Tag: summer

7 Games From My Childhood That Should Be Olympic Events

For every Olympic Games, a discussion arises regarding which events to include. Many feel that the subjective events like gymnastics and diving shouldn’t be included. Only sports that have points based on game rules or races that don’t require human judgment are fair enough to include.

I beg to differ. Gymnastics and diving are beautiful. The judges are fair too. I think the world can tell if some 16-year old messes up her double lay-out, full in, full out.

PANEL_OF_JUDGES_AT_THE_CONTEST-_R-L,_L.KOSSO,

I mean, we’re not stupid.

If I may speak for the world, we are also pretty judgmental just fine on our own.

I get that it’s easy to see who won based on the rules of competition. Archery, weightlifting and badminton are straightforward. Team sports are even easier to judge. Basketball, water polo and beach volleyball have points and rules and there you go.

But I think we should open our minds to the possibilities of including other, lesser known and off the beaten path sports in the Olympics. But better known than, say, canoe slalom and trampoline (DVR set for those? Didn’t think so.).

Want to know which popular sports worldwide are not included in the Olympics presently?

Cricket (blah)
Netball (what is this?)
Speak Takraw (not making this up)
Floorball (please no)
Bandy (okay, moving on)

I am preparing to submit my own highly logical, highly entertaining, highly competitive list of potential Olympic sports. These are games that I hold close to my heart and country. They are from our childhood.

They are…

  1. Lava

    Rules: Players move from one piece of furniture to another in the living room of a house without touching the lava, i.e. the ground. If a player touches the lava, the player dies. This game lasts for hours until your little sister touches the lava. Then she is dead and you win.

  2. Back Of The Sofa Gymnastics

    Rules: Again, using furniture (can be the same pieces from Lava; see above) as apparatus, contestants perform a routine combining traditional gymnastics moves with circus acrobatics. Points are earned for form as well as the level of danger. For example, cartwheels along the back of the sofa are worth one point. Cartwheels along the back of the sofa not pushed up against a wall are worth two points. Events include Recliner Somersaults, Sofa Cushion Vaulting and Arm-chair Flips. Dismounts are everything! Stick the landing! Always!

  3. Diving

    Rules: Public pool diving is less about no-splash and more about making the biggest splash you can. Belly flops, cannonballs, acting like you are drunk and staggering off a diving board are some of the events that earn points at “diving.” Extra points for getting your mother wet after she told you not to.

  4. Synchronized Swimming

    Rules: Grab your “camp” best friend or little sister and start training! Yes, I know this is already a lovely, lovely, albeit subjective sport. But it’s too Olympic-fied. We need to get back to basics. And by basics, I mean more hand stands in the pool and waggling your feet above the water like you’re drowning because you’re hair got stuck in the drain. Extra points for matching bathing caps and red-popsicle “lipstick.”


    The Aqualillies from Katie Orlinsky on Vimeo.

  5. Olympic Reading

    Rules: Great sport for the hottest part of the day during the Summer Olympics. Participants will walk or ride their bikes to the local library in their bare feet and create a pile of books. They will have sticky fingers and they shall find a beanbag chair in the library and read until they hear an ice-cream truck outside. Everyone’s a winner in this event.

  6. Lip Syncing

    Rules: Players will select a Top 40 song, preferably from the decade in which they were born. Players will have a homemade costume, a hairbrush mic and a, “stage,” fashioned by bed sheets and appliance boxes or tree branches. Players must include elements such as how they use their mother’s make-up while she is at work, choreography and hair flipping.

  7. Hide and Seek

    Rules: We all know how to play this, but the Olympic version is highly dramatic and super serious. The rules are too difficult to get into in a blog format. But suffice it to say, they are usually made up on the spot as the game progresses.

During my 37-minutes of research, I’ve discovered that to petition the Olympic Committee, I must start an international federation.

Sounds easy enough.

Then I have to fill out a 100-page questionnaire about gender inclusiveness (sure), global participation (hmmm) and fan passion (uh, YEAH).

Won’t you join me?

#tokyo2020

 

Guns and Roses: A Gracious Guide To Southern Lifestyles

Are you on vacation? I hope so. I hope your current (or future) vacation is full of sun, fun, water, wine, interesting culture and new food.

I, myself, am in Texas helping out my mom as she recovers from surgery. It is July. It is hot. Incidentally, July is pronounced JU-ly in Texan…as in we don’t go up to the high school in JU-ly. We say, “the high school,” because normally there is only one in town. It may have 50,000 students with five satellite campuses and a football stadium that inspired Jerry Jones to build his own, but normally one high school.

I love it here. I’m proud to call myself a Texan. When I was younger, I poo-pooed all over being a Texan. Couldn’t wait to get out of this backwards dry spot and live somewhere, “cool.”

I mean, I got over myself and made a pretty good, “adult life,” in Texas. I even convinced my heat-hating Midwestern boyfriend (now husband) to move here and life here for us was good and sweaty.

Source: http://www.quickmeme.com
Source: http://www.quickmeme.com

Then we moved to the Northeast.

I like it there too.

But there’s no place like home.

Mother’s asleep (Vicodin) and I’m out on the porch. It’s windy, in that oven-hot, whoosh-y way it blows out of the south. Roofers are taking a well-deserved siesta under a neighbor’s shade tree across the street, feet propped up on a big red cooler, straw hats over their eyes. An anole lizard puffs out his rosy throat, looking for love from the back of the wicker chair closest to mine. Maybe he’s telling me this is his porch and I’m trespassing.

Who knows. I don’t speak lizard. Not very well, anyway.

Thanks to a rainy spring and early summer, the crackling, brown cover of this part of the world has yet to take over. We have soft, green grass in the yard and bright, pretty flowers in the beds and the pots. The Africanized bees and the wasps are not as angry as they could be and the fire ants can still find what they need underground. Watch for mosquitos carrying Zika and West Nile and you can sit outside quite a while before finding yourself devoured.

Outside of the cities, the life is quieter, the speech is slower, the BBQ tastes better and the radio sounds fantastic.

By bdunnette - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdunnette/4760750460/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14167909
By bdunnette – http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdunnette/4760750460/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14167909

 

I’m not sure I ever remember actually seeing a gun rack in the back of a pick-up, but most people have a few guns. It’s not scary. They also grow roses and tomatoes, make wine and put up peppers.

When I was a little girl and visiting my grandmother in the country, we’d sit on the back stairs and hull peas and shuck corn. I took that time for granted. I’d give anything to only have to worry about getting through all those paper sacks of peas and corn before I could run off and play with my summer friends. You don’t have to travel to India to find your Zen. Just hull a bazillion peas on a sultry East Texas morning. You’ll find your center sure enough.

In spite of the caricature of the dumb, redneck Texan, education is highly valued, as well as having fine manners and loving your neighbor.

This explains a lot.
This explains a lot.

Just like the rest of America.

Now, I’m proud in Pennsylvania. We have Tastykake! Among other wonderful delicacies (oh, the french fries), sights and sounds.

What’s in your state?

Are You There Judy? It’s Me, Jen.

With summer almost upon us, I must prepare for the season by compiling my TBR list. I like to keep books in every room of my house, in each bag or purse, in the cars and next to most of my appliances. This way, if I ever have a moment where my eyes are not supposed to be on something else, like children or the stove, I can scan the immediate area for a book and squeeze off a scene or chapter before something else needs my attention. I get quite a lot of reading done this way.

Of course, nothing beats a long, leisurely read, but I only get those on birthdays and anniversaries. Any other day and I’m too laden with guilt to enjoy what I’m reading. If I wait until night, I’m lucky to get one cheek under the sheet before I’m dead to the world.

Shhh, I'm trying to sleep.
Shhh, I’m trying to sleep.

I asked my friends for suggestions for the TBR pile. Boy, there are some good ones:

All the Light We Cannot See

Bossypants

The Good Lord Bird

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

I just mailed this one to mom: The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America’s First Serial Killer

It looked so chilling I also sent along this blanket:

 

Brrr. My mom and I love anything about serial killers!

Then there’s this terrific list from Publishers Weekly.

I think the TBR mountain is coming along nicely.

One of my friends asked me what was my favorite summer read. That’s easy.

Look at the cover! A beach, waves, straw hats. Adirondack chairs! That’s how you know you have a summer read winner. Can’t go wrong with a cover of Adirondack chairs.

I have to read this book every summer. It’s about two friends who grow up together. One is from a wealthy family and one is from a working class family. IT’S SO GOOD. And chock full of WTF moments like when the girls discover their “power,” buzzing from between their legs or how Caitlin doesn’t bathe for an entire summer. Crazy. But it’s so good that you don’t even skip a beat to think about how weird that is until the end when your endorphins are pumping and you look up to focus on the wall across the room and then you think, “did Caitlin really just make out with the movie star renting down the street from her after he paid her for babysitting his kids while he took his movie star wife out to dinner?”

Yes. Yes, she did. Caitlin’s the rich one.

Judy Blume is my favorite all-time writer. From Super-Fudge to Wifey, I’ve read ’em all. I’ve learned a lot about life and, ahem, other things from reading her books. Forever immediately comes to mind.

Did you know that maxi pads used to come with little belts that you wore around your waist? That was way before my time. But, weird, right? Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was all about it.

Sadly, Ms. Blume (my favorite all-time writer) is coming to my town and I didn’t hear about it until it was too late. All the tickets sold in hours. I wish she would bottle her writing mojo and send it to me as an apology for not personally reaching out to her number one fan (me) regarding her visit to my city.

Perhaps, I could find her hotel. This is a small city. There are only about half a dozen I’d need to steal a maid’s uniform for call. Then I would just simply camp out in the lobby and wait for her to come down. I know what she looks like because I have pictures of her wallpapered all over one wall of my office. I have even attached my face on  her body on some of them so it looks like we are one person. So cute. Try it. It’s one of my Pinterest Boards. Then we could have coffee together and talk like the old friends I think we are. If she doesn’t want to do that, then I’ll have coffee and talk to her through the top of the trunk of my car.

KIDDING.

Totally kidding. Would. Not. Do. That.

So…where were we?

Yes. Send me your reading suggestions. Thanks, that’d be great.

Peter Benchley’s Jaws

I was about 8 years old when I read Jaws. I got it from my mother’s bookshelf. I’m not sure if I read it before or after my parents took my little sister and me to see it at the drive-in.

I judge my mother.

Anyhoo, it was the mid-70s and the cover of the book had a swimming naked lady above a giant shark with a gaping mouth full of shark-y teeth. Irresistible.

The 70s loved a scantily-clad or naked woman in peril.

 

Cover Art

They don’t make covers like that anymore. I felt the cold New England, Atlantic water even though I had never been there. The perspective of the size of the shark contrasted to little naked Chrissie (that’s the naked lady’s name!) made me think of a school bus mowing me down. I remember thinking, “how deep was this water to allow a school bus to turn into such a position and get up to speed to eat this naked lady?” I spent a lot of time looking at this cover.

Jaws-paperback

 

There’ve been many covers. This one is the first one:

 

This is the current one:

But mine was the best.

 

His First Novel a Blockbuster

Jaws is over 40-years old (like me). It was Peter Benchley’s first novel and he received an advance of $1000 for four chapters. Doubleday published the book in 1974. The movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, released a year later.

Google discussions about the book vs. the film and you’ll see many praising the movie above the book. But for me, the book was the best. I think the reason is that the first time I watched the movie, my eyes squeezed themselves shut under a blanket and my fingers poked themselves in my ears. So I guess I actually did not see or hear the movie until many years later.

With a little more separation from the action in the book, my mind filled in enough details to make it scary, but I could still look up and away from it.

Jaws (5530370622)

After becoming a conservationist, Benchley said that he regretted making the shark so menacing and portraying his shark as a mindless killing machine. To the late Mr. Benchley, I say, “You can chill. Sharks are pretty menacing outside of your book. Bears, both grizzly and polar, tigers and great white sharks–they all have the same I-will-eat-you-vibe. It’s not you. It’s them. All them. They brought it on themselves because of all the people they’ve eaten.”

Jaws is still news. The sequels are coming out on Blu-ray. I’m thinking backyard film fest this summer.

But the original is always the best and the original was the book. Did you know that Mrs. Chief Brody and Hooper had an affair? YES THEY DID IN THE BOOK. You won’t get adultery in the movie.

After you read the book, there’s a great list of 21 Random Facts About Jaws. This will get you re-excited about the classic movie and inspire your own film fest. Download my Party Book for more help.

You may be wondering what got me thinking about Jaws on a snowy April day. I had a parent/teacher conference and we talked about The Boy’s advanced reading level. His teacher cautioned me about finding books for him that were on his reading level but may be too mature for him.

I thought about Jaws.

Happy summer.

There’s a lot of great classic 70s movies from books. If you have any suggestions for me, I’d love to hear them.