season, and we got about 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground. Since the temperature is supposed to rise in another couple of days or so, the Mister and I would normally let nature take it's course and not bother with clearing the driveway. But Thing 2 took it into her head that if she shovelled the driveway, perhaps she could make a bit of cash. Not one to stand in the way of hard work or initiative, especially if it's someone else's, I heartily endorsed her idea, and we agreed on a wage of 5 bucks for the job.
Off she went, into the wild and woolly late afternoon, and by God, she cleared that driveway. I was amazed; I didn't think that child had it in her. (Note to self: Is Thing 2 comes at you with a snow shovel, get out of the way. She's better with one of those things than you think.) She was delighted with herself and her 5 dollars.
This morning we woke up to another 3 or 4 inches of snow, and as we looked out the front window I casually remarked to her that the driveway was all filled in, and that you could hardly tell that she'd done any shovelling at all.
There was a bit of a pause, and then a worried Thing 2 beside me blurted out "Does that mean I have to give back the 5 dollars?".

Amazing Race 12, Ep. 5

It’s hard to determine which team was more unlikeable last night, Team Nosejob or Team Infidelity. They both bickered and whined and shouted at each other so much that I’m not sure they even registered that they were on another continent.

I’m not so sure that the Twigs needed to use the U-Turn at all, given that the last team last week was at least an hour behind them, but on the other hand, they at least used it in the right way; if you think you are decidedly in danger of being eliminated, why not make sure there’s a team well behind you? Seriously, Tall Twig needed to let it go.
I wonder what kind of awkward arrival they had at Sequesterville? (The resort they have to spend the duration of the race at.) Do you think Lorena and Jason bought them a drink? Sadly, it appears that their feminine wiles did them no good on this race at all.

I really thought that bus was going to mow down the Twigs. ("Wow, this will be the first actual death on a reality show.")Man, that was close. I wonder if the camera guy gets to go home now.

I’m puzzled as to why Jen was so obviously hurt and outraged when Nate called her a bitch, as she herself has used that very term in reference to every other female on the race, especially for the egregious task of doing better than her.

I’m liking Grandpa a lot. That remark as they came out of the travel agent’s in Ouagadougou, “C’est la vie! That’s French, in case you wanted to know.” Is exactly the kind of thing I would say in the same circumstances, and then who ever is with me would justifiably want to kill me.

God, Ron is a tool sometimes, isn’t he? That “fossilization” thing was annoying the first time around, but he just kept saying it. The fact that the woman spoke almost no English didn’t seem to faze him one little bit.
And, did you hear he has a hernia? Because that was brand new information for me until he volunteered to go up on the stilts and toppled over like Wile. E Coyote. But on the other hand, could you imagine him during the counting task? She’d be patiently counting away, and he’d be counting, sort of, while telling her how to do it, what she’s doing wrong and how she could be doing it better, and then she’d put one of those pickets straight through his chest.

Was it Ron who said that all he knew about Lithuania is that they make great pastries? Because,….God.

Am I a horrible person for wanting to slap Christina every time she chirps “I love you, Daddy!”? Because I had a boyfriend that did that used to do that to me, and I got out of that relationship before I completely lost it and ripped his head off.

I loved all the racers who gleefully announced “I can count!”, like that was the entire task. In reality, it was concentrating which was the crux of the matter. (“87, 88, 89, 100!” Okay, so maybe counted mattered, too.) Why didn’t Jen and Nate do it in opposite directions if they were having such a problem being in the same hemisphere as each other?

That festival, by the way, was amazing! I will definitely put that village on my “List of Places To Go Once I Win The Lottery and My Children Finish Medical School”. Those people who’s sole purpose was to mess up the counters? They are my new best friends. The only thing that would have made that better is if they had had goats, too.

Is Azzaria secretly Hendekea’s father? Because he seems to be determined to treat her like a child, despite the fact that she seems astoundingly competent.

Whatever TK and Rachel are smoking, they should give some of that to Jen and Nate. I loved her response to the Detour choices, “Ooooh, stilts!”. Sometimes you just have to go with the task that looks like fun.

Another new band name, courtesy of Phil: “Land of the Gnomes”.

Until next week!

Just Learn To Bake, Already.

While wandering around the web the other day, I came across this offering in the Williams Sonoma catalogue.

(For those of you unfamiliar with the Williams Sonoma catalogue, it is a food and cookware company that appears to be making an ungodly profit, from the looks of things.)

The picture on the left is pretty much what it looks like: 9 cupcakes. There are 3 cupcakes of 3 flavors each, and htey weigh about 3 ounces each. That would make them pretty much a standard size cupcake. We are assured that they are made with "fresh eggs, real butter and other premium ingredients". (As opposed to bleach and gasoline, I imagine.) The founder of the company, Perfect Endings, from which these delicacies originate "learned to bake from his Southern grandmother", which I guess is important because everybody knows that female bakers from north of the Mason-Dixon line are imcompetent losers.) They can be delivered right to your door for your holiday celebration.

All of this is relevant because I cannot imagine what could possibly justify the price tag of $59.00!! These suckers are $6.50 EACH, if you can believe it! What if someone had two? You'd kill them, you really would. What if there were 10 people at your table? What would you do? I know several families for which this would be a reason to call in lawyers. Not exactly bringing on the warm and fuzzies, now are they?

Okay, I just read down a little further in the ad, and it tells me that these are "One of Oprah's Favorite Things", which sheds a little light on the subject. Except, I'm not Oprah.