DWTS: Good to the last drop

The fact that Dancing With the Stars (hereafter referred to as DWTS) is going to be on for three consecutive nights each week for the early part of its season has made it official: I will not be taking on any new television shows this Fall. That’s right, you heard me. I’m going to enjoy the television commitments I already have which are, in order of importance: The Office , DWTS, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, and The Biggest Loser. I am pretty sure I will be dropping Desperate Housewives and, due to a DVR scheduling conflict, have already made the tough decision to give Beauty and the Geek the ax. I will add Project Runway when it begins again and hope that October Road returns at some point.

But this post is about DWTS and the many reasons, in no particular order, that I love it. People who have not “gotten into” DWTS have often expressed to me the concern that it would be uncomfortable or embarrassing to watch “celebrities” try to dance. While there are always a few semi-painful performances in the early weeks, for the most part, the dancing gets pretty good, pretty quickly. Others worry that the show is too corny. Hell yes, it’s corny, and that’s part of the charm. I’ve heard people say they’re not interested because the people on the show aren’t famous enough. Again, that’s part of the appeal. While it would be entertaining to watch Brad Pitt learn to foxtrot or Hilary Clinton take on the cha cha, it’s never going to happen. DWTS chooses C and D list—sometimes lower and sometimes higher grade--celebrities who have a lot to gain without too much to lose. Every season, I think I’m not excited about the new crop of celebrities, but I grow to love them all. Take tonight’s premiere, for example, when I found myself charmed by Marie Osmond and really excited to see more dancing from Sabrina the Cheetah Girls. Cheetah Girls is on the farthest fringe of my pop culture radar screen (even beyond the outpost where I try to banish references to High School Musical and The Hills) and yet I cannot wait to see Sabrina dance again. The US Weekly subscriber in me is rooting for Mel B to rock DWTS as some sort of f-u to Eddie Murphy. And, will the Beckhams show up to watch her? And, speaking of British people, does Jane Seymour really live in that castle where DWTS interviewed her? There’s still so much to see and learn. . . I’ll be tuning in tomorrow night to find out who Albert Reed is. He seems pretty hot to me.

I know some people who watch DWTS on DVR, fast forwarding through everything but the performances. Not me, though I DVR the show, I watch every second. NTB. I hum along to the theme music. I watch the celebrities and their partners line up and dance in place to its beat at the show’s opening. I enjoy the video excepts of the celebrities and their partners during practice and the corny outings they stage later in the season. I eagerly scan the audience to see what other “celebrities” are in attendance (Look, it’s Suzanne Whang from House Hunters! Lance Bass, here again! And Alfonso too!) I love how ABC unabashedly uses DWTS to pimp its other shows. I love the music, the costumes, and the spray tan. I enjoy the judges, two of whom have excellent accents and none of whom appears drunk or stoned at any time. I watch the post-dance interviews and look in the background to observe how the other dancers are interacting in the waiting room. I look forward to watching the contestants befriend one another (they honestly seem to get along and it’s fun to watch). I enjoy the professional dance performances on the night of the results show. After watching four seasons of the show, I enjoy the professional dancers in general and have my favorites among them, namely Maksim (so hot and the most charming smile) and Julianne (so stinking cute). The only things I have ever fast-forwarded through are some of the musical guest performances on results show night.

DWTS truly has it all. There’s laughter. Tom Bergeron is hilarious, seriously very witty. And, as an added bonus, season two DWTS champion Drew Lachey is temporarily replacing Samantha Harris as co-host while she (and those bionic arms of hers) are on maternity leave. There are tears. I cried when Jerry Springer talked about dancing with his daughter at her wedding. I well up when favorites get sent home late in the season and all the celebrities and professional dancers hug them as the credits roll. There’s great dancing. Plus, I am not ashamed to admit it, there’s an inspiration factor. Most of the celebrities take the competition really seriously and work their asses off to learn a new skill. That takes guts, and it’s cool to watch the transformations that happen. It’s also nice to see people who are not too cool or too jaded to admit that their performances and scores matter to them.

DWTS is the show that motivated my mom to finally stop spending her evenings flipping through magazines while my dad catnapped his way through hours of sporting events on ESPN and WGN. As a result, he now watches DWTS and has developed an uncanny ability to predict the judges’ scores with alarming consistency and accuracy. Wonders never cease.

Honestly, I’ve only scratched the surface of my thoughts on DWTS. If there are any fans out there, please offer a comment with your early thoughts on the new season. Or, share a favorite moment of yours from a past season. And the rest of you, it’s not too late to catch the DWTS fever. Tune in Tuesday night to see if Mark Cuban can dance.

Who had four eyes and stole my heart?

This guy! This cutie is my husband, circa 1983. The glasses are real, and not long after receiving them, he began wearing hard contact lenses and continued wearing hard contacts for over twenty years. Over the decades, my husband has also worn many pairs of glasses. When the bubby cried as an infant, and it was hubby's turn to get out of bed, he always had to pause and reach for his glasses before he could investigate and comfort. For over four years now, I have watched him squint at the alarm every morning and then reach over to fumble for his glasses. I once lost five hours of my life over two consecutive weekend accompanying him to a vision superstore to get fitted for and pick up a new prescription.

I, on the other hand, have been blessed with perfect vision. NTB. As a young girl, I yearned for glasses and I mean yearned. I begged four-eyed classmates to lend me their specs to try on. I admired myself in the mirror while wearing them, not believing how much cuter and smarter I appeared in glasses. Goody goody though I was, I even went so far as to purposefully flub the eye screening in the nurse's office, thus necessitating a visit to the real eye doctor. Alas, I was too afraid to lie at the real eye doctor's office, and my mom was absolutely not happy to have spent $50--quite a bit of dough in 1982--to round out the experience. By the time I was in junior high, fake fashion glasses were an accessory I could have picked up at Claire's at the mall. However, I didn't want to pose. No, in my mind, glasses were only for those "lucky" enough to need them.

If my calculations are correct, I've known my husband through three different pairs of glasses. I did not know him when he was the adorable kid in this picture who showed up to school each day in these glasses. I did not know him as a young grade schooler who was brave and competent enough to put in hard contact lenses all by himself. I did not know him for all the many, many years he had to remember to pack his glasses, keep track of his contacts in those little plastic cases, and let his mom know (and later remember on his own) when he was running low on contact lens solution. I did not know him for all those years, but I am certainly lucky to have a husband who has been so responsible and so darn cute for so long.

The most-used word in our household Thursday evening was "amazing." That afternoon, my husband got Lasik surgery. Five minutes after the surgery, he was positive and hopeful. Five hours later, he was amazed. Friday morning, he did not have to reach for his glasses. Contact lenses are a part of his past not his present or future. Since having his surgery, he has seen the alarm clark with perfect clarity. He has seen me and our friends smiling and laughing while tailgating. He has seen Notre Dame score two touchdowns (hey, we'll take it, progress is progress). He has read documents for work. He has read the Wendy's drive-thru menu. He has seen the bub smile and laugh. He has seen the bub learn to clap his hands, stomp his feet, and shout "hooray" (or just "ray" as the bub prefers) as the song demands. He has seen the bub poop in the bath tub. Life is good, and he can see it all so clearly. NTB.

The next great idea

Everyone wants to come up an innovative new idea, right? I used to actively think about what I could invent that would allow me to earn millions, retire, and not feel guilty about it, knowing that I earned all that money myself. I wanted to invent something I tentatively called the lotion sponge (clearly it would need a more clever name before going to market.) I’m not sure how to describe it except to say that it would have been a contraption that allowed you to lotionize without getting your hands all lotiony. (I do believe I just made up two new words in that sentence.) I hate getting lotion on the palms of my hands because if you touch your hair or face then they in turn feel greasy…just a slippery slope and not worth it for moisturized hands I decided. Anyway, I once drew a prototype of the lotion sponge while at work. The summer intern at my public accounting firm told me he worked on an invention in high school but just before he finalized everything, Sony came out with something similar. I was skeptical of his claim, maybe because I didn’t even really understand what the product was. However, since I was having a hard time keeping him busy, I challenged him to put his patent research skills to work and check out the lotion sponge. He found that apparently someone already had a patent on something similar. He encouraged me to follow up, declaring that some people just stake their claim to lots of ideas with no intention of following through, but I let it go. Good review for that young lad though as he was quite the team player in so enthusiastically playing along.

I moved on from the invention idea quite some time ago (at least the active pursuit part of it), but a recent Oprah episode reminded me that I might not want to hop off the wagon completely. Among the “millionaire mothers” she featured on a recent episode was someone who started decorating her daughters’ crocs and ultimately came up with the “jibbitz” that you can find inserted in the holes of crocs across the country. She sold her business of 40 employees, a modest warehouse, and a website to crocs for a cool $20 million. Not bad.

I’ve heard that if you really want to invent something new, you should just stop and take note every time you say to yourself, “There has to be an easier way to do this.” I’ve been doing that lately, but here are the kinds of ideas I generate. All of these things would make my life a little more delightful. I don’t believe I could generate a single dollar from these ideas, but I’d still like my recommendations to be heard:

Drive Thru Ear Infection Line: I took my daughter to the doctor yesterday for what turned out to be her fourth ear infection. Both ears infected this time, NTB. I hate going to the doctor for potential ear infections because my rate of success in guessing that diagnosis is about 50% correct. Although I don’t wish illness upon her, I feel like an idiot when I’ve taken her in only to get a diagnosis of “teething” or “just a cold.” So, a simple line where I could just pull up, have a doctor or nurse check out my daughter’s ears, pay a nominal fee, and drive away…that would be just super.

DVR (TiVo): My passion for the DVR is abundant. It is a life-changing invention, and I am completely serious about that. However, I’d like a few upgrades. The laundry list of shows I have stored can be overwhelming. To assist in finding a specific show more easily, I want to be able to create folders to store “Dora” episodes in one place “Movies” in another “Old Episodes” in another (shows I loved so much that I simply can’t part with them such as the Grey’s Anatomy Prom episode.) Also, I would like to be able to drag the timer at the bottom of the screen to the portion of the show I’d like to view rather than having to use the fast forward button. Maybe this is possible in an upgraded version?

So, if anyone can pull some strings to make those things happen for me, that would be super. Really, really super. I can’t pay you $20 million though.

Hit me with another lesson.

The bub and I hit two different parks this morning. We happened upon the second park at the same time as two classes of preschoolers were enjoying their recess time. The bub really loves being around older kids and thus delighted in chasing after the big kids. I delighted in the stimulating conversations I was able to have with some of the schoolchildren. Here is a sample of a conversation that really tickled me.

A girl who is going to be five in December (I know because she told me) asks me, "Do you want to see something?" You bet I do. She hangs from a bar and kicks her legs. Not Cirque de Soleil but I heap the praise on.

"I'm in preschool," she boasts.

"You are? Wow. What do you learn in preschool?"

She pauses to consider and then replies, "Not to hit."

This is not the answer I was expecting. I decide to dig a little deeper. "What else do you learn at preschool?"

She looks at her friend for ideas. The friend has nothing to offer. She then comes up with another detail. "We sleep. No talking during sleep time."

Now the former teacher in me is concerned. Surely learning not to hit and not to talk during nap time cannot be the highlights of preschool. "What else do you do at preschool?"

She considers carefully and then reports, "There are toys there." Okay, better. She ponders again and adds, "We read books."

I am now smiling like a maniac and looking to build on this insight. "Do you learn your letters?"

She nods yes to that and then proceeds to affirm that they also learn colors and how to count. She then offers this important fact, "That gray-haired lady over there is not really my teacher. My teacher is at a meeting." She, of course, points to the gray-haired lady who is roughly three feet away.

Soon enough, she is bored of me and heads toward the slide with the bub on her tail.

"Not to hit." That cracked me up.

Well, I wouldn't dive off a clif(f) for one.

Loyal readers may recall a recent encounter I had at the Jewel, wherein a well-intentioned young man recommended I try his favorite breakfast: a Clif bar and a banana. This morning I did just that.

I admit to feeling a little sad while getting ready this morning when I remembered that there was no Lean Cuisine pizza in my immediate future. (Though, I actually did not even have a pizza for lunch. I wonder if something is wrong with me.)

I will now compare and contrast the Clif bar and the Lean Cuisine pizza as breakfast items.

Price:
LC pizzas are $2.00 each on sale. The Clif bars I purchased on sale yesterday were $1.00 each.

Variety:
LC pizzas come in many varieties as my first post on the subject attests. Clif bars also appear to come in many varieties. The shelves of Clif bars had been ravaged (probably because of the sale price) when I happened upon them yesterday morning, but I managed to secure a Peanut Toffee Buzz, a Carrot Cake, a Black Chery Almond, and an Oatmeal Raisin Walnut.

Nutritional Information:
The Clif bar has fewer calories than the Lean Cuisine pizza, but not by all that many. The Clif bar also has slightly less fat. I was surprised to see that the Clif bar only contained slightly more fiber. Some of you may recall that the young chap at the Jewel was concerned about the sodium content of the LC pizzas. The Clif bar has 200 mg of sodium and the LC pizza around 540 mg of sodium. The rest of the nutritional information in small print on the Clif bar suggests that there may be more vitamins and other good stuff in the bar than in the pizza. The Clif bar also boasts of being "made with organic oats & soybeans."

Packaging:
I was fond of the Clif bar packaging, but it doesn't make my heart race like that of the LC pizza. However, if like Pavlov's dog, I began eating a Clif bar every morning while doing pleasurable tasks like checking email and drinking Diet Coke, that might change. My husband, who also participated in the Clif bar breakfast experiment, found the packaging "too crunchy" for his taste. He clarified, "as in political 'crunchy.'"

Taste:
I sampled the Peanut Toffee Buzz. I was delighted to see that something like icing was swirled on top. I liked that it was dense and had texture. The bar tasted better than most energy bars I have had, but I was not in love. It still seemed to have a little bit of that energy-bar aftertaste that I do not enjoy. I ate with a Diet Coke, and the beverage helped a lot.

I sent my husband to work with the Carrot Cake bar and a banana. When I called for his feedback around noon, he claimed he found the bar "better than expected." He was "not overwhelmed" by it, but he did enjoy it.

Nutrition for Sustained Energy:
The Clif bar's packaging promises "nutrition for sustained energy," and I will admit that I still felt pretty good when the bub's Gymboree class ended at 10:00 am. I'm not sure I'd be ready to repel down the side of a clif(f), but I did not feel hungry.

My husband suspects he has slightly more energy and was slightly less hungry later in the morning than when he eats his usual breakfast. (For him, the usual is a standard cereal bar not a Lean Cuisine pizza). He was quick to point out, however, that his additional sense of satisfaction might have been due to the banana eaten in addition to the bar.

Conclusion:
My husband's summary: "All in all a pretty positive experience." I did not get the vibe, however, that I should keep Clif bars stocked for him though.

The Clif bar and banana breakfast was acceptable/good, but I don't think it is one that will get me excited to get out of bed in the morning. Thanks to this experiment, however, I may start trying to expand my breakfast rotation to include more than frozen pizza.

What do you eat for breakfast? Any suggestions? Your breakfast of choice may be featured in a future NTB post. How's that for an incentive to leave a comment?

Daisy, a pretty flower but . . .

Today I received a new-style Kohl's catalog in the mail advertising the semiannual home sale. Okay, I appreciate a sale as much as the next consumer so I'll give it a look-see. I see that Rachael Ray has her own cookware. Not tempted by that but admit to being intrigued by the Rachael Ray Cutlery by Furi. Something about the "Froggy Mezzaluna" knife entices me, but intrigued though I am, the sale price of $39.99 won't be worth it if I cut my finger off. Now the Kitchen-Aid mixer page. I check out the new colors. Was I wrong to choose cobalt four years ago? I pause to consider if tangerine or the turquoise might have been better choices. I think I'm at peace with the cobalt. A panini press? Again, I am enticed but fearful it would just be the disappointment of the George Foreman grill all over again (and, just for the record, I hate the George Foreman grill, not George Foreman, just his grill). Oh, a rug doctor? Our white carpet could really use some steam cleaning. But $699.99? Not in the mood. Quickly breezing past several pages featuring shower curtains, rugs, towels, and the candles and crap page. Plain white down comforters. I'm bored. Stacks of sheets "artfully" arranged on an old church pew (quite atypical of Kohl's ad styling). Nope. Bedding? I pause. I am a real sucker for beautiful comforters and duvet covers. I would be buying new bedding every six months if not for the fact that the person with whom I share my bed would really frown on that. Plus, the fact that he is happy with (or rather, not objecting to) the patterned duvet cover we currently have (plus all the matching pillows, NTB) is a near-miracle because his preference would be a plain, navy bedspread.

Okay, so back to the bedding. I notice that Daisy Fuentes now has bedding collections at Kohl's. I read: "Created exclusively for Kohl's by international trend-setter Daisy Fuentes, this home collection is infused with the energy of Miami and the elegance of Old Hollywood. Get ready to indulge your senses!" The Daisy Fuentes bedding is fine. A bit too shiny and lacy for my taste, but fine. What has me puzzled is the phrase "international trend-setter." Really? I pause to consider the omnipresence of Daisy Fuentes. She has a clothing and now a bedding line at Kohl's. I think she sometimes hosts pageant shows with Mario Lopez. I remember her a few years back on the Winsor Pilates infomercials. I have passed lighted airport billboards informing me that Daisy Fuentes is taking folic acid. I am also recalling that she used to host America's Funniest Home Videos (or a similar show). Am I missing something? What is the starting point? Why is Daisy Fuentes "famous" to begin with? Understand I am not objecting to her. She's attractive. She has a lovely accent. Her hair inspires envy. But why is she a go-to host/spokesperson/celebrity designer. What am I missing?

Also, I am still thinking about the panini press. Do I need one? Any feedback would be appreciated.

A real prize.

Yesterday the hubby, bubby, and I ventured into the near suburbs to secure a new sportcoat for my husband and new extra-wide shoes for the bub's ever-growing feet. It was a successful outing and, NTB, the only thing I purchased was a $1 bargain cookbook. Anyway, as we drove home, we ended up behind a tan truck for quite a while. Three magnetic ribbons were affixed to the back of the truck. Was the driver trying to support our troops? Was he interested in supporting breast cancer research? No and no. His three ribbons read, respectively, "Support roadhead," "Support sluts," and "Support hookers." Then, to top it all off, he had a miniature Confederate flag hanging from his rear view mirror with some Mardi Gras beads. The driver also had a passenger in the car, and I was quite relieved when I established that the passenger was male. The idea that any woman would be willing to ride in that truck with those messages adhered to the back (not to mention the Confederate flag up front) was almost more than I could bear.