Weekend Update: Embarrassing T-Shirts, Julie & Julia

Good Last Day of August to you.

I hope you had an enjoyable weekend.

Saturday morning I went to my 2nd-ever cross country meet which I found out is abbreviated by all the cool people as "XC."

My daughter has just started "XC" this year, after giving up many years of dance. So since our son never participated in this sport, I'm still learning so much about it.

Like, there is no regular, obvious way to follow them because, well, it's cross country, not cross asphalt. So they run around cornfields and into woods and around schools and through crowds of screaming parents at various points en route to the "chute" which is not a slide as in "Chutes and Ladders" at all, but the finish lane.

And, all parents of all teams at invitationals wear T-shirts with pithy, sassy sayings on the backs of them, like, and I quote:

XC Parents Need:
No bleachers or chairs, only comfortable shoes.
No announcers, only coaches screaming out splits.
No shelter from rain or shine, only a poncho or umbrella.
No popcorn or hotdogs, only a snack in our pocket.
No cheerleaders or mascots, only a loud voice.
No time outs, only a straight 5k.
And, at the end of the chute, all we need are our runners.

Yes, Jorge and I actually wore shirts with this manifesto on Saturday and will be expected to wear them every Saturday through October. Not to mention that I ordered a size too big for myself, so I'm wearing a frump shirt with all that wise-crackin' talk on the back. I would like to amend mine to say:

Some XC parents need:
Lawn chairs, because we are older than you young parents in skinny jeans, not that we're bitter.
To know what the "split" is that the coach is screaming out. Some of us thought those were things you did in cheerleading.
Shelter because rain makes us cranky.
More than a "snack in our pocket" which should instead say "pockets" because there isn't one giant universal parent pocket, but that's nit picking.
Also, I would like a hot dog, thank you.

I do appreciate that there are not time-outs, though. Time outs are torture, as I remember from our son's sports.

Once again, my intrepid daughter was thrilled that she did not come in last place and that she beat her own time by a few seconds. I always knew she was awesome, and now she has proven it to the universe. She is awesome and very cute, but she doesn't like for me to say those things, so let's just pretend I told you, "My kid is totally average in every respect. More accurately, she is merely one teenager in a nebulous cloud of teenagers."

Saturday night, I went with three friends to see "Julie and Julia," which was a great little entertaining movie, even though, as you know, I cannot cook. J & J contains both funny and sweet moments, but it wouldn't be "Lid the Prude" talking about the movie unless I mentioned that there were also a few bad words and overly sexy scenes in an otherwise pleasant little diversion. I'm sorry, but you just don't need the images of sex and Julia Child within five minutes of each other in any context.

However, Bloggers, this is a movie about blogging among other themes, and I think you will enjoy it. From the time Julie creates her blog to getting her first comments to getting bigger recognition, you will relate and/or fantasize. When tension grows between her husband her because of blogging, you will relate. When she worries about not having a post for her readers, you'll understand her anxiety. When she realizes the narcissistic nature of blogging, you will recognize that truth once again and laugh.

My friends often leaned forward in their seats to see my reactions to the blogging parts of the movie, and I'm sure the row behind us behind us wondered what I must have done to inspire this group action.

This is the first time I've seen blogging featured in a movie. It made me think a lot about why I do this and why you do this and how long it will last for all of us.

Here's a good article on Julie Powell and how her blog "The Julie and Julia Project" inadvertently made her famous, and since I didn't give a true plot synopsis, here is the trailer:



Have a great Monday! Bon appetit!