Land o'Lessa

…or something like that.

Sometimes, as I’m at my house, alone with my children, telling them something in a slightly elevated tone of voice – exhausted or bemused, either way – it appears that my mother sneaks in, and says things that I remember hearing from my childhood. She is just suddenly THERE, flying RIGHT OUT OF MY MOUTH. How the hell does that happen?! From things like “don’t you roll your eyes at me…” to “Leave you brother/sister ALONE” to “One day, you’re gonna feel BAD for doing that…” I’ve heard – and said – them all.

But you know what? That last one? Is a LIE. I don’t feel bad! In fact, I’ve been cackling – yes, CACKLING – for two days now! You see, my baby sister reminded me of a stunt I’d pulled on her back when she was 7 or 8, that STILL GIVES HER PAUSE today! That, my friends, is a Class A stunt! I am very proud. As are my kids. The baby sister? She’s declared me evil, and that I was going to be sliding straight to the fiery pit of doom. To that, my friends, I only have one thing to say: WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!

What was my devious deed? Well, back when I was 11 or 12, and my sister 7 or 8, I had a bff named Laura. She and I were practically joined at the hip even through she was 2 years older then me, and we spent a good portion of that summer at the high school swimming pool. Back then it was open every day for open swim, and only cost 50 cents to get in, so it was a good use of our time. AND there was a cute blond lifeguard that looked EXACTLY like Bo Duke, and Laura and me, we were totally going to get his attention/marry him/be his one and only (yes, the both of us) for that fact alone. We were slightly in love with the Dukes of Hazard, you see, and all I remember of the life guard was that he had blond curly hair that reminded us of Bo. Instant IN LOVE FOREVER were we. Yes. I am fully aware NOW that he must have thought us total dorks. But that has nothing to do with the story.

You see, it all started when my baby sister wanted to tag along with us into the deep end. We, being older, wiser, more mature, didn’t WANT the tag-along, well, tagging along. Apparently – though I’d forgotten about it until she reminded me yesterday – apparently I decided to spin a tale of horror to make her stay on HER side of the pool. In the Shallow End. In a stroke of pure genius, I told her that if she went to the deep end, a JAWS like Shark would come out from his home under the grate in the center of the deep end and EAT HER UP.

She believed me.

Not only did she believe me? But come to find out, as I’m laughing hysterically while she tells me how awful I am/was, she STILL hesitates every now and again as she swims over that damn grate in the bottom of the pool! STILL! At the ripe old age of 33! This from MY baby sister, the swimmer extraordinaire, who’s gotten my youngest to join the team with her and her kids, and does triathlons and is THIRTY-THREE YEARS OLD. She STILL gets that little squeamish feeling every now and again.

Just goes to show that even when I was 11-12, I RULE!

Of course, being the sensitive, mature woman that I am today, I treated such news with calm and sincere apologies and… who am I kidding? I’ve been laughing my ass off ever since she told me! And thinking of many, MANY devious plans that can help me capitalize on this little nugget of information. It’s not often something said so many years ago maintains a level of power over a grown adult! The kids can greet her by humming the JAWS theme! I can get her a toy shark that plays the theme! I can get her the BOXED ANNIVERSARY MOVIE SET! In 3D! I can make the JAWS theme her specialized ringtone on my phone! In fact, the bass clarinet player in my daughter’s band loves me, and offered to play said theme song FOR said ringtone to further personalize the torture!

And Oh. So. Much. More…

Oh yes. I am an evil. evil. EVIL woman. This Christmas will be FUN! In fact, I JUST discovered this little item that came through my feed reader this morning COMPLETELY RANDOMLY, which means that this upcoming torture is FATE. You see, it appears that the JAWS boat is going up for auction!

The fishing boat owned by the shark hunter who inspired the “Jaws” movies is going to be sold at auction.

New Yorker Frank Mundus, credited as being the real Captain Quint from Peter Benchley’s Jaws novel, on which Steven Spielberg’s movies were based, died in September at the age of 82.

His 40 foot wooden boat, Cricket II, will go on sale online in February, with a starting price of $25,000.

February, hm? I bet we can extend this fun until her birthday on the 26th, don’t you think? It’s the PERFECT birthday gift!

PS. Anyone have $25k I can borrow?
PPS. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

PPPS. Kids, be nice to your siblings. They might grow up to be JUST LIKE ME. MUHAHAHAH!

Yes, I am fully aware that it is now Monday and I’m just now writing, but I was still tossing and turning over the idea of putting this at the Parenting Teens Blog where I seem to do most of my writing about family anymore, or here. In the end, I decided here, because she’s not a teen, and it is family, and well, not like I do so good posting here often anyway, right? Right.

Whatever the reason – here we go.

The Pup has been working hard for the past few weeks to get ready for her very first Swim meet – a meet that was held Saturday, in Seward. Which meant that I had to -a- beg Nana to drive since my car’s heater is useless and the car would probably fall apart halfway there and -2- get up at OMG-early in order to get the pup at the pool at the prescribed 9am.

Nine.
AM.
IN THE MORNING.

Which meant we needed to leave at 6:30 am.
IN THE MORNING.

As you know, i don’t do mornings so well. Despite the Pup’s insistence that she couldn’t sleep at ALL because she was NERVOUS OMG MOM WHAT IF… she of course was out like a light within 5 minutes of head hitting pillow. After I had talked her down, AND her Auntie had talked her down AND we repacked her bag for the fifth time. She was a little nervous, that’s all.

Me? I decided that sleep was something OTHER people do, as has been known to happen now and again. Don’t get me wrong, I tried, I did! But alas, my body and mind had other plans, and when the alarm went off at 5:15am, I’d logged about 1.5 hours of sleep. Oh. Goody.

So we were off – we’d packed and double checked and gotten snacks and things together for the day trip. A stop for REAL coffee, and we were off and on our way to Seward. The pup, naturally, slept part of the way, while Nana and I chattered and kept each other awake in the dark. Not quite as difficult as you’d think since we almost hit a moose before we’d even made it completely out of town. Nothing like a brush with big hairy nostrils to wake you RIGHT up, right? Right.

We arrived in one piece, and at the pool, the Pup’s nervousness was in full force. It didn’t help that Auntie wasn’t there yet, nor was anyone from her team. It was further compounded when we were on the phone with Auntie and giving her the directions to find the school, and we found out that Coach Luke had car trouble, and Auntie Jen would be coach until he got there. While the pup adores her Auntie, Coach Luke was sort of the rock she’d decided she could cling to for the whole day – the coach HAD to be there, because OMG mom what if she had a QUESTION and Auntie didn’t know the ANSWER what would she DO?

Well, what she would do is what we had her done did. (Hurray for proper English!) Get dressed, let Auntie handle the Coach prep, and get into the pool for warmups when it was time. And for gods sake child, quit running into your teammates in the lane! Pick a side! (And if you don’t quit flirting with M, I’m gonna… well. Tease you until you pout. Heh.)

Thank heavens, Coach Luke arrived soon after. HURRAY! He and Auntie got all the coach stuff squared away It was Coach Luke’s first meet to be in charge of, as well. (Coach Will had a hernia surgery and for some reason thought that he needed a gazzillion hours off. What? I mean _I_ had 4 abdominal surgeries and I didn’t take 2 weeks off! Also didn’t have a job, but kids. WHATEVER. Wuss.)

What I’m trying to say is that Coach Luke was a little bit of a nervous wreck too. But they got it all together, and the Pup even got a little one on one instruction – which started out by her yelling COACH LUKE! YOU’RE HERE! HI!! As much as the kids SWEAR he’s not their favorite… well. Likewise, as much as he SWEARS he will drown them all… you get the idea.

The meet got underway with a teenager playing the national anthem on the electric guitar (….) and then it was off to the races. Literally. Of our group – Niece, nephews and Pup – the wee lil Ladybug was the first to swim. This isn’t her first meet, so she was only a LITTLE nervous, Auntie, but she swam fabulously as she did her 25 Backstroke. (Auntie will have all their times on her youtube soon. You can also see the pup’s races for Auntie’s point of view, which was closer then mine.) Then it was DMan’s turn, and Bug’s turn, then my Ladybug again, and THEN…

Deep breath, Pup – it was time for her to swim her very first race. It was the 50yd Backstroke – and I was glad that was first, as backstroke is her favorite. And here she is – she’s in the lane at the top of the screen

(Ignore the loud screaming woman. We know she’s crazy. Though we don’t know who she is. Or that she looks just like that crazy woman that lives in my mirror.):

She’s also the ONLY one of her heat that used the starting block bar to start. She’s DETERMINED to do it the ‘right’ way. It was also her first time ever stating with the starting gun sound, so she hesitated a little bit. She did NOT come in last, the girl in the lane closest that you can’t see in the video was a full 2 seconds slower the my girl! The Pup finished with a very respectable first time ever 50 yard backstroke time of: 1:18:20.

Whew. One race down, one to go. Time to wait. Again.

We doled out snacks, and water, and kept them warm, and watched as the other swimmers swam, then Bug did a KILLER breaststroke, knocking a full 30 seconds off his previous time last season. He then did the 100yd IM, and lost his goggles on the start, which made him mad. He fought through and finished though, so he made US proud. But he was mad. Heh. This of course, brought up a whole new level of fear in the Pup. I kept telling her “Point A to point B to Point C. That’s all you have to do. If you lose your goggles, keep going. You’ll be FINE.” to which she replied “YOU DON’T KNOW THAT MOM! GAWD!” Then they made faces at me.

Yeah. She was a little nervous. And then… she couldn’t find her goggles, and we had to steal one of the extra pairs from Auntie’s bag. We got them fitted, and checked and she was pretty sure they’d be OK. Then, all to soon, it was her turn again. This time, the 50yd Freestyle. She was again, the only of her heat to use the starting block. And I’m going to explain what happened next before you see the video, so you can tell what’s going on through all our screaming. Or you know, the screaming of that crazy woman I don’t know. Heh.

She lost her goggles on the start. They didn’t go all the way down to below her chin, but instead were stuck across her nose/mouth. What we didn’t know was that she had problems breathing – she told us afterwards that she held her breath almost that whole first 25 yds. She powered through, then midstroke was able to pull the goggles down around her neck, and finished the first 25, with us yelling encouragement like crazy. She turned and headed back, and halfway across the pool started to tread water – she knew to touch the bottom would be an automatic DQ, and she was fighting to get her breath. Auntie finally caught her eye, and demonstrated a backstroke, and I was yelling to flip to her back as well – contrary to popular belief, Freestyle is not that specific stroke everyone uses because it’s fast, but it means you can use ANY style to swim it. So, with the encouragement, she flipped to her back, and was able to finish the race. Again, she’s at the top of the screen:

You can also see while she’s treading water the lifeguard was starting to get up. She told us afterward she was about to dive in after her. The whole room was cheering for her as she finished, and despite the fact she burst into tears and cried on Auntie a while before coming to cry on me too (and I wasn’t in tears. visibly.) she was able to say thank you when a couple of kids from other teams came over to encourage her and tell her good job. One of the officials stopped her too, to assure her that she had not disqualified, that she’d done really well and kept her head and he was pleased with how well she handled herself in a scary situation. Oh yeah – her time was 1:48:22.

So, after the pup, there was one more race for Bug, and we were free to go. We got the kids showered, dressed, then the pup, Nana and I grabbed some lunch before taking that nice long drive again. I managed to stay awake. The pup slept off and on. Nana too – but she woke up when I said something about HEY! THAT’S THE DITCH! – ok, not really. *L* We both managed to stay awake, get home and gather kids and dog and stuff and I collapsed for a 2 hour nap before I was awake to deal with kids a bit, then to burrowed into bed for a LOVELY 10 hours or so of sleep.

Thus! We officially have the first meet under our belts, and looking forward to the one in January, where the pup will kick the HELL out of her freestyle time, I’m sure.

Point A to Point B to Point C. And she’ll be FINE.
Turns out I know what I’m talking about after all.