a Ruby a day

Lying on the couch with Miss Ruby is the best way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Also, can we discuss how social Ruby is? Last night I had 7 people over to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, which was really fun and my first little party at my apartment. Yay! I was worried that Ruby would be a weenie and hide under the bed the whole time, which would have been fine but boring. Instead, she wanted to say hi to everyone (especially people who are allergic to cats) and didn't get scared once and snuck bites off plates and snuggled with me a little. She was actually kind of out of control in the opposite way that I had imagined. So I put her on her leash so I could minimize the running around and allow my friends to actually watch the opening ceremonies instead of protecting their plate from Ruby. She is used to wearing the harness/leash for like 15 minutes at a time, but wore it semi-happily for more than an hour last night. She also got many compliments on how pretty she is. (I don't think it went to her head, though.)

Ruby gets a gold star for liking new people and being cute in the process. 

"the price of gold"

i was RIVETED by ESPN's "30 for 30" special on the nancy kerrigan / tonya harding scandal of 1994.    if you didn't see it on thursday night, you should absolutely watch it the next time it comes on.  i was 11  years old in 1994 and only remember a sketchy outline of what happened.  hearing more of the details - and listening to interviews with tonya harding today looking back on it - was fascinating.

today i learned that sochi is 10 hours ahead of central time.

i haven't had many people over to my apartment yet because that's a thing close friends do and i'm, you know, new to this city.  newish friends go out to restaurants and bars.  old friends sit on the couch in their pajamas and eat take out food.

but!  i love the olympics, so i am having a party to watch the opening ceremonies of the winter olympics.  i decided this at 3pm and sent out the invitation like 3 hours later.  (apparently i work quickly once i make decisions.)  hopefully some new friends will want to come over and eat and drink and relax and watch the opening ceremonies with me.  a step forward in my new home!  ruby better not hide under the bed the whole time.

cue the obsessive checking of the evite to see if people have replied.

TWO PEOPLE HAVE REPLIED YES!  wooooooo!

while i find table tennis incredibly weird as an olympic sport, i'm telling you right now that i would totally watch paralympic table tennis, especially if this could happen.

ugh, sports make me teary-eyed.

i'm back from mike's birthday adventure in colorado, and i haven't posted in days (oops - there was too much fun to be had!).

until tomorrow, here is this awesome video from the new york times about the history of the 100 meter dash in the olympics.  VERY VERY COOL.

oh dear lord i love this - my oxford friend liz sent it to me saying, "this reminds me of us watching gymnastics in the office."  it's basically how i watch gymnastics ON STEROIDS.  the dad at the end is the best part.

(i am now laughing out loud just thinking about this video.)

i went to the olympics and it was better than i could ever have imagined.

my friends philippa, mike, larry, and larry's son jakob got tickets through the online (authorized) resale market that is only available to the brits (phil and mike are both british and thus able to buy these tickets).  tickets would pop up and then disappear as people bought them, so we stalked the website a lot hoping to find something good.  this popped up a couple weeks ago and we pounced on them.  we liked that we got a lot of tennis, too - 8 hours for a 40 pound ticket.  we bought the "B" class tickets, which meant we wouldn't have the best ("A") seats, but the next level up (the classes went up to "E").

olympic tennis is at wimbledon, and on monday when we went there were matches from 11:30am-8pm on 12 courts!  12!  you could buy one of three kinds of tickets: tickets to centre court, tickets to court 1, or tickets that didn't allow you access to either of those courts but allowed you to sit at any of the other 10 courts on a first come, first serve basis.  we had court 1 tickets, which meant we had an actual seat at court 1 but could walk into any of the 10 other courts (except centre), too.  (i feel like i'm making this explanation very confusing, so i hope you understand.  actual seat at court 1; ability to see matches at 10 additional courts if there was a free seat.)

we arrived at noon, and i did the smartest thing i could have possibly done: i took photos of the big board that showed which matches were being played at which court.  i am a genius.

(one of many such photos.  apparently the dutch fans like cheese hats just like wisconsin fans.)

throughout the day we would refer back to the photos to decide where to head next.  first stop, court 2 to watch andy roddick play (he won).

next stop, our reserved seats at court 1 to watch serena play!  court 1 was much bigger than 2 - and let me take a minute here to say that the courts ranged in size from "oh, is that a match?" with benches to seat maybe 20 fans on the pathway between the larger courts...to a couple hundred...to several thousand seats.

serena killed this tiny polish girl.  poor polish girl.

do you see the sun?  THERE WAS SUN ALL DAY!  I GOT A SUNBURN ON MY NOSE!  incredible weather.

then we went back to court 2 because the afternoon match there looked amazing - williams sisters!  my (excellent) plan was that we would get there before the williams sisters played their doubles match because i figured that would fill up quickly.  we arrived in the middle of a match between a german dude and a serbian dude that was really fun (probably my favorite match of the day, actually - the serbian fans were crazy and there was lots of banter - and the two men were pretty equally matched.  also!  as the german lost he had a hissy fit and slammed his racket into his shoe four or five times, breaking it in half.  omg!  eek!  we were near his (pregnant) wife, who was not amused with him).  the crowd was pretty small when we arrived, so we walked ALL THE WAY TO THE FRONT ROW AND SAT DOWN.  after about two minutes i realized it was too close (too close!  i was too close at the olympics!) because it was right in the line of the serve and i genuinely thought i might get hit in the face by their 200 km/h serves and die.  we moved back one row.

so i watched venus and serena play doubles from the second row - with this view:

incredible.  the place was entirely full by the time the match started, and my get-there-early plan was a huge success.

hi ladies.

if you, like me, are not a huge tennis fan, you might think "i can't tell venus and serena apart!"  you are kidding yourself, as i was.  you just haven't been paying attention.  serena has probably 40 pounds on venus.  i was scared of serena.

the five of us in our seats!

then it was off to court 1 again to watch federer play doubles.  while court 1 was bigger, i loved the intimacy of court 2, especially when it was full...and being in the second row DID NOT HURT MATTERS.

the swiss playing the japanese.  stop wearing the same colors and confusing me.

it got cold.  we put on our jackets.  federer served at 211 km/h.  omg.  there was a tie breaking point thing that i had to learn about.  earlier in the day i learned not to call deuce "a 40-40 tie" [jenny is totally rolling her eyes at this - sorry, jenny!].  philippa and mike were excellent teachers.  i decided i like the fast pace of doubles much better than singles.

honestly?  one of the most fun days EVER.  excellent company, amazing seats, fun matches, great atmosphere, sunshine, understanding in the moment that i was incredibly incredibly lucky to be able to experience all of this.  i'm not a huge tennis fan, but the ability to be so close totally hooked me.  we couldn't have asked for a better day - better tickets - better matches - better anything.  (actually, wrong.  better vegetarian food.  i could have asked for that.)

40 pounds incredibly well spent.

we're entering the final week of the program - the kids leave next saturday the 28th, and then i fly home on tuesday the 31st.  it's shocking how fast the summers go by when i'm over here.  i have LOVED having so many coworkers (some returning, some new) this summer who are such good friends - some seen below - and we've had a LOT of fun over the past four weeks.  (i do this job for the fun i have with my coworkers, not for the kids.  shhh - don't tell.)

(AND: three of the four of us in this picture will live in new york next year - yippee!)

this is the point in the summer where i start to feel the pressure for all the things i haven't yet done.  i haven't spent an afternoon walking through port meadow to the pub on the other side.  i haven't been into london to see a show.  i haven't spent enough lazy afternoons in christ church meadow reading my book (because it has rained so. much. this. summer.  but the weather report for the rest of the time i'm here?  glorious!).  i haven't talked nearly enough to my other friend claire who is in cambridge.  so: i have one week to try to rectify these things.

in the excitement of bill clinton day, i forgot to tell you guys that i am going to the olympics!!!!  there are random tickets available online for uk citizens to purchase - if i'm understanding it right, in order to get rid of as much of a black market as possible, any uk citizen can return any ticket to the olympics people and get a full refund if it is resold.  as a result, for every day of the olympics there are dozens of tickets to random events available - some very expensive, some very reasonable.  a uk friend bought tickets the other day and five of us are going to olympic tennis at wimbledon the day before i leave.  so exciting!  i don't really care about tennis, but it is a sport i understand, unlike, say, judo...and it's the olympics!  hooray!

so: final week in england, here we come...

great article - it gives me chills - and i know i'll get teary when i see the saudi women walking in the opening ceremonies.

Saudi Arabia agreed to send two women to compete at the London Olympics, meaning that for the first time all participating nations will have female athletes competing; and, also for the first time, the United States Olympic team will field more female athletes than male athletes. 
The appearance of women from each of the 200-plus participating nations captures the sea change across the sports landscape. Until the 1984 Los Angeles Games, women were not even allowed to run a marathon. Less than 20 years ago, at the 1996 Atlanta Games, 26 countries did not send women.

vin came to visit me in oxford!

she brought two of her london friends and we went punting.  talia had punted before, so she was in charge.  yay!  thanks, talia!

it rained a bit, but nothing too crazy.  there was lots of laughing - such a fun day!

we ended the night at an italian place in town, where michelle kwan was sitting two tables away!  liz, my coworker here, is a former ice skater and was gutsy enough to go up to her, so i came along for moral support / to talk to michelle kwan obviously!!!  turns out that michelle is a torchbearer for the olympics, chosen by one of the olympics sponsors, coca-cola.  she was SO NICE, asking us if why we were in oxford and seeming genuinely interested that we are teachers.  while liz chatted with michelle and michelle's boyfriend, i chatted with the two coca-cola employees who were schmoozing her at dinner - they live in atlanta.  exact transcript of part of the conversation:
michelle: where do you guys live?
liz: new york city
me: atlanta
coca-cola lady #1: us too!  where in atlanta do you live?
me: vinings! [i move over to chat with coca-cola ladies while liz and michelle become friends.]
c-c lady #2: me too!
me: well, actually i live in smyrna. [smyrna is a suburb, while vinings is a part of the city of atlanta...vinings is the cool place to live, and everyone in smyrna says they live in vinings.]
c-c lady #2: ME TOO!
[we then realize that we live literally 2 miles apart from one another.]
c-c lady #1: where do you teach?
me: [name of school]
c-c lady #2: my two children go there!

it was a SMALL WORLD MOMENT, PEOPLE.

c-c lady #1 insisted that we take a photo with michelle, even though i was like "we don't want to bug her any more than we already are!"  c-c lady also forced "shelly" into the middle.  it was awesome.

good. day.