The Coolest Thing On TV. Ever.

So, we are completely addicted to Ninja Warrior. We don't actually have G4 because we have America's Top 100 on Dish (love the Dish. If you sign up for Dish, please reference me so I get my next months bill free) and it doesn't include G4. But my dad has Spanish Fork Cable Network, and it has G4. Fortunately, right after we discovered the joy and wonder that is Ninja Warrior, Dish ran G4 as a free preview for the month, enabling me to DVR over 25 episodes of Ninja Warrior, including competition 17 where Makoto Nagano finally triumphs over stage 4. Only two people have even beaten the whole course. Two.

The best part about Ninja Warrior is watching people fall into the muddy water below. This is just one of the reasons I think Ninja Warrior is most exciting and interesting than the Olympics. At the Olympics, athletes train for one, maybe three related events. In Ninja Warrior, you have to be strong, balanced, and fast. And they have Olympians who can't do the course! Medal Winning Olympians who can't even finish stage 1, although the Warped Wall has taken out many a worthy contender. And wouldn't the Olympics be more exciting if when a gymnast went out of bounds during a performance they fell in water and were eliminated?

My personal favorite is Mr. Octopus, this old guy who is in great shape for his age, but who rarely makes it past the first obstacle, and goes right in the drink. I think I'm even beginning to learn Japanese from watching Ninja Warrior. For example, Jump Hang is Jump Hanga in Japanese. And Spider Walk is Spider Walka.

My 3-year-old daughter also loves Ninja Warrior. To the point that when she sees playground equipment, towel racks, or stair railings she thinks it's the Ninja Warrior course and she has to go and do it. One time her dollies were even doing Ninja Warrior.

I tell you, it's great fun, and it's really funny when we ask H what she would like to watch before bed. "Life With Derek? Hannah Montana?" and we hear "Ninja Warrior."

Is Everyday Halloween?

Halloween is just around the corner, which brings back the age-old question of at what age it is okay to expose your child to Ministry. You see, now that there is a ward Trunk Or Treat instead of the traditional trick or treat where you go to the neighbors and perhaps get an apple with razor blades in it, everyone gathers at the church house to hand candy out. And each year (okay, this will be our second year of actually going) my husband and I discuss creating a special Halloween playlist just for the occasion. We also debate taking the car so we can have the rockingest trunk in the parking lot, since it's the one with the 12 in the trunk and we still haven't gotten around to putting a sub in the Lumbering Ox, and to be honest, we probably never will. Although we will figure out why the back speakers aren't working, and why the front drivers side speakers are getting quiet. Perhaps I need new speakers? These are at least 10 years old, after all.

But getting back to the original question--whether or not it is okay to add Every Day Is Like Halloween to the playlist. I say it is, Brent says it probably isn't, and at some point we need to get out the liner sheet and figure it out. If the playlists on the home MP3 player hadn't conked, except for Alternative 1 for some reason, I could tell you what was on last year's Halloween playlist. Pretty certain it was mainly loaded with Oingo Boingo--what can I saw, Brent is a huge Elfman fan--and it would have had anything off of New Wave Halloween that didn't have inappropriate language, such as one of the five songs named Halloween. And of course Time Warp from Rocky Horror. And I think Feed My Frankenstein by Alice Cooper. And the ever cheesy A Nightmare on My Street by none other than the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff. And Pet Sematary by the Ramones. And probably the Batman theme, from the Batman movie with Michael Keaton--I mentioned the Elfman thing, right?

Anyway, I'm going to have to rebuild the playlist, which brings me back to the question of if it's okay to let a 3 year old listen to Ministry. As a former DJ, I feel it's my responsibility to expose her to a wide range of tunes, spanning classical to classic rock to classic alternative. In fact, just today we listened to the Itsy Bitsy Spider, including the Big Fat Spider and Teensy Eensy spider verses, and then Brent switched to the radio and we decided Billy Idol is an important part of music education also.

I think I'll put it in.

Pre-School

Now that my daughter has started pre-school, I might actually have time to update this blog more than once every few months.

H was super brave when she went to pre-school. She didn't want me to walk her in--heck, she didn't even want me to drive her. She walked right in, turned and went down the stairs. I know, because I followed her with the camera so I could get pictures for her Daddy. I was brave too, I didn't cry until she was safely inside and I was back inside the Lumbering Ox...er, Durango. By the way, we got the shake fixed so now it rides great. I only owe Amex $900, but the Durango rides smooth.

Anyway, I have to stop listening to ABBA for awhile, because as I'm watching my precious girl go to pre-school, wearing her Disney Princesses back-pack which is holding the Disney Princess pencil case and the High School Musical folder, all I can think of it lyrics from Slipping Thru My Fingers.

Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile
I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness
And I have to sit down for a while
The feeling that I'm losing her forever
And without really entering her world
I'm glad whenever I can share her laughter
That funny little girl

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see what's in her mind
Each time I think I'm close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

So of course I'm bawling all the way home. I can't help it. We waited over 10 years for H to show up, and when I finally got pregnant I was 10 weeks along and throwing up before I even realized it. To be fair, my Grandpa had just died so I thought it was grief messing with my appetite, although I should have realized when I was losing weight and my waist was getting bigger than something was up. Anyway, I may be a little overprotective and hyper-vigilant, and unable to sympathize with mothers who are so excited to drop their kids off at pre-school that they are doing the happy dance and saying this is the best day of their lives.

I am proud of her, proud that she is so brave, happy she is excited to learn, but I know that soon she'll be in elementary school, and the next thing you know I'll be dropping her off at college.

In the meantime, what do I do with 4 hours to myself each week?

They Won't Leave Me Alone

The Onion Day's Bake-Off committee won't leave me alone! For the last 3 days I've had several phone calls, and messages, from various members of the Bake-Off committee.

"We haven't seen your entry yet. Are you planning to enter this year? You know, there's no late fee." And on and on and etc, etc, etc.

When I was finally at home for one of their phone calls, I told them why I'm not entering the competition this year.

1. It's on Labor Day. Again. I do not want to get up at the crack of dawn on a holiday and bake.

2. I lost all desire to bake when my mom died in March. I barely cook dinner right now.

3. I haven't baked anything since February when my mom got sick--I'm out of practice.

You think these reasons would keep the committee off my back, wouldn't you? Well, they're still calling. Good thing I have caller ID.

Why Potlucks Suck

So here's the problem with potlucks: if you don't make food assignments, you will end up with nothing but bags of chips and Great Value brand Oreos. Or worse. You might think I'm making this up, and I really wish I had taken a photo to prove it, but at a family reunion last year someone brought a jar of individually wrapped Slim Jims. And a gallon of milk. Milk! Not even chocolate milk. There was grape soda and regular milk and water to drink. That's it. And the food--well, let's just say Slim Jims weren't the scariest things on the table. I ate a roll, a few chips, and stopped at the Walker's on the way back through Price. It was scary.

At the last family reunion I went to--the one last week, not the one two weeks ago--I brought fresh, homemade Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies, aka The Best Cookies Ever. The other dessert? Zuchinni bread. Zuchinni bread. At a picnic. Yikes! There was one potato salad, two relish trays, and some baked beans which since my grandma made them you never know if there is dog hair in them or not. And that was pretty much it. Thank goodness my dad had just stocked up on Circle V steaks (mmm....steaks), and my brother Mike and I only slightly argued over which was a better seasoning, Onera or Montreal Steak, ending up settling for mixing the two together. And I brought some Lea and Perrins--which reminds me, that's at my Dad's house still. Good thing we're having chicken tonight--I can't eat a steak without Lea and Perrins. But I digress. One of my cousins brought turkey burgers. Turkey burgers! Ack...it looked like they were eating an albino.

But the worst potluck ever was at the end of a weeklong reunion on my husband's side. It had already been a tough week. All my brother-in-law did was watch I Dream of Jeannie. The condo had cable, and the Olympics were on, and he watched DVDs of I Dream of Jeannie. There are only 3 episodes of I Dream of Jeannie. The one where Jeannie gets jealous, the one where Jeannie gets the Major in trouble, and the other one where Jeannie gets the major in trouble. That's it. But we're talking about potlucks. There was already one potluck that week, where I brought some freshly baked cookies (albeit not from scratch since we were in Estes Park, CO and my stand mixer is in Payson), and my sister-in-law brought blue jello shots with swedish fish in them (yes, we did have a giggle fest and considered adding "special ingredients" but decided not to since they were for children, after all), and that was dessert. Someone brought a bowl of a pasta salad from a box that makes enough for 4 people. That was the only thing my daughter would eat. This wasn't the worst meal.

The worst was the final night when everyone threw together whatever they had. In the spirit of things, I contributed leftover breadsticks, grapes, carrots, chips and salsa. If I had remembered, I would have thrown in the Nutter Butters as well. Someone had Great Value Oreos. And Brent's uncle had been fishing all week, and he cooked the fish. There are two smells I can't stand without wanting/needing to hurl--fish and cinnamon. It was horrible. There were leftover salads, and someone decided to use up 2 dozen eggs by deviling them without paprika! I draw the line at deviled eggs without paprika. If you want to get fancy and put tarragon in them, that's one thing, but no salt, no pepper, no paprika deviled eggs--I thought they were going to scramble them. It was a disaster. We went back to our condo and ate dinner again.

I have one more reunion to go to this year. The same one that had Slim Jims last year. I haven't decided what I'm going to bring, but I'm not going to try too hard.