Mississippi did something smart!

Didn't last long.

A high school football player died from heatstroke during practice, and there was and probably still is a heat advisory in place for most of the state.

Along with the triple digit heat.

The day after the student's death, a judge ordered that there be no school-sponsored activities outside between the hours of 9am and 7pm.

People were pissed, because the schools affected would be at a disadvantage because their players couldn't play as much as the others, and they take care of the students and blah blah blah. I thought it was smart, everyone else I know thought it was smart, but we don't play football in Mississippi.

Or anywhere else. It is so hot, Becky's friends don't play basketball when they come over, and they've done that all summer, even when it edged towards 100.

These last few days have been too hot.

Every time I've gone outside, I get dizzy, nauseous, and soaked in sweat. And that's just walking to the mailbox. I'm not in perfect shape, but I rode my bike all summer - one time, a temperature display said it was 100, and it was not that bad.

Let's go back south, shall we?

A higher court overturned the judge's ruling.


And the coaches who were pissed off are saying that their position is "common sense", not the judge's. He doesn't have the authority.

His team practiced at 6:30am on Friday, but they're back to normal now.

What is wrong with practicing early in the morning and late in the evening?

I can't think of a single reason!

And someone I know died of heatstroke 2 years ago. He was at boot camp in Missouri.

These coaches have been in the sun too long.

The Tigers are in the Elite Eight!

For the second year in a row, according to the liberal media, but I actually saw the last few moments, so I know the truth and the truthiness.

They're playing Ohio State on Saturday. It would have been awesome if the University of Tennessee had won that game! (By one point, which is how many points Texas A&M was behind at the end. Close, close games.) My sister said people had on Tennessee pants and Memphis shirts yesterday.

The bet for my crazy family was that they'd go to school(work) tomorrow if the Tigers won. So after the game, mom called her friend and coworker and said, "I'm coming in tomorrow."

Mom works at a high school with a bunch of high school idiots, but nobody that she saw had blue hair.

Becky is sick, which was sort of inevitable. It's allergy season and the temperature's bouncing. Becky *achoo* swears *achoo* that *achoo* she [take the damn benadryl!] has no allergies, but cotton fluff fluffering about irritates almost everyone, myself included.

Lucky for me, two benadryl, a sudafed PE, and a chloraseptic lozenge work wonders in the morning. We finally turned the AC on last night since it was in the '80s and they'd do anything to shut up Hot-flash-having-apathetic-about-basketball girl.

"The game starts at 6! You'll have to watch the Simpsons in the study!"

Okay.

I took some dinner back there and came out at a commercial break to get more, and what do you know? The basketball game on CBS has the exact same commercial on at the same time as the Simpsons on CW!

That was their story.

The Simpsons was pretty good - the one where Bart got an elephant. Someone at SNPP said it was too outlandish, but I thought, watching it, that it made as much sense as anything else. Bart's a nut. Offered ten thousand dollars or an elephant, he takes the elephant. Wouldn't you?

No.

But Bart did.


As for blue-haired Becky, she got taken to the principal's office almost as soon as she got off the bus yesterday. The lady who took her there kept saying that she was violating the dress code, and Becky just said she'd dyed her hair blue earlier in the school year and no one said boo. The principal sided with Becky (no, she didn't magically become a tenured teacher, she's still in 10th grade, shocking, I know) and said that it wasn't against dress code.

But it probably will be next year.

I'm rereading Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I think I've read this more often than I've watched the Wizard of Oz, but probably not as often as I've read The Wizard of Oz. My mom's mom sent it to us, it was my mom's back in the days of dinosaurs (she was born in Roswell, people! who knows what the government does in the New Mexico desert. Only the shadow puppy knows and I threw him outside.) and now it's mine. I've only read it more because I've had it longer.

Wicked draws from both the book and the movie. The movie, well, the color of her skin. I'm sure it would have been in the original book if she'd been green.

Some things about the Wizard of Oz movie - it's been said before, but I'll say it again. The "good fairy" was just mean in the movie, making her go to the Emerald City when she could have gone straight home. And, I forgot who said this, sorry. It wasn't a sappy movie, it didn't have a happy ending. Crazy Lady was still going to take away Toto the next day! (Wickett's been compared to Toto - black, little, in my bike basket yelling at everyone.)

I wish the movie had stayed truer to the book. You know they cut it in half? Glinda didn't rescue her in the Emerald City, she had to keep going.

My US History teacher used the Wizard of Oz movie as a metaphor for the Great Depression, saying the symbolism in the movie was put in to make the country feel better (symbol - yellow brick road=money). I asked, "How can it be about the Great Depression if it was written at the turn of last century?" The general answer was "just play along, we're talking about the movie, don't confuse everyone."

Our test over the Great Depression was like every other test - I missed one or two of the multiple choice or fill in the blank, but did more than the 2 essay(paragraph) questions required, so my scores were always at least 100. And I did the essay question about the Wizard of Oz, I think comparing the poppies as an obstacle to Emerald City to alcohol and drugs as an obstacle to fiscal solvency, or something.

My History and English teacher my junior year are to blame for my confidence in my writing skills. I got an A+ on my History paper. (Minimum 4 pages, and I turned in 8 and a half. He told me that I failed, because I'd asked if it could be more than the minimum and he sighed and said, "You can turn in a 10 page paper." Since it wasn't 10 pages, darn! The reason I asked was because our English research papers could only be so long, she wanted us to do the basics, she didn't want to grade 10 page papers. 2 was enough.) And my English one she wanted to use as an example for later classes.

We had to keep a History journal, with a question about the lesson almost every day that we had to answer before learning the information. Our journals were graded weekly, and except for one or two times, I got 100s the whole way - his handwriting was worse than mine. I like to read through it now, almost 2 years later, for an ego boost. "Look! Someone who went to college to teach things thinks I'm smart!"

I didn't get the highest grade on the final, because it was scantron, no chance for creativity. Poo. But I still aced the class merrily, and enjoyed his semester discussion class the next year as a senior (again with the journals). And he told me there were kids as good as I was when it came to retaining knowledge, but no one quite at my rhetorical level.

What.

I don't fit the beauty scene, I don't fit the social scene, the one thing I do fit and adore, I'm good at! Or I was.

And I will be.

"Small, discussion based classes." Describing what I get in the Honors Program because I'm not an ordinary student, I deserve more than an ordinary class. (The dogs didn't get the significance of this either.)

Like one of my message board friends pointed out, some of the classes would be better if I was on pain meds. Ha!

Seriously, I will be better.

Not 100%, I don't have '10 years'(that's how long some women have suffered from endometriosis before discovering that no, it was really a bowel problem, according to my doctor. He's really great, though, a pain specialist and a gyn. Who has no answers, because he doesn't even know the right questions.), but I am hoping for at least more than 50% of the pain gone.

I'll take up voodoo in July, let you know how it turns out, surely I can transfer the pain to someone deserving?

On one of the help pages "how to get your blog read", one of the tips is keep it short.



I say Ack!!! Thppppth!!!! to that.


It's my blog, for my pleasure, and I can fire a commenter for not being loyal to Dixie, but I won't say that under oath and you can't get a transcript of it.*


*That should lead to kicking the Republicans out of the executive branch more than the wiretaps, torture, the catastrofuck of the war, leaking names, turning us into a Christian theocracy (much better than a Muslim one), and No Child Left Behind. (Most educators loathe NCLB, which doesn't help them, it only continues the stereotype that they're liberal commies. NCLB is just part of getting the rich, deserving kids into private schools and giving everyone else vouchers to save them from the horrors of public schools that are held accountable to the community, if the community gives a damn.)

I mean really. His advisors won't swear to tell the truth and we'll have no evidence of the meeting? Do they still tape everything? Instead of 18 minutes missing, I'd say 6 years would be missing from those.

This shows that he thinks he's above the people, he or his office shouldn't be held accountable for his/its actions. A Republican congress led the impeachment against Clinton, why won't the Democrats do the same? Yes, it is a lack of backbone - impeach the president? During the war on terror? Are you mad? We'll be accused of treason by Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter!

And possibly Sean Hannity!

We can't chance that.

But it's also the fact that besides Zell Miller challenging Chris Matthews to a duel (I wish he'd slapped him with a glove, like Stephen Colbert did to Jon Stewart while reporting on it - Indecision 2004 DVD, so awesome), the democratic congresspeople aren't as angry and vicious, and have stoned academics backing them.

There was a bit in the paper yesterday comparing Vietnam protests almost 40 years ago to the Iraq protests of today. It said something that is so true - there's no draft. Back then, apparently, you knew at least one person who was over there, and if you were a guy, there was this chance you'd go.

Now that it's all volunteer, college students aren't in danger of flunking out and being drafted, no one is going there against their will - officially. You sign up for the National Guard, to protect the area in case of a storm, and now you're going to Iraq for the second time in 4 years. (Our local one.) They change the rules, allowing those with tattoos that show beyond the dress uniform and those with mental illnesses such as depression or autism.

Pardon me while I vomit.

Don't tell me women don't like sports.

There are 3 women in this house.

2 of them are cheering and shouting at the TV because the U of M Tigers are points behind or points ahead or whatever.

I like playing basketball where I'm by myself, throwing whatever basketball has been left in our front yard by Becky's friend at our netless hoop.

That's about it.

I'm going to the U of M in less than 6 months, I can't do the "Woooooh!" *clap clap clap* that Becky just did, but maybe I can wear blue in March.

I hate all sports on tv besides baseball, which is so nice, because it's so ... soothing, no clock to worry about, yes, it can be 'boring', but that's part of its charm.

Football and basketball require a lot of shouting and gesturing, if my mom and sister are any indication.

I'm going outside with Dixie - all this shouting is confusing her, she thinks something important is going on.

Becky dyed her hair blue for today. This is not the first time.

And it won't be the last.