A Dirty Little Secret

You know, my daughter is a lovely, little girl. She's just got a sweet little smile and a kind spirit, and really, she's just a lovely little girl. And oh, she loves to dance. I mean, LOVES to dance. And with this, she's developed the nasty little secret of all dancers: smelly feet.

Her feet and dance shoes smell to high heaven. They smell like a cross between rancid fruit and a dead animal. One whiff will gag a sanitation worker. Over the last couple of years, this issue has gotten progressively worse. It's to the point where I don't let her take her dance shoes off in my car. She can take them off in the studio and safely stow them in her dance bag or she can wear them in the car and take them off in her room, with the door closed and put them in her room, but she may not take them off in my car as the smell will remain for a minimum of 3 days.

So, last night, she had a 30 minute rehearsal. She came out of the class and handed me her shoes and I nearly lost my lunch. And disaster of all disasters...she hadn't brought her dance bag. Now, I considered forcing her to hang her shoes out the window while I drove as fast as possible the 10 miles home. The problem was if she dropped a shoe, it would be tragic: she's competing Saturday and new shoes in competition are bad, very bad. I thought about wrapping them in plastic, but I didn't have any and I really didn't want to open the plastic when we got home. Then, I struck on the best solution. She could wear them in the car and I could drive the Dad's car until the stench cleared in mine.

If you saw me cruising around in the Dad's car today, now you know why. I wasn't really trying take care of his car. I was avoiding mine. I don't know if there's a solution to this little secret, but let me tell you...if you ever go back stage with a group of dancers, you will smell exactly what I'm talking about and it will be a memorable experience.

She's HIS daughter...trust me

Last night the girls' were preparing speeches for their classes. Maggie was practicing a speech about her favorite game and La Nina was preparing a demonstration of "how to make a Cootie Catcher". In case you aren't in the know, Cootie Catchers have been around since I was a kid. They are these origami things, that little girls use to predict the fortunes or dare their friends to do silly things. They aren't complicated to make, so while I thought she should just teach her classmates dance step or two, I wasn't going to interfere.

She practiced last night by making two or three of these things, but she had one that was her demonstration "Cootie Catcher". At the end of one of her practice sessions, I asked her to read me the fortunes/dares. I don't know what made me ask that question, call it Mother's intuition or a distant memory from my childhood, but I suddenly realized, those fortunes/dares could be trouble. Our conversation went like this:

"Sweetie, read me your Cootie Catcher."

"No."

"I'm not kidding, I want you to read me what you wrote."

"I'm not going to read it."

Now the Dad is chiming in: "Read it now."

"No."

"Why?" I finally thought to ask her.

"Because it's inappropriate." (Really, she said this.)

"Then, you better start reading or start ripping it up, because that isn't going into your class tomorrow."

She started reading. "Read a book in a day." Nothing wrong. "Read 10 books in a day." Okay, pretty innocent. "Watch Disney Channel" Safe. "Kiss a boy." Excuse me? "Fart." What? "Fart 100 times in a day". that is not going to work. "Pee in the bathroom." And she's going to read this in class? "Pee in your pants." OKAY, let the shredding begin.

Then, she did something really odd. She said, "Mom, I'll just make another one." And she ripped up her demo. Easy as that. And that's when I got scared. I realized, she could whip one of these things out, write anything she wanted and take it into class and I'd have no clue.

We had a long talk about what was appropriate and since she was clear on inappropriate, I figured, maybe, just maybe she could be trusted. But I was scared. She wrote the Cootie Catcher and she tried to hide it from me. She agreed way too easy to rip up the bad one. So, I emailed the teacher a warning. Here's my actual note:

LaNina has also gotten her act together and will be providing the class a

lovely demonstration on how to make a Cootie Catchers. I can guarantee

the sample of the Cootie Catcher I have seen is completely appropriate for

class as opposed to the first one, which included a great deal of potty humor.

(This is now torn up and in the trash.) I will check the sample again in

the morning, but I know her. She's capable of pulling a fast one.

Therefore, you may want to either check her sample OR have her not read her

sample.

I've warned her not to try anything tricky and she just smiled. I'm

worried.

Her teacher reported she had no time to read or suggest fortunes/dares as her classmates asked her too many questions during the demonstration. The teacher found the whole situation hysterically funny. In fact, I think she was hoping she went for the racy version of the Cootie Catcher. But let me just be clear, this would have never occurred to me as a child. This child is definitely her father's daughter.

The Makings of a Giants Fan

Last winter an old friend approached me with an opportunity: Any interest in buying a share in a block of seat licenses at AT&T Park? Hmmm....that would make me a part owner of season tickets for the Giants. I grew up an A's fan, I had mixed emotions about this move. The Dad did not have any reservations. To him, this was the opportunity of a lifetime, why I was hesitating? So, off went our check and in came tickets to about 15 games for the 2010 Giants baseball season.

You need to know, these seats are terrific. Section 119, Row R, Seats 1-4. We're about 20 rows behind home plate and a bit down the third base line. Foul ball territory whenever a lefty is at the plate. Close enough to really see the game. We get shade about 3:30 at every afternoon game, and the seats are protected from the wind, so you never really freeze which can be an issue during the summer in San Francisco.

Whenever we had all 4 tickets we took the girls. They memorized the number of every player on the team, chanted "Let's Go Giant's" with great gusto and even made through extra innings once or twice. They picked out a favorite player, Bengie Molina, and were crushed when he was traded to Texas. Panda and Posey slowly earned the top spots in their hearts. They grew into huge Giants fans very quickly.

It was a slower process for me. I really liked watching Posey once he joined the team in May; Lincecum and Wilson always spiced up the pitching. My favorite part of every game was when they delivered margaritas to my seat. After a few games, I started pulling for the earnestness in people like Huff Daddy and Freddy Sanchez, and Juan Uribe was just amazing at short stop. I bought an orange sweatshirt to wear on Orange Fridays, and I bought a couple of hats. I bought a bunch more margaritas and I even knew the magic number most of the month of September. I just didn't advertise this fact.

Still, I wasn't a rabid fan. I was a luke warm fan. I was happy the Giants won the West, sad we passed on the post season tickets and I wanted the Giants to do well, but the term "torture" rang true to me: The Giants had a history of choking in the post season, so I tempered my enthusiasm with a heavy dose of reality. These were the Giants. They found ways to lose.

Then, I started listening the National Media dismiss the Giants. Oh, they would never get past the Braves, I heard some ESPN guy say. But wait, hadn't I seen the Giants beat the Braves? I knew I'd seen that happen. Then during the LCS I heard Ernie Johnson say, something like 'the Phillies just needed to wrap up things, so he could see a Lee-Halladay match up in the World Series.' At the time he made that statement, the Giants were up 3-2 in the series. Why would he dismiss the Giants and look to a Rangers-Phillies match up? I'd seen a game when the Giants beat Halladay. This wasn't a long shot, at all. The Giants had a good chance. Then, the final straw: Joe Buck before the opening of the world series said that the Braves and Phillies were slumping at the plate, and that's why the Giants made it into the series. WHAT? Did he watch the same games I did? I thought the Giants pitchers looked dominating. Timmy was on fire. Sanchez had an amazing outing. Cain looked good. Why was he dissing the Giants?

And that's when I suddenly realized, I was a Giants fan. These national announcers knew less than I did about the Giants and frankly, they were really ticking me off. Why didn't anyone take my team seriously? They were good and they had nice people to bring me drinks in the hot sun. I liked this team. Suddenly, I really wanted to see the Giants win the World Series. As things got rolling, I was appalled that Bochy let Pat Burrell stay in the line up when he was 0-7 at the plate. Give Panda a shot at the plate in Texas when they had a DH. Cody Ross was the real deal in my book, as was Renteria and Cain and Bumgarner. These guys were good and deserved to be in the world series, because they were a good TEAM. No star. Just a good TEAM.

That's what made last night so fun. We were rooting for a team, our team. There was not a single star among them, but a group of great athletes working together to win. And you know what, I jumped up and down when Wilson got that last out, right along with the Dad and the girls. And I'm really glad we decided to buy those tickets. I still like the A's. Will still always hope they do well and I'll really hope we see another Bay Bridge series next year.