DSC02088, originally uploaded by kathieshoop.

Hey there everyone! I hope your summer was great. Mine was busy but wonderful and now, over…I should be skipping through the aisles of Office Depot singing “it’s the most wonderful time of the year…” and sometimes I feel like that, but there’s a cover of sadness that both my children are off to kindergarten/first grade. Everything is good, great, I’m lucky beyond words…

So, off I go to dance in the aisles of Dunham sports. That works, right?

Well, okay, if you hadn’t noticed, I adore the Olympics.

But, I think it’s bigger than that, of course bigger than me and what I think is great viewing.

I mean how can you not love the Olympics?

Apparently, it’s not hard to ignore them. If you’re Beano Cooke or Mel Kiper, Jr.  that is.

Beano, who’s a University of Pitt grad (so I tried to cut him some slack while listening to him yimmer-yammer on the radio yesterday) is simply showing his age-spots when he claims he has no interest in the Olympics due to the commerical influences that infiltrate the games. Yeah, well, get over it oldy-but-goody guy. The fact that the athletes can now eat more than Ramen noodles for the twenty years they bust their asses for the country is just too bad for you, Beano.

Seriously, if Beano actually sat with one of those athletes, or gasp, simply watched one of them before, during or after their performance, the idea that the athletes themselves were all about the commercialism, money or anything else would blow his argument out of Michael Phelps’ smokin’ wake. I just think if you’re in the business of sports and God knows I love football as much as any of them, you should pull your head out of your ass or the ass cream for ten minutes and watch some of the hardest working, most gifted people the world has to offer. For the love of God.

And don’t tell me about the few that break the rules, I know they’re there, they don’t change things anymore than the fact the Americans are permitted to stock the shelves at, gasp, Home Depot while they train.

Sorry we don’t have centralized sports centers that rip kids from the crib to mold them into athletes at the age of three. That sort of alleviates the need for commerical influence in sports. 

Now to Mel Kiper. Seriously Mel, you just sound stupid on the radio when you defend the fact you have to watch 50 games before the college or pro football season starts so that nine months from now you can pretend you know who will be a hall of famer in the NFL. You don’t sound dedicated to your work, you just sound stupid. Get a grip, grab a beer, snuggle into bed with your wife and watch something besides Inside the NFL for two freaking minutes. Or just admit you’re a narrow human being incapable of even noticing your country is kicking ass and when they’re not, some other fabulous athlete is. Be amazed by someone other than your self for once.

Sorry, a little grumpy over here.  But it fits considering the men I’m writing about.

UPDATE:  Chris Collinsworth has never been my favorite guy, but his stock just shot up. He’s on TV with Bob Costas and it made me remember C.C. has been psyched all week for these athletes showing that it is possible for a football guy to see beyond the field…sorry to have overlooked you Chris, baby!

DSC01428, originally uploaded by kathieshoop.

But it still feels so nice to be here for the time being.

What’s your favorite summer activity so far?

All the Olympians are amazing. Of course I’m partial to Americans, but boy all of them make me dizzy with awe. Nastia is awesome, Shawn is spectacular, Michael is other-worldly, Natalie, Dara and well…ALL of them are stunning athletes.  They make my nights happy. 

How about you?  Are you catching any of it?

DSC02075, originally uploaded by kathieshoop.

I actually have two articles in this issue…here’s one of them..the editor’s choice no less. Not to brag or anything…really, but who will tell you if I don’t???? Thanks for caring.

Well, not HERE, but on my tv, they are.

That’s right, no amount of commerical interference can deter my love of the games.  I can’t help it. My parents must have infused this nutty interest in the Olympics in me an now I’m passing it onto the kids.

I can’t stop myself from making them watch…how can you NOT watch Michael Phelps and company squeak out the greatest swimming relay win EVER?

Yes, me. The early-to-bedder with kids who I sausage under the covers at first chance allows her kids to stay up to all hours. Yes, my daughter was crafting a floor exercise by the bed while Shawn Johnson performed hers and I resisted the urge to say "Get in bed right now, lay still go to sleep…because I couldn’t stop the feeling of "Oh, yes, do your routine Bethy, create something great, fall in love with gymnastics, go ahead, there’s nothing like your first side aerial." (Meanwhile Jake takes advantage of this late night by playing STAR WARS which is not yet an Olympic event–though he gets high marks for passion).

Really, I let them stay up so they can understand that making your dreams come true can be so much bigger than American Idol.

Now, don’t start worrying that I tie my children into training schedules so to create the chance they someday become MIchael Phelps or Dara Torres. It’s not that. It’s the understanding that the world is so much bigger than us in little old Oakmont and that no matter what they love to do, they CAN be the greatest at it.

Well, if they want to be.  I realize not everyone cares to be, is inspired by great atheletes or great whatevers, but I am, I"ll tell you, I could watch the greastest electrician in the world and somehow be inspired. 

A lot of good it’s done me, I know, I know.

But, I can say I’m happy partly because I always have something I’m in love with that I’m doing and trying to be the best ever at.  Crazy, I know. But I was a girl who ordered her parents to send her to Oregon when I was six. SIX! I wanted to be Nadia  and I knew the best gym in the country was in Oregon, where my mother’s family lived.  Sounded reasonable to me. No, they wouldn’t bite.

Then I grew to be average size and my love of swimming took over my love of body bending, flilpping gymnastics and I begged my parents to send me to MIsson Veijo (spelled wrong) to train.  No, was their answer, they sent me to Pitt Aquatic Club at University of Pittsburgh, instead…not that I’m complaining. 

Anyway…there’s nothing like the Olympics and I have to say, there’s nothing like watching them with someone else.  My husband will be gone most of August so it looks like the kids are on deck…someone has to be.

Whew! So there it is…how about you, are you with me or gagging?

DSC01652, originally uploaded by kathieshoop.

So, how do you know when the dead heat of summer is upon you? For Pittsburghers a sure sign is that no one is wearing shoes or socks. Well, don’t let me get too crazy with that statement–Nobody wears shoes or socks in houses, on porches (just their own, really) and sandals for both sexes are bared and put into action.

Not a big deal for you hot-stated people I know. But here where sunshine only rains down for a few months, feet are nearly always covered.

In college I went to visit my roommate in California and upon arriving, I was stunned to find that not only was everyone shoeless, but they went shoeless EVERYWHERE. To work, to play, and even into the grocery store. That was downright repulsive for me to see.

At first.

But slowly, over the month I was there, tooling around, sliding up and down the coast in an old black Nova, sans air-conditioning, wearing big hats, blaring Fine Young Canibals and Steve Miller Band, getting lost in questionable sections of fancy towns, sleeping on the beach, swimming with sharks, "bathing," in the ocean and restrooms, living on a gas card (way before there was a grocery store standing behind every set of pumps), I began to forgo my shoes nearly always.

I shudder to think that I even entered grocery stores shoeless. And we ate yogurt covered pretzels out of the bulk bin. We did buy them, too, but still, to think back. Where were my manners? Well, we were shoeless, I guess our manners went with the leather.

And once back in Pittsburgh, my shoeless exploits lasted exactly three days. It just didn’t feel right to get out of a car without even the teeniest flip-flops. Standing in a store that sold greasy perogies just didn’t have the same feel as standing, shoeless, in one that sold crab-legs and salmon.

And while, for a bit of time, I managed to keep hold of the feeling of freedom and inspiration I’d gained while in Cali, the shoes were the first to go, the first sign that a shoeless moment in time was just that–a moment.

But, if I try really hard, actually, when I don’t try, when I just sit there for a moment, remembering, that summer comes flying back to me, making me smile, making me remove my shoes. Just not for too long. Let’s not get nuts.

jamie’s party 138, originally uploaded by kathieshoop.

Nothing like a family party to bring out the hairstylin’ geniuses.

Pretty well done for a couple of kids and a woman who hasn’t braided hair in 20 years.

Not that it really requires a genius, but I happen to know certain adults who can’t braid at all.

Why is this important, worthy of blogging about?

It isn’t of course, but I love the picture so, here it is.

DSC01810, originally uploaded by kathieshoop.

Hello fellow bloggers,

Here’s some nutrition to tide you over until I’m back to better blogging shape!!!

Aren’t summer veggies grown by neighborhood farmers the best?

I think so too.

What are you eating this summer?

DSC01796, originally uploaded by kathieshoop.

No Pittsburgh childhood is complete without trips to the number one traditional amusement park in the country.

The park is pretty though some complain it’s too dirty. Of course it’s dirty, thousands of people traipse through it each day, littering, stomping, dripping with all sorts of debris. And there’s still an active steel mill across the river from it.

Please, I think we all know what the mills contribute to anything within its smoky grasp.

I guess I have low standards, but I love the place and I like it gritty, thank you very much.