Glory days

We let Harper stay up a little past her bedtime to watch gymnastics a couple of nights ago. She has been talking about it for weeks so I found her response a little underwhelming actually. She watched the first floor exercise intently and, about halfway through it said, "They don't do gymnastics like I do gymnastics." I think what she meant is that most of "her" gymnastics is fairly limited to the ground, while theirs is mostly airborne. She went on, with a nonchalant air: "I used to do it like that, a long time ago." The husband and I barely contained our glee. "When did you do it like that, Harper?" he queried. She took a nice long pause, clearly searching the time-space continuum for that exact moment when she had actually been able to do a full twisting double back somersault into a punch front. "I did it like that," she finally explained patiently, "before Hudson was very tiny." Ohhh, way back then. She lost interest after about 15 minutes, which meant that I had to miss an entire rotation while I read her bedtime stories. I am TOTALLY LOVING the Olympics. Staying up way too late, weeping during national anthems (not just ours either--though I found Japan's rather uninspiring), pumping my fist all by myself (I mean SERIOUSLY did anyone see the ending of the 400 m freestyle relay?? Come ON. Lezak was SUPER human). I think I have mentioned before the rather ambivalent feelings I have toward Sport in general, but I am a sucker for this stuff.

The husband and I got to have a date Friday night so we missed the opening ceremony. I didn't care very much. We went to see "The Dark Knight." It was intense. It should really be titled "The REALLY, REALLY Dark Knight." I closed my eyes quite a bit because even the stylized violence was too much for me. But I thought it was a really well done movie. All of the press about Heath Ledger's performance is merited--he really is so bizarre and fascinating to watch.

So I saw a bumper sticker on Friday that made me think about the presidential election. It read:

CATS NOT KIDS

Now, here's the thing. Why is this lady not just okay with liking her cats? Why does she need to proclaim (and it really is a proclamation when you put it on your car) that not only does she choose to have cats, but she chooses to disparage having kids. I mean if you love something or someone, by all means extol its virtues, but why does something else have to be put down in the process? SO. This illustrates why I loathe negative campaigns. Why can't we just want to vote FOR someone because they have the positive attributes (or at least some of them) that we're looking for, instead of voting AGAINST someone who frightens us? Three long months until election day and I'm tired already.