IF A PRUDE RAN THE OLYMPICS

If a prude ran the Olympics,
NBC would not have cut away from an opening ceremony tribute to terrorist attack victims for an interview by Ryan Seacrest with Michael Phelps. Seacrest and Phelps are, of course, quiet and elusive, and coverage of them is tough to come by. But America missed an opportunity to join in mourning, we missed the opportunity to hear the old hymn ‘Abide With Me’ sung with pure simplicity by Emile Sande, and we lost the chance to prove to the secular world that Christian hymnody is not limited to ‘Amazing Grace’.

If a prude ran the Olympics, 
she would have hired better uniform pattern inspectors.
Somehow the pattern for the female gymnasts uniforma, with its deficient bottom coverage, got flipped upside down and sent to the tailor for the female swimmers. As expected,the deficient coverage moved to the top. The result was that our women gymnasts and swimmers spent precious muscle and concentration pulling and tugging and tucking themselves into their suits.

If a prude ran the Olympics,
she would remind newscasters that syllables are not in such short supply that we can’t spare a few and refer to the gold medal tumblers as the ‘Women’s Gymnastic Team’ instead of the ‘Fab Five’. Announcers have no problem wasting literally billions of syllables in their commentaries. Why the sudden coyness with the gymnasts? C’mon folks. Throw caution to the winds and splurge on those extra four syllables. Please.

If a prude ran the Olympics, 
she would argue that, although honoring our roots is a good thing, and tradition is dandy, let’s not return to the days of the original Olympics in ancient Greece and have our athletes perform in the all-together. No doubt the male divers are just being all historical and nostalgic with their ‘almost all-together’ Speedos, but some notions from the good old days are better disregarded.

If a prude ran the Olympics,
she would spot all the female runners a couple hundredths of a second. Then they could wear a nice pair of sweats and wouldn’t have to worry about lack of aerodynamics.

If THIS prude ran the Olympics she would demand that whenever the Dutch win a gold medal, we televise the ceremony. We could watch the winner on the platform sing these stirring words of the national anthem of the Netherlands, and get all teared up:

William of Nassau am I, of Germanic descent;

True to the fatherland I remain until death.

Prince of Orange am I, free and fearless.

To the King of Spain I have always given honour.

Uh-Oh

It’s a good thing the ebola virus is not cute and furry. I probably would be reluctant to kill it.
Many people of my generation could pass through the parallel world of anthropomorphic everything that Mr. Disney et. al. created and have the good sense to realize IT DOESN’T EXIST.
Little toasters do not weep bits of burned bread crumbs on the way to the trash heap.
Ants don’t form emotional attachments to one another, skunks don’t have low self-esteem, and misfit toys don’t comfort each other on Christmas Eve. I keep telling myself.
Some of you may be scoffing at me. Others, when about to put a trapped fly out of its misery, may hear a faint echo of “Help...meeeeee,’ tickle the eardrums.

SInce–when–Bambi? Peter Rabbit? cavorted  on the scene, the world is no longer divided into animal, vegetable and mineral. It is ALL animal. And not animal-like animals. People-like animals. People-like vegetables and people-like minerals.
Everything has a personality and to throw away anything constitutes murder, or, at best, abandonment.
Can anyone else see a possible root cause for hoarding here? I’m willing to bet 100% of hoarders saw an animated cartoon about a little book that no one loved anymore.
Or a Velveteen Rabbit.
And therein lies my uh-oh.
The rains have come and my garden stands a fighting chance.
But early last evening a squirming mass of fuzzy adorableness caught my eye. Further investigation revealed a nest packed full of warm, blind, helpless baby bunnies.
Right on the edge of our dog’s primary restroom. Which leads me to believe Mama Bunny either has damaged nasal sensors, or she is a woman of great courage.
See the ramifications of my childhood worldview?
I have endowed Mama Bunny with anthropomorphic emotions.
She is also a loving nurturing mother who worries about her babies and has high hopes for their future.
A future that involves garden-invasion and vegetable-pillaging.
We should ‘eliminate’ this future problem before the 5 little squirming sweethearts turn into 5 pudgy vandals. But we won’t.
Perhaps I can sit by the nest and convince the babies that stealing is naughty.
With the cautionary tale of what happened to Peter Rabbit’s father thrown in for good measure.

My Mom Knew a Girl

It was dangerous to know my mom.
Cautionary tales about the sad ends of young women in her acquaintance littered my childhood.
We could not play with balloons.
She knew a girl who inhaled a bit of popped balloon and died.
We were ordered not to pick pimples.
She knew a girl who picked a pimple on her nose and died.
Dishes had to be washed in water so hot our fingernails shriveled.
Mom knew a girl who ate off a dirty dish, got salmonella and died.

Guess what happened to the girl mom knew who went on a hayride?

No balloons dance through my childhood memories (not that my steam-sopped fingernails could have poked a hole in one anyway), and I still believe touching a blemish on one’s face will lead to immediate blood poisoning and certain death.
And though I spend every hayride with my head swiveling fore and aft, to and fro, on the alert for approaching danger, I trust my dishwasher and Cascade to protect me from dirty-dish diseases.

But one sad end has affected my life as a vehicular passenger.
I still can’t stick my hand out the car window to enjoy fresh breezes wafting between my fingers.
My mind’s eye recalls the visual I always conjured up for the story of
The Girl who Stuck her Arm out the Train Window.
This story and the stupid girl who engendered the story stole from my childhood the clean joy of air pressure suspending my arm out the window in a state of wobbling, wind-forced bliss.
Even now as I inch my fingers out the window my mind’s eye recounts the story:
I picture the Girl waving her arm merrily out her window, oblivious of the train hurtling toward her on the next track. As it zips past– WHOOSH!– it takes her arm right along with it.
I picture the Girl, no longer able to wave because her arm is being borne in style by a fast-moving passenger train heading the opposite direction.
I picture the look of utter surprise on her face.
I do not picture any blood. My mind’s eye never conjures up gore.
My mind’s eye never bothers to question how the heck long the girl’s arm was.

My mind’s eye simply does the job my mother always meant it to do.
It yells, “Don’t stick your arm out the window because Mom knew a girl who...”