The Tutu and the Happy Face

This is Paul Hunt performing a comedy routine on the balance beam in 1988. It was USA vs USSR in Los Angeles. He is a gymnastics coach and as you can see is an excellent gymnast himself~!


1981 Madison Square Garden New York City on the Nadia Tour

I could not help myself. The first video here gave me the giggles and I wanted to share.

What Would Carrie Do?

Women Working in the Big City in the 1930s

What are the odds? I am sitting here at 5:30 in the morning and have been up since about 2:30. I have a sore throat and my ears hurt a little, but I don't feel sick. I have not been sick since 2005. I got a horrible cold and cough right after my daughter's wedding. But this sore throat caused me to miss lunch and a movie with friends. I had so been looking forward to seeing everyone but I did not want to give anyone my cooties. I think they saw "New in Town."

I was playing on the Internet at 2 in the morning and reading all my favorite blogs and websites when I stumbled across this video called "The Bailout Rap." Well, as it always goes, it led me to You Tube where I spent the next few hours playing and finding all kinds of videos.


Stockbroker Gregg Somerville

So I started to think about a post when I popped over to Karen's blog and, lo and behold, she has a new post on New York City~! Sheesh. I had been thinking about New York, the economy and Wall Street and, of course, Sex and the City. I have every season on DVD, so I am a fan of the show, but looking back you realize what a reflection it is of the boom years in Wall Street and New York City. They do have this insufferable attitude that they live in the center of universe and things are different there. They WERE the Masters of the Universe, Harvard and Ivy League graduates who were SO smart they deserved all the money they raked in. You know, people like John Thain and his entitlement mentality, and his commode that cost $35,115. Thain's Throne indeed. The empreror truly is naked.

Real estate never goes down there, salaries are huge, perks are the norm. Did you read the book "The Nanny Diaries"? There was no one truly likable in the book, even the main character was not. I have a feeling they are feeling it now. It would be nice to visit New York and have it actually be an affordable place, where a damn drink did not cost $18.00 and you could maybe afford to go to a show and enjoy the incredible sights that are there. I would think that New Yorkers themselves would want that, so they could afford to live there and actually have a life. Probably not because they do love their rent control.

I guess there is a new blog out about Wall Street wives and girlfriends who suddenly are not feeling the joy. Their significant others are getting creamed in the Wall Street fiasco. No more fancy spas, credit cards cut off, trips canceled, no Hampton trip.

I love to hear about people who have made it and are living a life they worked hard to get. I am not a knee jerk hater of CEOs. At least, I did not used to be. Bill Gates' story is awesome, Steve Jobs and Apple, Fred Smith and FedEx. They are all examples of people who earned their money.

How many hard working people do you know who are worried about their job and who have already lost their job?

The Sky is Falling~! Here Comes the Boom

Chicken Little

Okay, global warming is becoming just so much hot air. Al Gore, the great "Goracle" is such a boring, twaddle faced, dweeb.

So here is a link to an Los Angeles Times article--"Climate Change has a Firm Grip." What was funny to me was a quote in the article.

"Moreover, heat absorbed by the ocean is released slowly, and will continue to contribute to global warming even if the concentration of greenhouse gases should decline, the authors said.

Solomon said in a statement that absorption of carbon dioxide and release of heat -- one acting to cool the Earth and the other to warm it -- would "work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant for more than 1,000 years."

So, temperatures will remain CONSTANT for more than a 1,000 years?? So we should spend billions, possibly trillions, to stop, what? Constant temperatures.

I think South Park had it just about right.

South Park "Manbearpig"

I am SUPER serial.

Black Belt in Gotcha

Rowan and Martin Laugh In

Do you remember "Here Comes Da Judge" or the "Fickle Finger of Fate"? My gosh, I had forgotten all the people who were in the show. Goldie Hawn, Sammy Davis, Jr., Jack Benny, Kirk Douglas, Joanne Worley, Ruth Buzzi, Phyllis Diller....Very interesting, but stupid.

What I cannot believe is that this show was out 40 years ago!! Oh my gosh. Talk about feeling old. Where the hell does time go? You know, in my head, I am only 23 years old, not 51. It totally bites. I don't want to be like some of those pathetic characters on The Real Housewives of Orange County who will not accept the fact that they are not young anymore, but I really understand the motivation. Look how young Goldie Hawn looks in the clip.

Ray Bradbury has some great stories but one I really liked was Dandelion Wine. One chapter was about a time machine the boys find but the time machine turns out to be a really, really old man telling stories. When you read the story, parts of it are kind of creepy. Some of the kids in the story refuse to believe that the old people were ever young and make cruel comments. But I do remember thinking that old people were always old and it always surprised me that they had some great stories about growing up and being young.



I guess this is where you need to count your blessings and be grateful for what you do have. I have 2 beautiful daughters, a cutie pie grandson, fabulous friends, and a great family. I have lived a pretty good life so far.

Will I be a cool old lady or the crazy lady who lives on the corner and yells at the kids for walking on the grass? I have a horrid feeling that I am becoming that old person who thinks kids are a pain in the butt. I so remember the old man we used to be afraid of as kids who yelled at us all the time. We lived in a cul de sac growing up, so we were always in the street playing. There were so many kids in just our little street so we probably did make a lot of noise. We used to take a baseball bat and beat the heck out of the streetlight because it would go off. We would play hide and seek with the streetlight off and it was a blast. But no, some cranky old person called the city and they came out and fixed the light and totally ruined it for us. Well, that is the way I remember it anyways.

I guess time is the ultimate gotcha, I just wish it did not have a black belt.

Of Purses and their Handles...

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Have you ever had a conversation with a group of your friends and suddenly asked yourself, "How on earth did we get to THIS topic?!!" Anybody following the conversation would either be fascinated or, well, think we were all nuts.

Our Book Babes used to meet at Oscar's near the Duck Pond fairly regularly for years. We would sit outside on their patio and have a rip roaring good time. We would laugh because sometimes you could see people were leaning in to listen to us talk. The laughter could sometimes be seriously contagious. I believe that is where we had a conversation about "purses and their handles!" Now, if you want to know what that means, you are gonna have to leave a comment.

Blogging is such a weird thing though. In many ways, it is like a journal or diary recording the events that happen in our lives. Weddings, parties, celebrations, and sometimes just the ordinary events. I also think of it as the beginning of a great conversation. Reading my friends' blogs is like listening in at Oscar's.

I found a blog post about "The Unseen Benefit of Commenting" that totally said what I was thinking, but if you jump to that link, you will notice that there are 65 comments! And the comments themselves could be mini posts. I visit blogs where there can sometimes be over 400 comments. The commenters talk to each other and their opinions are illuminating in so many ways.

Do you hesitate to leave a comment on other blogs? I have to admit, I am like that. I link to some incredible family blogs that are funny, joyful, sad, and all around enjoyable to read, but I feel that I would be intruding if I left a comment. But I so want to comment sometimes!! Cougarnana off of Karen's blog had a Sunday Six talking about the movie "Australia" and about Hugh Jackman. Yummy. I am not a big Nicole Kidman fan, but I loved both of them in this movie and especially enjoyed drooling over Hugh. I wanted to leave a comment saying anyone who enjoys watching Hugh Jackman is okay in my book~! She could probably list some good Hugh movies that I missed. Nancy says I need a movie education--she can list a whole bunch of movies and I am lucky if I have seen 1 or 2 of them. Seriously, it is quite sad.

So, anybody see a good movie lately? Off to comment on the movie "Gran Torino~!"

It's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow~!

Carousel of Progress - Disneyland

Do you remember the Carousel of Progress at Disneyland? Teddy Bear does not remember the Carousel of Progress or Captain Eo. Wow. Or the Monsanto's Adventure thru Inner Space. We went to Disneyland last night. The kids wanted to go to Innoventions but it was closed. I remember the Carousel of Progress and America Sings being there. I really enjoyed the enthusiasm for progress and inventiveness and the future. They had the model there for Epcot that you could see at the end of the ride.

I loved the Carousel of Progress. I loved the way it made you feel so hopeful and optimistic. The voice of the father is the voice of Jean Shepherd~! The lyrics to the song are the best.

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow,
Shining at the end of every day.
There's a great big beautiful tomorrow,
And tomorrow is just a dream away.
Man has a dream and that's the start.
He follows his dream in mind and heart.
And when it becomes a reality,
It's a dream come true for you and me.
So, there's a great big beautiful tomorrow,
Shining at the end of every day,
There's a great big beautiful tomorrow,
Just a dream away.


Monsanto's Adventure thru Inner Space

We rode Astro Blasters. I am definitely a very BAD Space Ranger. I would be no threat to
any Galactic Enemies. I cannot figure out how to aim the dang laser they give you. Johnny scored 75,000 or so though, so he had no problem. Teddy Bear did pretty good, too, I think she got about 43,000. I got 2,900. Can you say pathetic?

One Peeps Man

Do you like tattoos? I had dinner with my daughter, her boyfriend, and Casey at our favorite place, Claim Jumpers, tonight. Teddy Bear (my nickname for my daughter) was asking us where she thought she should get her next tattoo. I told her on Mars. She has a rose tattoo behind her ear. It is a pretty tattoo but I really like that you don't see it if you are looking at her. Her boyfriend does not want her to get a tattoo at all. Yeah, Killdozer!

We were teasing her about how one day she would be an old lady and have saggy baggy skin and her tattoos would not look so good then. It is one thing to have a tramp stamp when your butt is cute and tight or your boobs are still perky, but what happens when your butt has spread, and guess what, so does your tattoo! That cute dragonfly or butterfly might look a little scary, more like a vulture. And what happens if you get a tattoo on your chest someplace? You know, the older I get, the more I understand physics and the theory of gravity. What goes up must come down. I heard a lady say her breasts were now 36 long.

Killdozer said if she got a tattoo he would get a tattoo on his face. In the picture above, Kat Von D has the cute little stars on her face. He said for every tattoo Teddy Bear gets he would tattoo a Peeps on his face just like Kat Von D's. You know, the Peeps that you get at Easter. I wonder if he would do them in all the cute peeps colors--yellow, pink, purple? This from a guy who does not like tattoos, does not have any tattoos and does not want Teddy Bear to get any at all. He likes her just the way she is. Did I say how much I like him?