I was taking pictures of icicles when Ian walked in and said “Is that a bear?”

The kids thought I was taking pictures of the large mammal in our back yard that I hadn’t even noticed.

I yelled “Hey Gabe! There is a huge doe in our back yard!”

And that is when Claudia fed me the line. She said “What is a doe?”

I got to say – completely in context and with absolute accuracy – “A deer, a female deer.”

***

Last week skier Lindsey Vonn was in the news because some jerk in the media suggested that Vonn would have an advantage in the downhill events because she was carrying extra weight, so I was pleased when I saw this week’s cover of Sports Illustrated because I thought Vonn looked terrific.

See? Adorable. The assholes who said she was fat should feel stupid and mean. She looks great right?

This whole thing should be so exciting, women athletes rarely grace the front cover of Sports Illustrated. Hell, women rarely appear on the front cover of SI unless it is the swimsuit issue. I was very pleased when I saw this, a woman athlete, an olympic sport this close to the Super Bowl! Not that I am knocking the Super Bowl in any way. I love the Super Bowl almost as much as I love bacon but it was nice to see something different for a change.

Sadly, things just couldn’t stay nice. People can’t just shut up and be happy for a nice all-American skier, can they? Nope.

“Oh,” cry the women, “she is being objectified!”

No. She really isn’t.

That is what skiers wear. Yes, the pose is exaggerated but it is photography. The photograph is cool. If you see that magazine cover and think about sex maybe the problem lies within because when I see that picture I think about skiing.

As my friend Laurie put it when we were discussing Lindsay Vonn yesterday, “she can’t win, obviously – she’s either cheating to win because she’s fat or she’s hot bending over.”

Women athletes are objectified all of the time – don’t even get me started on Danica Patrick or Anna Kournakova – this is not one of those times.

Let’s all take a deep breath and be excited for the Olympics and skiing and Lindsey Vonn.

Just to set the record straight.

This is an example of Sports Illustrated objectifying a female athlete.

This is not.

See the difference?

]]> http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2010/02/05/lindsey-vonn-sports-illustrated-and-objectification/feed/ 23 http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2010/02/04/nobody-remain-calm/ http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/2010/02/04/nobody-remain-calm/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:25:06 +0000 Goon Squad Sarah http://sarahandthegoonsquad.com/?p=4163 It isn’t even 5:00 PM yet and my county has already canceled school tomorrow due to Snopocalypse II:  Electric Boogaloo.

The kids are going ape shit. They already tried to wash the mirror with bright purple foaming kids soap.

My local twitter prognosticators are saying that school probably won’t be back in until Tuesday at the soonest.

I know that one to two feet is a lot of snow but wow.

When I was at the grocery store yesterday there was a huge run on hot dog and hamburger buns. I’m still fairly new to snow, is one supposed to barbecue during a blizzard? Is it like the Fourth of July? Because my plan was to sit on the couch with a blanket and read a nice book or something.

I just got a text that said there was a run on Spam at Costco. SPAM. It is a snow storm not a nuclear holocaust.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I understand we stand a chance of getting 24 inches of snow. I understand that 24 inches is an assload of snow, but can’t we all just calm the hell down and stay inside?

And by stay inside, I mean after school on Friday, and only until Monday morning.

For Melissa, Lori, Elisa and Loralee it was the Mathias “Let the People Praise Thee, O God”, the piece that he wrote for Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding.

For everybody else it sounds like this.

I’m a first alto and the the alto line looks like this

and this

If you are a vocalist you are cringing. If you are an instrumentalist you are wondering what my deal is. If you can’t read music you stopped reading this post five minutes ago.

Before we moved on to the next piece the director asked if we had any questions.

I turned to the lady on my right. I said “Yeah, can we sing something else?”

No response.

I turned to the girl on my left and I said “Yeah, I have a question. What the hell Mathias?”

She looked at me like I had several heads.

I am so glad I have you guys.

Actual Father Not Shown

I said “Are you making liberty spikes?”

He said “What is a liberty spike?”

I explained to him what a liberty spikes were and what a mohawk was.

“You know your Dad used to have a mohawk. A purple one.”

“No he didn’t. He had a purple head?”

“No, honey, just his hair was purple. His head was regular color. He used to have a nose ring too.” I said. ” A Bull Ring, like this” and I demonstrated what a bull ring looks like.

And my five year old son said “That is so old fashioned.”

Welcome to 2010 people. We are old now.

All you have to is vote I would attend this session.

You don’t have to be attending BlogHer, you don’t have to be a woman, heck, I don’t even really care if you like sports but I do care that sports and especially women’s sports are undervalued in the media and have never even been discussed at a BlogHer conference.

Please just sign in to your BlogHer account and vote, yes, I would attend this session.

http://www.blogher.com/female-athletes-unspoken-sisterhood

I’ll be your best friend.

Women athletes and sportswriters everywhere thank you.

[photo]

That was about 18 months before I met Gabe.

Creepy, right?

Then again, she also told me that I would live in the Pacific Northwest and work in textiles, so one out of three ain’t bad.

Okay, one out of three is pretty crappy, but still G was a good call. There aren’t that many boy names that start with a G: George, Geoff, Gabriel, Grant, Gordon. I’m sure there are many more but it isn’t like she said I would marry someone whose name began with an J or an M.

I suppose I could still end up in Seattle or Portland. I’m only 37. I have a lot of time left to move around.

But the textile thing, I’m just not seeing it.

Strange? Yes, until the guy giving the presentation told her it was a picture from the BlogHer conference last summer.

You know what is even stranger than that?

While we were having that conversation our children were making robots and snowmen out of paper and drawing butts on them.

Ian calls this work Snowman with a Booty.

Front
(left)

Back
(right)

Classy.

(all over)

I guess I am getting used to this.

I was driving some of my friends from class home yesterday when we had the following conversation.

TODD: I can run faster than anyone in this world.

IAN: I can run faster than a cheetah.

CLAUDIA: I am the fastest land mammal.

PAIGE: I can run up and down the stairs faster than any of you.

CLAUDIA: I can run one million miles an hour.

PAIGE: I can run up and down the stairs sixty miles an hour.

TODD: Oh yeah? I can run from here to North Carolina in 50 miles an hour.

ME: Oh yeah? I can read.

Burn those guys.