Tell 'Em Bela!

OK, so let’s get this out of the way first – I want to punch Olympic Gymnastics in the face. The whole damned thing is pissing me of this year. I don’t presume to know everything about gymnastics or gymnastics judging, but 12 years in the sport has taught me enough to know that there is some serious bullshit going on. First off, we have the too young gymnast from China. I mean – a couple of them look a bit young to me, but He Kexin is a joke. I don’t give a fuck what documents china produced for her. And the IOC or FIG, or whomever, is full of shit if they think we’re buying that they’re buying it. The girl competed in a meet last year that required her to be younger. So she was either illegal there or illegal here. The laws of physics pretty much make it clear. So even if she was cheating there and is legal here – she’s a cheater, and China’s a cheater, and the fucking IOC is a cheater for looking the other way.

Next up – the judging. What the Fuck??? I don’t want to go so far as to say the judges are biased, but COME ON! The scoring has been so lopsidedly in favor of the Chinese over the US that it’s hard not to be a bit suspicious. I’m sorry, but when a girls who are falling and making mistakes worthy of major (.5, etc) deductions are beating girls who were near perfect or only had minor deductions, something is not right.

And the new scoring system. Not only does it alienate fans by being completely confusing and taking away the old “gold star” of the perfect 10, but the gymnasts and coaches themselves don’t even seem to really understand it. And the confusion, along with the nature of the system itself open the doors for a great deal of fuckery. Subjective sports walk a line to begin with, but this is worse. Fuckery, I say.

And what the holy hell is with the “no ties” rule? If there is a tie, there is a tie. The tiebreaker procedure is a joke. They may as well just flip a fucking silver yuan and call it a day.

And this isn’t just sour grapes – I’d feel the same way regardless of the country getting screwed – it’s not a vendetta against China – their divers are so far above the US, it’s not even funny. And those Chinese gymnast are great. But there is some fuckery going on.

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Anyway. If I’m sounding crabby, it’s because I am. Mr. b has been sitting in front of his computer dicking around on napster for hours. And it’s not that it bothers me that he’s doing it, it’s the fucking music that I hate. And the fact that he feels the need to play it at full volume. He’s a music snob. He can’t seem to accept that there are certain types of music that I don’t like. He thinks it’s not a matter of taste, but a matter of choice. He likes Jazz. I hate it. I mean HAAAAAAAAATE. And he feels that it is music for the smart or classy or educated or some other such nonsense. I, on the other hand, think that I would rather listen to a hardcore rap about putting a cap in a bitch than listen to 5 seconds of cool jazz or fusion or anything of the sort. But he thinks if he keeps trying to push it on me, I’ll somehow like it – like I’ll wake up and say, Ahhhh…I get it. But it’s not that I don’t get it. It’s that I don’t like it. Instead, all his pushing does is make me think about hitting him in the head with the white hot poker that I want to shove into my ears to get away from the fucking NOISE!

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So we went to Kennywood on Thursday and – as predicted – the weather sucked balls. Just as we were about to pack it in, though (after hanging out in the pouring rain for quite a while), it cleared up and got sunny. So, a lot of the crowds had taken off and it turned out to be a decent night. Minus a couple incidents.

We were letting the boys go on some rides alone. They would get on the ride and call us as son as they were getting off so they could meet us again. And once, they took off without the phone. So when they got off the ride, they panicked. They did the right thing and found an officer, who in turn called me. Of course I felt like the world’s worst mother. Then a couple hours later, they ran into a group of three friend while getting on a ride (as an aside – WTF is with three? Why would you take three kids to an amusement park? That’s a recipe for disaster). Anyway, they ran into these three friends – one boy and two girls – and the boy asked my boy’s friend to ride with him. So he did, and the girls rode together and guess who got left out? If it had just been the one ride, no big deal. But the two kids got on an earlier train and didn’t wait for the boy. So he was alone and his friend had the cell phone. So we spent the next hour trying to find him, with me panicking. I found out that he was with the two girls, so I realized that he wasn’t totally alone, which made me feel better, but I was pissed that he got ditched. I don’t think his friend meant to do it maliciously, but the fact is –you dance with the one who brung ya. If their asses had been in the same seat, it wouldn’t have happened. After that stress, there was no more going off alone for them, needless to say. And once I knew he was safe, all I could think was thank god I didn’t get another call from the Kennywood Police.

I woke up Friday exhausted and sore. I’m not sure when riding roller coasters became exercise, but apparently it is, because my body hurt. Part of it was from riding the Thunderbolt with a stranger and her being on the “squish side”, so I was holding on and bracing myself to keep from smashing her flat.

The girl loved it this year. She has been pretty intimidated in years past, but this year, she wanted to ride almost everything. Which bodes well for Disney this year (45 days – woo!). She was waiting for one kiddie ride that I didn’t want to ride on and I was glad she wanted to go by herself. But I started to feel bad because all the other mothers were going on. So I got in line with her. When we got on and strapped in, she noticed another (older) kid riding alone and kicked my ass off the ride. And I was happy. Because look at what the other mothers looked like on Tiny Barfarama (Jen – I know you know what I am talking about):

I only got to ride the Pitfall once, but otherwise, it was a good day.

Oh - also - I broke my toe on Saturday. It was not a good day.

More photos:

The Turtle:

Kiddie Swings:

The boy and his hat, which makes me want to kill myself:

Handsome:

Getting her face painted:

My poor toe:

And now, to wash that ugliness out of your mind - something seriously beautiful: