Gizmo

My little Pennywhistel has turned into a regular Gremlin! She is so sweet, but she loves to spend time with me and needs my attention anytime I home. Even if when I'm at home means 3:00 am in the morning when I'm sound asleep. To wake me for hugs and scratches, she hops up on the bed and starts her tender sad meowing. Secondly, she will start patting me with her little paw. When that fails to illicit a petting hand, she will nudge at the covers until she finds bare flesh and then starts nipping at me.

Every night we have a little talk about waiting until the alarm goes off at 5:30 and also discuss that I am not covered with fur like her real mother. So far, I have not been able to teach her English or how to tell time.

(I wish that I could take a better photo of her. She really does look like Gizmo with her little tufts of long fur behind her ears, and her little beige mask.)

Going for Gold?

I'm having a little Olympic Withdrawal. I miss Lochte, Lezak, Phelps and Torres. I miss Bolt and Bob too. I miss the backstories, victories and defeats. (However, for the first time in over two weeks I've been able to go to bed before midnight.)

Growing up in track & field and swimming, I've always been a sucker for the summer games and I still dream about someday being a competitior. (I'm thinking flat water kayaking or clay pigeon shooting are my last options at this point in my life...) But it's not the Gold I'd dream about getting. It's the Bronze.

When you win the Gold, you are the champion for four years, but people are going to talk about how you cheated, or the judges cheated, or how you just barely won, or that you take steroids. And then somebody is going to take it away from you and you'll be compared to who wins four years from now and who you beat etc.

When you win the Silver, it just means you weren't good enough to get the Gold. Sometimes you weren't good enough by 1/100 of a second. You are going to lie awake for many nights thinking "if only". If only I would have jumped a little harder, glided a little faster, pedalled stronger, ran faster, if only...

But the Bronze...have you ever watched the Bronze winner? They are just as happy as the Gold winner, if not happier. They were good enough to get a medal at the Olympic games. They gave it their all with no expectation other than to finish. There's no pressure to justify how they won, and no pressure that their record is going to be taken from them. Just peaceful sleeping knowing you won a medal at the Olympics. Case in point, when Peter Vanderkaay won bronze in the mens 200 Freestyle. He was so ecstatic on the medal podium, and his father crying and waving in the stands. The bronze. I'd race for the bronze.

*Eating Yams and Long Striding Gams

Every two years I'm reminded how much I love Bob Costas!

(you know. The Olympic broadcaster? Yeah, I'm sure he does other sports too...)

(*upon the Jamaican Bolt winning the Gold.)

Volunteering

So if you know anything about me you probably know that a) I'm a little quirky and b) I really love volunteer projects.

Before I even moved down to DC I submitted an application to teach adult education to the Arlington County Correctional Facility. i.e...people in jail. I've been very excited about this project and have called and emailed with the director. Last week I went to the orientation for the program and I loved everything about it: the organizers, the other volunteers, the service it self.

However, I've talked myself out of this volunteer project. Not for the reasons normal people might. Like, the fact that you are actually in the jail, you have have training for what happens WHEN you're in a lock down, that you are sitting in a room with 6-8 people who could have sold drugs or murdered someone. no, none of those reasons. I was actually really excited about all of that.

It came down to two things: 1) scheduling: they don't offer classes at a time that I can volunteer. 2) wardrobe. yeah. so, the main three kinds of clothes I wear are business suits, dress/skirts, work-out clothes. But in the jail we can not wear skirts or business clothes or anything that would show a lot of skin, like shorts. Casual pants and big shirts are the only thing you can wear. It's completely understandable why, but those are clothes I don't own, and, the thought of wearing pants just was too much for me.

Yes reader, I opted out of tutoring GED classes to inmates because I can't wear pants.