eight pride parade

Looking for another way to say Yes on 8? Let your chest (and back) do the talking! Let's face it, if you're a woman, someone's bound to be reading your chest at some point during the day... might as well have them read something of actual worth (words), a bold statement, a phrase that will generally cause a bit of shock or an unreadable expression from the viewer and you won't know if they agree or disagree... no matter what, it makes for a good time at the grocery store! (or Souplantation, if you're my roommate). Clothes used to be about covering nudity...protection from the elements... even fashion... all those purposes are sooooo last season. Now it's all about the eight.

So if you're ready to put that torso of yours to good use, you are ready for a FREE (-ly printed) SHIRT FROM ME! You provide the shirt and I'll print it for free, OR I'll buy the shirt and you can pay me back, and I'll still print it for free. You'll for sure have it by this weekend's rallies. Show your Eight Pride!!

shirts are $4.50 women, $5.00 men... specify Yellow Haze (as seen in this blog) -- OR, for the truly devoted, Lemon Zest (the vibrant, bold yellow of the Yes on 8 campaign) along with the size (women's shirts S-M-L-XL; men's S-M-L-XL-XXL).

Best deal in town. Really, I don't care if no one wants a shirt, less work for me, but... you just might. I'm planning on wearing mine every day during non-work hours (not quite appropriate for the workplace, somehow...) If it starts to stink, all the better-- then I will really get people's attention.

the back of the shirt is the Yes on 8 logo, used with permission (as far as I can tell; it was available for download on the protectmarriage.com site... good enough! I had to re-draw it anyway, the file was too small)...

Oh and you may wonder, why not put the logo on the front of the shirt? I'll let you find the answer to that question for yourself. Here's a hint: the upward curving arms and the round heads of the adult figures combine to form a shape that would be a liiiiittle bit awkward on the front of a female shirt... what I like to label/warn as "awkward placement" to my screen printing students... :)

And by the way, at MY house, we are all about the 8.

our yard sign has been stolen about three times so far...

Erin is Super Eight, and spends all of her free (and not-so-free) time making calls via the Internet... (sometimes she forgets they can't see her, and she actually waves when she starts off her conversation with a big "HI!". True story. We forgive her.)

and I (and my car) adamantly, vehemently, absolutely protest the actions of the CTA and Superintendent of Schools in donating 1.4 million dollars to the NO campaign, to aid in the defeat of a proposition that, in THEIR words, "...has nothing to do with kids and schools." What??!!! Don't even get me started. Seriously, don't.


eight pride eight pride eight pride YES ON 8 eight pride eight pride eight pride

when I run, I run for THE PEOPLE. And the Karate Kid.

Running 10 kilometers through Bakersfield on any given day? Hell.


Running a 10-kilometer race through a section of Bakersfield on site of a correctional facility neighboring a massive cow farm with massive cow smell and conquering obstacles of hurdles, mud pits, walls, rope crawls, trenches, log walks, ditches, hills, slides and 6-foot-deep water-filled ditches?


Puuuuure HEAVEN.

Volkslauf (pronounced fullxlauwf, rhymes with chokeswowf) is German for "The People's Run", but... call me a race-ist or whatever, but even though there are 2000 participants, I don't think "people" in general should be running anywhere near this thing. It's no walk in the park, unless your park is filled with Marine sergeants yelling at you to keep moving, loser, and requiring you to cartoon-run through a half-mile ditch of chest-deep freezing-cold twig-and-hay-filled muddy water. And that was just Obstacle #8 out of 29.

Not that I am some big racer myself. I don't really like running (booooring), so I wasn't In It To Win It-- really I just wanted to finish. And get all kinds of dirty, and laugh a whole lot. I sure didn't train for this--haven't really run since last December when I accidentally ran a half-marathon--so I'm just glad I was able to get over most of the walls and didn't die. So, I may not have finished in the top ten, or even the top 100 of female 10k-ers, per se, but... I DID finish in the top... 124! Hard-core!

(And I just barely missed finishing as number 125--whew-- but that's because I had the good sense to sprint ahead down the last descent and five yards to the finish alone, suddenly ditching my triathlon friend and running mate Eva who had held back the whole time so we could do the race together. I think she was okay with it, and of course very happy for me, in the end.)

And, well, they may not have given out any medals for 124th place (jerks), but I did NOT go home without a few mementos from the race! 27 mementos, to be exact. One for each of the 26 obstacles I completed (no way was I climbing that 20-foot slat wall), plus a bonus! I win!

Yep, those are all real bruises, and all from the Volkslauf. And all very, very pretty.

Am I delicate, or am I hard-core? You decide.

(for an even more graphic image, click to enlarge)

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Some select photos...

THE TEAM

(pre-race stretches)

Jennie-San, Tank Top Dale, Extreme John, I-was-robbed-of-124th-place Eva

pre-race puking from the cow whiff:

and pre-race saluting the crane-raised ginormous flag

Remembering why we were there.

Because THIS IS AMERICA, people.

Remembering our freedom from the Germans and all that.

We were racing for Old Glory, for Betsy Ross, and for

the inmates of Lerdo Jail Facility, Bakersfield, CA.

THE RACE

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we went OVER things

(check out the sergeant shaking his fist at me!

He knew I was about to make a break for it and go around the wall, instead of over it, as soon as we helped Eva over.)

we went UNDER things

(under the cargo nets on the right, we were sprayed with hoses as we crawled through. Just like 'Nam.)

ACROSS

(here's where I got my sweet rope burn)

UP

DOWN

and THROUGH

(my cannonball into the last trench. You can just barely see my Ralph Macchio headband)

check out everyone's faces! Hah! Six-foot deep, final swim to the last hill. This is how Eva got her mud-goatee.

John demonstrating the true Volkslauf Ultimate Challenge. This is why we call him Extreme John. Also because, even with a hurt knee, he can still run a race 30 minutes faster than a perfectly-healthy sidekick . Puh. What's with that.

BEST FACE EVER

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THE FINISH

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AND, FINALLY...

grapes soaked in the dirty mud from your hands? No worry.

dirty socks? Toss them in the "discard" pile as you ascend the final ramp.

the sweet reward of your disgusting self being hosed down by a fireman.

Ohhhh, yeah.

See you next year!

back in blaaaack

SHE'S BACK, AND SHE'S PRETTY.  

They did such a fantastic job on the front, blending the new paint in so well with the sides... but the back looks so shoddy, now... but maybe it's better to look good coming, not going...  Makes me wonder if it's better to have a new front or back, if you have to choose? Any advice? Should probably decide this now, just in case my plastic surgeon brother ever decides to give me a freebie.

I do miss riding my bike, though... a little. I should probably move to a country where it's the norm. I AM thinking that, if the economy worsens and people forget how to rotate crops and we end up with another dust bowl and there's a huge influx of migrant workers that come to southern California and it gets too close for comfort around here, I'm going to move to new zealand. (Sigh... dream country).  It's only a LITTLE bit dangerous to bike there.

on the road to Hokitika, South Island, NZ, May 2005

huh? car? what?

I FREAKING LOVE MY BIKE.

So it's all-bike, all-the-time for me these days while the Solara's in the shop getting some plastic surgery, and I have to say... I LOVE it. It's almost even FASTER for me to ride my bike to school than to drive (if I'm running late... which is often... waaaayyy easier than dealing with traffic/parking), and I really don't mind the laughter and/or weird looks I get from the students. I usually just pull up next to them at a stoplight/crosswalk, make eye contact and jerk my head upward, and say "hey" or "yo". I like to keep up-to-date with the kiddies.

And, the PROS to riding a bike vs. driving a car are ENDLESS....

1. I look really hot in a helmet. That's an unarguable fact.

2. It's fun to go grocery shopping and to Target on a bike, esp. when it's slightly raining outside. You feel super-cool --y'know, helping the environment and all-- and you get to go to the front of any left-turn lane in traffic and everyone has to wait for you. Then you get home and think, "huh, I feel a little wet..." and turn around and see that your white capris and turquoise t-shirt have a big, wide, wet, water-asphalt stripe from your rear on up. And you realize, that, HOPEFULLY, you just gave the fellow shoppers at Target a little extra joy in their day.

3. I can get around my classroom faster.

4. It's downhill TO work, and uphill home. Easy-peasy.

5. You see more of what's around you when you're going slow (relative to driving--of course I am Super Speedy) on a bike; and if you want to stop and take a picture of an awesome billboard, it wouldn't come out blurry-- unlike this one in Fort Lauderdale where I had to do five passes in my rental car while driving on the freeway and taking shots with my camera pointing in the general direction, until I got it in the frame.

6. Can you even IMAGINE how skinny I'm getting with all this exercise?? It's a good thing I ate all that cheese and chocolate fondue over the weekend, or I might soon wither away to nothing.

Of course, biking is nothing new for me, it's just new in the non-bike-centered Los Angeles County. When I taught school in Austria, I rode the bus in winter and a bike in fall/spring... LOVED it.... what could be better than riding through meadow trails in an Alpen valley?

When I explore Pacific Islands, I like to do so on a bike... best way to see everything and have the locals yell appreciatively at you. And you can make your way all the up a steep windy road to a lookout point on the island of Moorea, almost barfing from the effort, but not wanting to stop out of pure pride.

It's also the best way to explore the valley floor of Yosemite Valley

and, of course, the absolute BEST way to be a missionary in Austria.

I just might not give it up...

best women's conference EVER!

LOVE Conference Weekend. Love watching/listening to Conference, and (secularly) love it when the men go off to Priesthood Session and the women eat fondue!

Saturday evening we had a Girls Just Wanna Have Fundue night-- dipped bread and vegetables into three different kinds of cheese fondue (I have a new cheese baby in my stomach) for the first course, and then dipped waaaayyy too many things into the chocolate fondue for the dessert course as we watched the CLASSIC 80's dance movie, Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Actually, I take that back-- we had to STOP the movie to eat the chocolate fondue, it was a madhouse. No shame, here. That's why I love my girl friends :)

It's just amazing that we were unable to finish all the dessert dip options...

Even with the second-to-youngest Girl in attendance helping us out...

...and others resorting to dipping into spilled fondue because the chocolate was in such high demand.

The BEST part of the evening, though, was the second exhibit of No Shame by my fantastic friends, as they took part in our annual Midnight Naked Swim (to commemorate the end of summer)... Hilarious! Special props to you first-timers who had no fear of throwing off your towel and jumping into a dark, cold pool. I think we laughed enough to work off at least one ounce of the Gruyere, and burned off two dips of chocolate just trying to stay warm.

I FULLY recommend!

(faces of participants
have been blacked out for anonymity... they can tell you
themselves who they are. :) And there are no existing
photos of us IN the pool, duh--)

goodbye, summer (part one)

I love love love having a pool at my disposal (read: backyard), and especially one both long enough to do my future-Olympics-swimming training* and secluded enough to swim naked when I so desire (very freeing). It's old, it's cold, the pool light fell out of its place and I fear electrocution, and the ancient bolt holding the ladder to the side busted this year, but-- it also has an old-school diving board and slide setup of the type that have since been banned by law, it's deep enough for extreme diving contests, AND it's a great place to float/photograph my Halliburton. So, it's AWESOME. It is a pain in the butt, behind, arse, whatever you want to say, though, to keep up.

Lately I've had to do a lot of algae diving (scrubbing the black algae spots off the bottom by hand, with a steel scrubber--it's harder to get proper leverage with a pole from the surface), acorn scooping (again, using myself on the end of the mesh bag instead of a pole--), and snorkel scrubbing (using the pole this time, but inside the pool and using my scuba mask and snorkel, treading water. Better exercise). While I appreciate the training this is giving me in case I ever become a Rescue Diver (treading water to move closer to the side of the pool while holding acorns above my head, and then hurling them as far as I can is much like Ashton Kutcher treading water for an hour while holding something heavy over his head and Kev Costner looks on and laughs, in The Guardian) or in case my cruise ship capsizes and I need the lung capacity to dive down and turn off the propellers to escape, I am also glad that all this work is about to end.

Because summer's over. :(

It's time to cover the pool. It's going to go from this:

To this:


Soooooo sad!!
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*For those of you wondering whether my Olympic Swimming aspirations will conflict with my Olympic Figure Skating destiny, put those worries to rest: I am a two-season girl.  Look closely...

what I learned at disneyland yesterday. I mean over the weekend.

Oh.... so THAT's how it's done.

Thanks, Brawny!!!