And now for something completely different...

Let's take a break from our fish themed --jeeze, MONTH?
**although I DO have one more fishy item...okay, two**

We have been sucked into the Olympics. Remember, this is a cable free household. We are GLUED to NBC until waaay too late in the morning.

Really, it all started because NBC played women's beach volleyball every Sunday morning. Kerry Walsh and Misty May-Traynor just rock.

(I'm sure I misspelled at least one of those names, possibly more. Google? Who the hell are you talking to? It's eleven thirty and I'm waiting for my washer to finish so I can throw things into the dryer!)

So we HAD to watch our girls kick some ass.

Speaking of assThen we watched the Men's synchronized diving. Now, I have a lifelong fear of being a BMHG, but those boys are just chiseled. *ahem*
It's kind of like mini trucks. Trucks are utility vehicles. They serve a purpose. Once you spend thousands of dollars on rims and a paint job and lower it, you've killed the utility, so why not just buy a stupid CAR? I honestly think a lowered pouffed out truck is about the most horrifyingly effeminate thing anyone could drive. Body builders at the gym are the biological equivalent to the mini truck.
The muscles on those divers (okay, all of the ...aquanauts?) are a functional thing of beauty. IF Michael Phelps did not have the unfortunate Eli Manning problem of not closing his mouth enough, I'd probably have a wee crush on him, too. Even though I think I'm old enough to be his mom. (EEEWWWWW)

What? Oh, yeah, Olympics. So I totally think those Teeny Chinese gymnasts are about twelve, tops, but I love watching Bela Karolyi (again with the google spell check? lighten up, people!) just call 'em like he sees 'em.

Okay, laundry safely transferred, must sleep sometime...

admission

I am not one to ogle the boys. My lifelong fear of being a Big Maaaaan Hungry Girl far exceeds any need to wolf whistle as the hot but pretty dense painter goes shirtless at work. It was nice, but eeww--the girls at work were stalking him. I also get pretty skeeved out when they send the beefcake emails at work--#1, because we're at WORK, people, and #2, well, eeew.

This weekend we watched the new Bond film, after several of you recommended it. I was, um, deeply appreciative. Blue eyes and blond hair? Soooo not my thing. Giant ears? Again, sooo not what works for me. But I've been watching bond films my whole life, and this one was GOOD. Big O was bummed there were so few gadgets, but I think the lack of Supa-cheese made it much better for me. There were still ridiculous things goin' on, but it worked. Okay, Daniel Craig was workin' for me, too, but the FILM, people. The FILM worked.

Damnit, my name is jennifer, and I am a big maaaaan hungry girl. eew.

The Horror of BMHG's, and the Missing O

tall girls
Originally uploaded by Lyubov.

When we all hit middle school, there were certain girls that were clearly taller than certain boys. We all soldiered on with the comforting thought that the boys would be late bloomers, but everything would even out. As time wore on, it became clear that our mothers had been giving out false comfort. We were tall girls, and some of those boys were always going to be speaking to our training bras.

We each dealt with this in our own way. Some girls hunched their shoulders to try and be smaller, somehow. Other girls figured out that there was no shame in being tall, and kept their shoulders back, and their heads high.

As we moved into high school, I noticed a disturbing trend. The tall girls who hunched their shoulders seemed suspended in this junior high stage of being boy crazy. I watched in horror as they twittered and simpered their way down the hallways, as if they were the mice from Cinderella come to life. Six foot tall Valkyries, mincing down the hallways, giggling and chittering like fifth graders at the first boy-girl party. As their boyfriends rounded the bases, they became the most horrifyingly vocal aggressors. They stalked their crushes like prey, and everything was drama. UGH. I became hyper aware of my own actions, and went to great lengths to avoid being seen as a BMHG. They were the Big, Maaaaan Hungry Girls.

One of the BMHG's rode the bus with me, and had a locker next to me. We were each slowly removing the Duran Duran pins from our jackets one by one, working our way towards adulthood. But Michelle had the most God-Awful habit of bringing her romance novels to school. I could not have been more horrified. I read my mom's trashy novels, and they were FABULOUS. But I'd sooner be caught dead than be seen reading one. I used to snatch them out of her locker and read the backs out loud in my most dramatic voice, trying to get her to "cool up" a bit and leave them at home. Even years later, when I ran my own bookstore, and read every cheap smut novel printed, I never read them in public.

I read cheap historical romance novels.

I'm outing myself. I can tear through a typical romance novel in about three hours--If Little O is bugging me. They are usually over quicker than that. (One of the reasons I love Sci-Fi is that it takes me a lot longer to read because the concepts are so different.) The impetus of this whole post was that this weekend, I read a phrase that stopped me cold.

"Tiny stars burst behind her eyes and the taste of honey rose on her tongue."

I have to admit that I did not come to the marriage bed in a pure, virginal state. Ahem. This isn't one of those blogs, so let's just say that I don't feel like I've missed out on life. Tiny stars? Yeah, I've been there. But the taste of honey? There is a whole new crop of BMHG's coming up, and they are going to be bitter, indeed, when they fail to taste the honey.

Did you ever want a nickname when you were a kid?

My mother in law speaks no English. She's been in the U.S for almost forty years, and has no interest in learning the language. So be it. She finds my name impossible to say. Or she just doesn't want to. I dunno. I took four years of high school Spanish, but my Spanish partner was the T.A., so my skills are questionable. My MIL is the nicest lady, and we get along fine with a combination of really exaggerated motions, kind of a half wit ballet, and my frankenstein-like grasp of the language (MM-FIRE....BAD...YOU FOOD WANT?). Okay, it's a little better than that, but only by degrees.
MIL does not go by her birth name, she has used a nickname since she was small. Everyone (including her own children) calls her Mama Dina. The only other person with a mama before her name is a family friend who has taken care of several of the children in the family, including my daughter. Is it an honorific for caregivers to have a mama put before your name? I don't know. For the longest time, I was la mama de la nina. My Spanish skills translate this as the baby's momma. Like I'm some guest on the Jerry Springer Show. I finally made a joke to his family, ha-ha do you think she could give me a nickname if my name is too hard for her to say? She can call me a fruit fly, I don't care, ANYTHING but The Baby's Momma. A few weeks later I realized she was addressing ME when she said Wedda (sorry if it's misspelled). My Spanish skills were not up to this, so I had to ask, and it turns out that I am now White Girl. Whitey? Seriously? Honey, are you sure your mom likes me? It's not quite as bad as it sounds, since the only other white person in the family has been weddo for going on twelve years, and I know MIL adores him (at this point my Spanish speaking friends look at me doubtfully, but really--she loves him). I don't get locked up about most things, and as long as she and I seem to get along, I truly don't care what she calls me.

HOWEVER.

The other day we took MIL out to eat, and my non-Spanish speaking three year old is being quizzed by her grandmother about names. Do you know my (MIL) name? Mama Dina. Do you know daddy's name? Donny. Do you know your mommy's name? Jennifer. NO NO NO, say Mama Wedda.

What? Okay, I have assumed all along that the Mama was an honorific for a caregiver. I am not her caregiver, I am her MOTHER. And I have a NAME, and I'll be damned if my daughter is going to be taught to call me Mama Wedda. So I very cheerfully asked my honey to translate for me so there would be no mistake, and told Mama Dina that my name is Jennifer, and my daughter knows it, and if my daughter starts calling me Mama Wedda, she will also start calling her GRANDMA. She laughed and said, no, she's Mama Dina, and I laughed right back and said that I'm her mama, not Mama Wedda.
But I'm still pissed. Did I overreact?