A lot of Americans are up in arms about President Obama speaking at a different cemetery today.
Arlington may be the biggest, and it may be tradition.
But I can promise you the ground at Arlington is no more hallowed than that of any ground where those who served and died for our country are laid to rest.
I’ve heard a lot of jokes about racing.
“How do you outrun a race fan?” (Turn right…)
I’ve also seen racing first hand. Today I saw a belt made out of eight can coolers, a beer in each cooler and one in each hand. Today my camera was invited to a shirtless stranger’s “gun show.” (He was double fisting a beer, how could my camera say no to an invitation like that?)
I saw a tattoo of a six point buck with a big red crosshair on it. I saw teeny bikinis on, well, nothing that could be described as teeny.
(You’re welcome for not sharing the picture.)
But I also met the legendary Indy Car announcer Tom Carnegie.
I stood on the track of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
I witnessed the “kissing” tradition.
I stood close enough to smell the Borg Warner Trophy.
You could hear a pin drop during the performance of “Taps.” (300,000 people completely silent with nothing but a trumpet playing? Dude.)
My new favorite sound is that of an Indy Car starting up.
Dan Wheldon is a stand up fellow, and he sounds just like the Geico gecko.
I would be friends with Chip Ganassi.
There is a lot of strategy to racing. (Seriously.)
Dario Franchitti finished the race with 1.6 gallons of gas to spare.
I may not understand racing as much as the people I shared the press room with, but I understand a good human being and the look of a proud wife as her husband gets a little choked up as he admits that the real people who helped him win are the ones who are never going to get the real attention they deserve.
I saw a tweet from a lifelong local who had never been to the Indy 500, he said “I just don’t get the fascination.”
I wrote him back and said “Go once, you’ll get it.”
I’m sitting on the same row with some of my most favorite Utahns (Kim. Loralee. Lindsey. Barbara.) at a conference this afternoon. We’re kind of paying attention, but not really. (sorry speaker!)
Kim gets a heartbreaking text from her brother in law.
We all do what we do best, we hug. We console. We discuss. We support. (And later buy itty bitty bundt cakes.)
Kim then shows us a picture of her brother in law. It’s of him, 8 days old. The day he came home to his adoptive family in Brazil. He had never seen the photo before. But he has now.
Then I get an email from a photography client who has to push her booking back because a birth mom has chosen to place her child with them. Naturally, she wants to wait until her family is all together before taking the photo.
We all got goosebumps. (Lindsey and Kim are both powerhouses in the adoption blogging community…)
Say what you want about making money with blogging, but it’s blogging that brought us together today and this is the kind of stuff that blogging is really about. The meaningful stuff. The stuff that can’t be bought or reviewed or even put into words.
If you get into this for money and aren’t willing to put in real work and a whole lot of the real you? You’re doing it wrong. I’m sorry, but you are.
Do it because you love it…and when you’re doing something you love, the opportunities (and sometimes money) follow.
Promise.
I don’t want to jinx it, but I believe the fog has lifted, albeit temporary.
Such is life.
Today was one of those good mom days. Do you know the ones I’m talking about?
The sky was a perfect blue. The clouds were brilliant white and puffy. You remembered sunscreen. Everyone ate three square meals. Your freshly bathed kid falls asleep quickly with a smile on her face, tired from all the fun you had together.
Yeah. It was one of those days.
So I wrote this post last year about where I’ve been as a result of what I do here on this little blog of mine.
Mindblowing.
But this last Saturday took the cake, made it gluten free, shoved it in my face AND it was calorie free.
What? What was I doing down there!?
I was taking this picture…
Dude. I know. I don’t even care if you’re a race fan or not. At this point if you know any racers name you should know Danica’s. (And yes, I was there when she was booed. *sigh*)
In other news.
My kid graduated from Preschool. Which is really, well, probably not that important to you, girl rocked the Preschool and is ready to move on to Kindergarten. But here’s the thing. This photo hits me in all those tender mom places…you know the ones. Because right now it’s preschool.
Next it will be college.
Right now it’s preschool picnic parties.
Next it will be parties with her friends in Union Square.
I must say, I couldn’t be more proud of the little kid and lady she is becoming. I see so much of myself in her. I have all these hopes that she’ll be able to have the opportunities that I’ve had, the friends that I’ve made and a hunky husband to go along with it.
Yeah. So, that’s how my day started yesterday. But yesterday was Saturday.
Want to hear how my day ended on Friday?
I was attacked by a duck.
A white one.
Addie had a picnic at her preschool, I was sitting on a blanket discussing the upcoming Indy 500 with some other parents when this duck wanders over. For some reason the duck felt the need to stare me down. Considering I’m eight times the size of a duck and I know how to prepare one in orange sauce I figured the duck would see I was eating lettuce and just waddle away.
Looking back at the photo of the duck (thanks for capturing the horror Erin!) the duck has a crazy look in its eye.
See?
Addie came up with the term “peckle” which is completely appropriate, considering she watched the whole thing, kid is scarred. Yells at anything with wings bigger than her foot “DON’T PECKLE MY MOM BIRD!”
The crazy eyed duck was just there…being a duck…then it charged! at my face! It hopped up on my right arm and pecked at my forehead four or five times until I screamed and flailed so loud and hard the duck had to either bail or lose a major organ.
I DO NOT KID! There were witnesses!
I don’t care if this is karma for my post threatening to bust a cap in their feathered fundaments. IT IS ON.
Alfred Hitchcock and Colonel Sanders were both onto something.
Birds are creeps. Tasty tasty creeps.
If you’ve ever checked my twitter stream in the morning you will generally find strongly worded tweets directed towards Canadian Geese. They range from me demanding Canada reclaim their damn geese and send more awesome Canadian delecacies like poutine and Wunderbars to factoids like, DID YOU KNOW GEESE POOP EVERY SIX MINUTES?
With the honking and the HONK HONK and their occasional Jersey Shore reenactment with two geese on the roof (which ZOMG if you’ve never been woken up to geese slapping their feet and honking on the roof RIGHT. ABOVE. your head I can tell you that being woken up to a pile drive from a five year old is welcome respite) and two geese on the ground right outside my open bedroom window honking at each other for no apparent reason other than make me stabby.
HONK! slap slap slap HONK! on and on until one finally gives up and flies away.
Then there’s my backyard.
Look, birds singing is all charming and stuff. I even spent money on a machine that simulated the sounds of birds twittering in the breeze. But to have a real live show every morning beginning around five when it isn’t even light out? Makes me all crazy eyed with an itchy trigger finger.
Even the geese have the common decency to shut it until it’s light out.
They have all these songs! and the tweets! and the CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP! Each brand of bird trying to claim its individuality with it’s sweet blasted song. It’s nine o’clock at night and they still haven’t stopped. People always say they wish they had the stamina and energy of Addie, please. Give me the stamina and energy of that woodpecker back there and I’d have cancer cured and all your laundry done before I even had my morning pee.
To make matters worse (or better if you’re one of those ‘I love baby birds’ type) there’s all these baby birds around. There’s a huge group of them right above the light fixture in my closet, which is alternately cute and alarming. I also have a hard time keeping the cynicism to myself when I see the mom bird trying to fly all stealth, doing a total Jason Bourne look see, before heading under the eave of my house. I KNOW YOU’RE THERE BIRD.
After a really bad windstorm last week Cody found a bird in our yard who had surely been blown right into the side of our house, he said the thing looked shocked, pissed and dead all at the same time.
What a crummy way to go.
We were afraid it was the mom bird to the attic family chirp, but don’t worry, IT WASN’T.
Then there’s the baby geese/ducks that cross the road. I never noticed geese meandering across the road before, maybe it’s because they knew they didn’t have a chance against the bumper of my Chrysler. But now that they’re parents they parade their babies across four lane roads knowing that any decent human being wouldn’t mow them down.
Cody swears a dad goose bringing up the rear of his brood this afternoon turned and flipped him off for not coming to a complete stop.
Those baby geese are going to grow up and become the gigantic geese that wake me from a dead sleep with their honk honking and slap slapping of their big goofy feet on my roof. And yet, aww, they’re so widdle and cuuuute.
I really need to rethink my decent human being status.
Canada, take your geese back. Please.
Also? The one bird I can never manage to get mad at? Cardinals.
Cardinals are awesome.
Take note GEESE.
No. I’m not pregnant.
But I do have something new to share with you.
Are you in Indianapolis (maybe the Midwest?) and need your picture taken?
I’m totally your girl.
Introducing…Casey Mullins photography dot com.
Yeah.
So, that’s where I’ve been.
How are you?
