Beautiful day in the sun
I took off yesterday afternoon and participated in a golf tournament fundraiser. I have mixed emotions about it.
First of all, the women were either coiffed, tanned and clad in the latest golf fashion, or they were athletes -- tanned, trim and muscular, and generally with no make-up. And then there's me: I'm not wearing capris because I'm self-conscious of my fat ankles, and I'm definitely not in the athlete department -- not enough testosterone.
I love the game, however, and was flattered to be asked to join a team. I guessed at my handicap -- the highest possible -- a 36. Generally I'm the handicap -- to my husband's golf game!
The day was beautiful. A slight breeze kept us from really melting, and the sunshine kept us looking on the bright side. We parred several holes, and were one-over on several more. I had a couple of good putts; one particularly long one pleased me beyond measure.
As I told my team: I don't have especially long drives, but they are straight. When the woman driving the cart would ask where my ball was, my answer was typically, "Right there, down the middle." Consistency is my middle name.
The tournament featured some fun contests along the way. One was to see how far you could drive a marshmallow. Oh, it was comical! None of us even made it to the fairway! I wondered about perhaps squishing the marshmallow to create a more dense target. Too bad I didn't.
Another fun feature: designated drivers! At two of the holes, college girls would drive your ball for you for a donation to their college team. Wow. They were talented! They really zinged 'em out there.
And one more feature: you could buy mulligans (that's a do-over, for you nongolfers). We used one on a hole where no one's drive was decent the first time around. And then we used it again on a putt -- saved us a stroke!
Even with all those "helps," our team didn't win anything. We weren't really expecting to -- I don't think! One of the other women commented several times that we were doing better than in previous years. I can't imagine it was me. I'm not that good.
Maybe it was just the sunshine and the positive attitude.
Posted by: HOMD on 8/7/2008 at 4:03 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
The weekend
What a fun weekend -- reading, puzzling and golf!
I finished the latest Laurell K. Hamilton vampire novel, "Blood Noir," and then started on another new series by Stephenie Meyer. The Twilight series is actually meant for teenagers, but I like to think of it as "Anne Rice Lite."
The female lead character in Twilight is Isabella or "Bella," as she prefers. She's a strong character -- you get the feeling that she takes care of her ditzy mother, and now she's going to live with her taciturn father.
Going from Phoenix to a small town in Washington (near Port Angeles where friends of mine lived!) Bella discovers a group of teens that keep to themselves. One of them becomes her lab partner in biology, and from there the story grows -- she falls in love with Edward Cullen, a vampire who's 17 and has a "foster family" with whom he lives.
It's obvious that the series is directed at teens, because she's worried about clothes, cars and boyfriends. I kept trying to think of what the vampires might stand for as a metaphor, and about all I could come up with is the popular clique.
The vampires are perfect, graceful, ultra-strong, super-fast, and each one has an ability that's been magnified from their humanity. With Edward, it's his ability to read minds. (All except Bella's!) With his sister Alice, it's her ability to predict the future.
Each author's vampires are different. Anne Rice's vampires are probably the most classic of myths. They can't withstand sunlight and shun garlic and holy water. Laurell K. Hamilton's vampires are about the same. Her stories are a little lighter and focus more on the sensual side. Hamilton's vamps also have a sense of humor. Her main human character is Anita Blake, a federal marshal who's allowed to kill "bad" vampires. Anita is another strong female figure.
Meyer's vampires are the classic pale-skinned beings, but hers can go out into the daylight. The only problem is: they sparkle in the sunlight! They don't need to breathe or sleep, and the "good vampires" that Bella has met go hunting and feed on wildlife, rather than humans.
It's a common irony in vampire tales: the vampires are glamorous characters with all kinds of magnetism, but they don't want to pass on the dark gift to the humans with whom they fall in love. Same with Meyer's vampires.
When Edward and Bella fall in love, they can touch and they begin to kiss, but they can't go any farther because Edward might be tempted to take a bite. It's a little like sexual abstinence -- you can't cross the line because it will change your life. It's also a classic tale of forbidden love. Neither of Bella's parents know that Edward is a vampire.
I finished reading the first in the series, "Twilight," and then worked on a jigsaw puzzle of a Thomas Kincaid painting. Pretty picture. They're especially hard, because there aren't any solid lines -- just brush strokes that you have to try and match.
Sunday morning we woke up to rain, so we came back from the lake in the morning. We did catch sight of a beautiful cardinal -- he was admiring himself in the rear-view mirror on HighGuy's car. We've seen that before -- I wonder if hanging a mirror in a tree would be something he'd be attracted to.
By noon the sun had come out so we hightailed it to the golf course! We just don't get in as much golf during the summer, since we're at the lake. We don't have room in the trunk for coolers AND golf clubs!
It was pretty steamy out there on the course -- thank goodness we had a bit of a breeze now and then. It felt good to get out and stretch and walk along the course. I don't know what I shot, but I kept each hole to single digits! That's pretty good, considering I shoot two strokes for HighGuy's one.
We're the Tortoise and the Hare. Guess who's the tortoise. Well, it used to be that way. He'd hit a drive that would circle the globe, while my drive went 75 yards and dropped. I'm getting better -- I actually lost a ball today! Usually I can see where they fall, so I hardly ever lose a ball.
We were following a couple of other walkers, a dad and his son -- probably no more than 12. They were a little slow -- we figured the boy must be new to the game. We caught up to them on the last hole and chatted a bit. There were some folks having a coffee party on the fairway in front of us, so no one could tee off.
We decided they were actually adding up their scores -- which is a rather rude thing to do on the course when there are people waiting. The dad said that he was having a lousy day with his golf game and advised us to close our eyes while he teed off.
Sure enough, his ball went into the water hazard, so he teed up another ball. He duffed the ball to the middle of the rough in front of the fairway. I consoled him and said that's where my ball would end up, too. He said he was going to give up the game and caddy for his son!
His son drove his ball to the middle of the fairway, perfectly landing it so that he could be on the green in two strokes. After he and his dad strode off, HighGuy and I both started laughing. We thought it was the boy holding up the game!
Posted by: HOMD on 8/3/2008 at 8:08 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Reality TV
Just how stupid do television producers think we are? Reality television programs have a formula now -- just like sitcoms. Sitcoms have earned their own genre because they've become so predictable.
First of all, it's a situation comedy. You have some characters and you put them in a particular place. For example, "Big Bang Theory" (one of my favorites) has two geniuses living across the hall from a blonde bimbo. Situation comedies are big on stereotypes. That way they don't have to develop their characters. You instantly know who the character is.
"Two and a Half Men," another of my favorites, has two single men -- one a Don Juan and the other a geeky divorced guy -- living together. The "half" is the geek's son -- a rather clueless boy who has some great comic lines.
Sitcoms also have laugh tracks -- just in case you didn't know where to laugh, they've put it in there for you. That's why live comedy and stand-up comedy are so hard -- there is no laugh track. You have to think for yourself.
So on to reality TV. Every program has to have some British-accented emcee or judge. Is that to give it class? Lend it legitimacy? Or just to keep us guessing as to who these people are?
"America's Got Talent" has Piers. Who the heck is he? Certainly not an actor, or I might have heard of him. And why would he know what is popular in America? Last season, he was the guy we loved to hate. Now he's softened some and the contestants have the audience to please.
And while we're talking about AGT, why would we accept the opinion of David Hasselhoff?Don't believe me? Go to YouTube or Google, and type in "David Hasselhoff music video." There he is, singing "Hooked on a Feeling," while do all kinds of things that are TOTALLY unrelated.
That video is one of the worst I've ever seen. It makes no sense at all. I guess he's a big star overseas, but his boat has sailed over here.
Think of the other reality shows you watch. Each one of them has someone with a British accent. "So You Think You Can Dance" has one woman with a frozen face -- ooh, too much Botox. She's the one with the strange accent.
"America's Greatest Dog" -- same thing. Instead of judging musical or dancing acts, we're judging dog acts. And there's a judge in there with a funny accent. I think she wrote a book about being a dog whisperer. I would do the research on it, but I don't want to waste my time.
And this year, each contestant has to have a "hook." A hook is a nebulous thing. With AGT, the hook might be a mom who's found her longlost daughter on the Net. Big deal. Or the fellow who lost his voice in an accident. Oh, such pathos.
AGT focuses on a couple of contestants each week, telling how they grew up in a family of 48 and ate grass to survive. Or it's a soldier with a 14-month-old baby who's been serving in Iraq since 1998. Whatever. They want to give us a hook -- something we can remember about these people.
What about those dogs? Oh, there's one owner in there who doesn't speak softly to her dog, and there's another one who pushes her dog to sit down. Oh, such drama. And one dog looked like he was attacking another one in the promos! What was that all about?
Actually, that could have been the promo for "Big Brother." I heard shouting from the living room last night, and when I went to investigate, I saw that BB was on. More drama. I switched it as quickly as I could find the remote.
Don't people have enough drama in their own lives without adding someone else's misery to it? Why would we want to watch as someone tried to cut down a tree or drive across the ice or take on dirty jobs like cleaning outhouses?
Does it really make us feel better about our lot in life to see how someone else is suffering? Are we so snoopy that peeking in on someone else is thrilling? How entertaining is it to see someone humiliate themselves on national television by whistling "Climb Every Mountain"?
It must be the car-crash mentality -- we're drawn to it and yet repulsed by it.
So how about it, you reality TV fans. Is there a formula to it? Is there one that doesn't follow the formula? I can't watch them all -- heck, I don't WANT to watch any of them! And just when will this fad pass?
Posted by: HOMD on 8/1/2008 at 1:33 PM | Comments (6) | Permalink
Fix those pics!
I'm going to try a new hobby! I received a scrapbooking kit as a gift recently, so I'm going to try it out.
A co-worker brought a scrapbook of hers to the office today, and it was awesome. This one was just her high school years (she's a young adult). She had different themes for each page, which is fairly easy for that time of life.
Proms can each go on a page. Friends' senior pictures can take up another couple of pages. Different activities can go on more pages. I'm inspired by her creativity!
But what about my life? How do I come up with themes?
OK, summer vacations can be one page -- maybe a year at a time. I have some fun pictures that we even bought picture frames for, but I'm not going to display those for eternity. One is in a cave, another is on the Titanic, another is in front of the Pacific Ocean.
Another picture is a digitally altered picture of HighGuy as Indiana Jones and me as his ... girlfriend? It's really good of HighGuy -- the hat really makes him look dashing.
OK, there's a couple of pages used up. Now what? Weekends at the lake? That'll take a couple of pages. I have some pictures when family came to visit.
If I were going to go through all my old albums, I'd need a scrapbook a foot thick to do pages on all the pictures of zoo animals! And I won't know which zoo these pictures are at either! I was looking at these a while back and started tossing those pictures. Who cares that we saw a black panther?
Another large scrapbook could be dedicated to Christmas card pictures. I just can't bear to toss those when I get them with a newsletter at holiday time. Maybe I should just dedicate one album to those pictures, and make sure I put names under the pictures. That's my big peeve when I see a scrapbook -- who are those people?
I also can't bear to cut pictures. Oh, I'll crop and resize, but cut the background out of a picture just for fun? I don't know. I don't think I can be that daring. I can place pictures on a page in fun angles and pretty mats, but that's where I think I'll be stuck.
We'll see. I'm going to try my hand tonight and see how it goes. The first part will be finding the pictures and deciding which ones to use. I'm going to start slowly and get my feet wet before diving in headfirst and buying all the supplies and other accoutrements.
Blogging is a fun hobby. It doesn't take a lot of time; I can do it anywhere there's a computer hooked up to the Internet; and I derive a lot of enjoyment from it. The only thing that might make it better, is if I could take my entries and publish them in a book.
And make a million bucks... yeah, right.
Posted by: HOMD on 7/31/2008 at 6:19 PM | Comments (3) | Permalink
Catching up -- looking forward
Yes, it's been a couple of days since I've written. No crises, just no time in the day to sit and think and write.
My sister came to the lake with us this past weekend. We didn't get to play any Scrabble, but we did put together a couple of jigsaw puzzles. We took a walk around the loop, and took the paddleboat on a couple of loops in the bay. It was fun to get outdoors when it wasn't quite so beastly hot and humid.
The birds serenaded us -- including the loons. They have such a unique call. And those little wrens in the birdhouse right outside our bedroom window kept up a steady warble. Such a huge song for such a tiny bird! We didn't see the orioles, but we did spy the hummingbirds coming to sip from the feeder.
We did a little shopping and did a lot of laughing. We sat on the lawn swing and just let the day go by. It was wonderfully relaxing.
It wasn't quite as hard to say good-bye to Sis this time either, because we have a vacation scheduled in September, and we'll be meeting her and her husband on the beach in Florida! Woo-hoo!
So herewith are all the other things I'm looking forward to: (in chronological order, thank you)
In August, I'm going to play golf with a group of women in a tournament. (I better hit the driving range!)
Later in August, I'll be attending a bridal shower for my daughter-in-law-to-be.
Later in August a Cirque du Soleil movie is going to be playing locally. (I'm going to get tickets for this one!)
September is Back-to-School time -- a busy time at work which will make the days fly by!
In October, we'll have our son's wedding to attend. (I better make sure my dress still fits!)
In November, the new Harry Potter movie comes out: "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."
In December, I think a new Nora Roberts book is coming out -- the third in a trilogy about three young men and their girlfriends and a town with a strange history.
Let's see -- did I cover everything? Oh, our anniversary. HighGuy and I will be married 30 years in August.
So what kinds of things are you looking forward to?
Posted by: HOMD on 7/29/2008 at 10:52 PM | Comments (4) | Permalink
