Jersild Day yesterday was nice and relaxing, thank you very much. I took the day off from work, got a massage and a facial, did some shopping, watched the Olympics... Good stuff.

My question: Who are all these people out wandering the streets turning the workday, huh? They obviously have money, as they're dong things like getting massages at 10 a.m. I could seriously live like that. Note to self: Start robbing liquor stores or something.

One other note: If you're scheduling a massage and a bunch of other stuff for a day, put the massage at the end of the day -- doh. I spent two hours in the morning blissfully relaxed, but it had worn off by the end of the day. oops.

Rob Palmer, who really needs to put up a web page or blog (cough, hint) called in for the Olympics viewing. He and Lotti, who joined me after a particularly fraught day at work, reenacted their Olympic debut of 10 years ago, the first time my friends decided to torture me by making hideously unPC comments about other countries' skaters, etc. At one point, Lotti asked me to show her my teeth to see if it looked like I'd breed. Yeah. It was that sort of night.

Rob, you and the alleged wife need to move back out here, ok?

Despite the commentary, I loved the figure skating competition. Sarah Hughes had exactly the right reaction to winning:

Commentator: You just won and Olympic Gold medal. Say something profound.
Sarah Hughes: (breaks into disbelieving giggles.)

I mean, how would you react if no one expected anything of you, and you won it all? And you were 16? Damn. So cool.

We were confused as to how she won at first, as the commentators made it sound like Michelle Kwan had beaten Sarah Hughes' marks. I'm still confused about that.

Other Olympics bits: Jesus, enough already with the "We don't like the judging, so we're going to pull out/sue/pout a lot." They opened a huge can of worms when they decided to award two gold medals for the pairs skating competition. The way I see it, either they should have pitched out marks from the suspect judge(s), in which case the Canadians won the gold and the Russians the silver, or they should have kept the marks and kept the standings as they were. This isn't about self-esteem, people; it's the Olympics. It's about competing and seeing who won (along with all the glory of sport, international camaraderie, blah blah blah stuff). Except in very rare cases, you only have one winner. That's the way of the games. Sorry.

Now, the Russians are threatening to leave entirely and boycott the next games (My un-PC comment of the night, as the Russian Olympic delegation head made his threats at the press conference: "Go on, now bang your show on the podium." Lotti was impressed.) As for the S. Korean delegation threatening to sue ... look, folks, it sure looked like your guy broke the rules. Sorry. That means a disqualification. It also looked like Apolo Ono was a bit of a drama queen, with his "Whoa! I just got hit!" gesture, but that just means he may have a career on an Italian soccer team if this speedskating thing doesn't work out.

Mutter mutter grumble harumph.

I'm off to Philly tonight to see my sisters for Jersild Day weekend, and meet Amy's new boyfriend. Now where did I put those embarrassing childhood pictures of Amy...

I'll also be seeing Jeremy and Becky, which is always fun. Remind you to tell you about Jeremy leaving brains on my kitchen floor someday....

Why my friends really should not have access to the phone.

Phone rings.
Me: Hello?
Mysterious stranger: (who sounds remarkably like Lotti using a thinly disguised voice) Is this the Sarah Jersild of Jersild Day?
Me: Yeeeesssssss.....
MS: We're calling with an exciting opportunity for Jersild Day -- we'd like to align your holiday with our religion.
Me: I'm sorry, I can't do that.
MS: Even if it means you could make millions of dollars?
Me: No, that's everything Jersild Day stands against. Goodbye.
MS: Wait! It's Lotti! I was just testing you, and you came through with flying colors!
Me: Well that's a relief.
Lotti: Yeah. So you really want me to come over and watch the Olympics with your tomorrow night?
Me: Yeah.
Lotti: (Evil laughter)


Phone rings.
Me: Hello?
Angie: (screaming) Curling! Curling is a sport? Are you serious?
Me: Yes, it's a sport.
Angie: (still screaming) I thought it was a joke! I thought I'd turned to Comedy Central instead of MSNBC!
Me: Nope, it's an Olympic sport.
Angie: It makes me tired! I have to go to bed now! The other sports make me want to go to the gym or lift weights or something, but this just makes me want to go to bed! It's 8:34!
Me: Bummer.
Angie: So, what, it's just sweeping? We could do this! You and me and Wendy -- she's a Mormon, she's got pull in Salt Lake City...
Me: I think the competition ends today.
Angie: Oh. So four years from now! It's not like getting old is going to be a problem. Seriously, it's just trying to get a thing on the bullseye?
Me: I don't really get it, but yeah, I think that's it. Like bocce ball on ice.
Angie: You can't even hurt yourself! Well, you could probably hurt yourself, as there is ice.
Me: Thanks
Angie: Hee. You'd be the only curler wearing a helmet.
Me: Hah.
Angie: I mean, if this is a sport, you should make hopscotch a sport. There's chalk, and you have to jump on one foot.
Me: They were talking about making darts a sport...
Angie: Well yeah, at least you can hurt yourself with darts.
Me: Ow. Pointy.
Angie: Seriously. You and me and Wendy and my dog. We can do Olympic curling.
Me: I'll keep that in mind.
Angie: I'd never seen it before. I thought it was like lacrosse, or the throwing game with the curly thing...
Me: Jai Alai
Angie: Yeah. That's a sport. No ice, though.
Me: You so need to come watch the Olympics here tomorrow.
Angie: I need to go to bed.

I'm actually a little ambivalent about blogging this, because, well, I want to be a nice person. Sort of. I mean, I don't want to be obnoxious in a way that gets in the path of other peoples' enjoyment of life. I try to adopt a live and let live platitude/philosophy. Tonight that was tested, and I failed at putting my fellow man before myself.

We went to see the Britney Spears movie in Evanston tonight, for Kristin's 32nd birthday -- what? Stop laughing. OK, keep laughing, because that's what we did. Yes, it was crap, but that's why we went. We came not to praise Britney and her ilk, but to mock her. We had plenty of ammunition. There were eight Girls' Night Out folks, plus five other people in the theater. The two people behind us were on the same wavelength, and started laughing out loud at Britney and her pretensions of acting before we did. But the three girls in the front of the theater... apparently they came thinking this was a serious movie, worthy of attention and respect. They shushed us, in the most polite fashion possible, as we made catty comments and improved upon the dialog. And I felt bad, because I hate people who talk during movies -- good movies. We tried to keep it down, but we just couldn't.

The girls were pretty pissed (again, in the nicest possible way), and I almost felt like apologizing, but I also wanted to say to them, "Look, it's the Britney Spears movie. You're allowed to laugh at it. In fact, you're morally obliged to point and laugh loudly. It's crap. It's an insult that it even got made. The plot is hackneyed, the acting (with one exception) is hideous, you can see the lines coming a mile away.... you can't take this seriously. At best -- at best -- it's a vanity project by a pop princess who has exhibited throughout this whole movie that not only can she not act, she also can't even particularly sing -- hell, the only talent she has is in her amazingly toned abs and taut midriff. More likely, it's a cynical attempt by the powers that be in Hollywood to separate you from your money. They keep making crap. Point and laugh. They deserve it."

I didn't give my little culturejamming speech, but we didn't shut up either. We couldn't. It would have been immoral -- nay, un-American -- to let this stuff go by without comment. If we had kept our mouths shut and watched the movie like good little boys and girls, the terrorists would have won. Or something like that.

So anyway, here's what you need to know about the Britney movie:

• It did actually have a title besides "The Britney Movie": Crossroads. Whatever.
  
• The stereotypes -- sorry, sensitive main characters, were a straight-arrow, repressed valedictorian goody-goody, a popular princess and a pregnant trailer-trash "slut."
  
• Britney plays the valedictorian. Already, I'm having problems with suspension of disbelief. (Note: She's a chaste good girl, but spends a remarkable amount of time in her underwear.)
  
• The three had been friends as children but have grown apart. On the night they graduate, a plot device brings them back together.
  
• Said plot device involves schlepping around a large shovel while in formalwear.
  
• Despite their differences, the three girls end up on a road trip together from Georgia to LA
  
• Each has something she's seeking.
  
• Britney wants to find her mom, who ran out on her and her dad when she (Britney) was three.
  
• The princess wants to meet up with her fiance, a college boy at UCLA, who seems strangely reluctant to come home for the summer.
  
• The preggers trailer trash chick wants to get out of town and go to LA for an open record label audition.
  
• Could there be a connection between any of those story lines? I just don't see it.
  
• They catch a ride with a 'bad boy" -- He's got tattoos! He's been to jail! Rumor is, he killed a guy!
  
• They go with him anyway.
  
• Sensitive bad boy likes Britney.
  
• Bad music is perpetrated, including N'Sync.
  
• Strangely, there's a lot of '80s music as well. Huh.
  
• Wackily enough, the car breaks down in Louisiana and they kids need money! What will they do?
  
• Oh look! A Karaoke contest!
  
• Preggers -- you know, the one who is going out to LA to audition before music executives, freaks out and can't go on.
  
• Ohmigosh! Britney saves the day!
  
• But who the hell thought to crimp her hair? And how did you do that in the approximately 2.5 minutes you were backstage?
  
• Do you think they got enough money to fix the car?
  

Oh, it goes on, and on, and on, and on. Except the for Karaoke scene, Britney is dressed like an Easter egg -- all pinks and yellows and baby blues -- for the whole damn movie. The camera focuses on her midriff a lot, since that's where her talent lies. The fates of Preggers and Princess turn out to be intertwined. Sensitive Bad Boy does a Sensitive Bad Boy thing, which melts Britney's heart and loosens her knickers. There is A Tragedy. There is A Reconciliation or two. There is An Uplifting Finale. There is An Extended Musical Sequence. There are Steaming Piles of Crap all over the theater. There is Much Pointing and Laughing.

So really, the only reason to see the movie is to mock it. One day, poor wee suburban girls whose movie-going experience we so rudely disrupted, you'll understand.

Scenes from my life, an ongoing saga:

Voices in my head: So, Sarah, how's work going?
Me:Well, I just marched over to Wilson the tech guy's desk with some homemade chocolate chip cookies and a large blunt object, and told him that he would be experiencing one of these things depending on whether the CMS actually started saving in the near future.
Voices in my head: Oh
Silence.
Voices in my head: Well look at the time. Must be going.....

Take cover: I feel a rant coming on. You have been warned.

There are many things I love about Chicago, but even I have to admit they get some things hideously wrong. The one thing Chicago needs -- well, besides decent healthcare for the poor and affordable housing that isn't being swallowed up by condo developers and police that treat complaints equally seriously whether they come from white yuppiescum newbies or long-time Latino neighborhood residents and politicians who aren't reflexively corrupt and an environment that isn't so piss poor that people actually get excited when the river is upgraded from "toxic" to "polluted" and the ability to cut thin-crust pizza into pie-like slices instead of a stupid grid and an equitable treatment of the school system and the weather oh god the weather -- besides all that, what Chicago really needs is left turn arrows.

I grew up in a reasonably normal place (except for... well, I'll do my Delaware rant another day), where, when you came to a busy intersection, you could be reasonably sure you would be saved from traffic chaos by left turn arrows. That way, the people who need to turn left across oncoming traffic to get to where they're going could feel reasonably secure in do so without having to fear getting creamed by that oncoming semi. Chicago scoffs at such namby-pamby niceties. Of the approximately 13,067 intersections in Chicago, about, say, 20 of them have left turn arrows.

This means that the vast majority of times you do want to turn left in the greater Chicagoland area, you end up doing the Dance of Potential Grievous (Car) Bodily Injury: The light turns green. You wait a few cautious seconds, then creep into the center of the intersection, inches from oncoming traffic, nose to nose with the car from the other direction that wants to turn left. Usually that car is a Big Old Honkin' SUV (TM) with tinted windows, or a garbage truck, or something similarly large and opaque that precludes you from seeing oncoming traffic until it's right on top of you. If you're lucky, there's a visible break in traffic and you can turn left, tires squealing, bowels clenching, and just manage to avoid being clipped by the titanium-plated Ford Explorer with with People Crushing Front Grill Attachment. If you're not lucky, you sit and wait, straining to see around your opposite left-turn-wannabe, until the light turns yellow. Then you pray that no one is going to try to blow through that yellow light, and you turn, with the aforementioned wheels and bowels and all the rest. the three other people who wanted to turn left, and who therefore vacuum-sealed themselves to your bumper as you stuck out into the intersection, follow you through the now-red light. You all mop your sweating brows and vow to only make right turns for the remainder of your Chicago-based lives.

All of this works really well so long as everyone respects the yellow lights. Unfortunately, I earned to drive in a normal place where yellow lights are more suggestions that strictures. I'm used to breezing through that yellow light until the last possible moment before it turns red. that means I have often found myself screaming "Sorrrrrrrrrryyyyyy!" at the top of my lungs as I lunge through an intersection at the expense of the hapless left-turn exiles. I don't mean to do it, it's just instinctual.

Because left turn arrows are so rare in this city, they are correspondingly precious. That's why I don't understand why people don't respect the left turn arrow. It's maddening. About half the city's left turn arrows are arrayed up and down North Michigan Avenue, "The Magnificent Mile," which stretches from the Chicago river to Lakeshore Drive. I had to walk up and down the length of North Michigan Ave. running errands over lunch, and I have to say, PEOPLE, RESPECT THE LEFT TURN ARROW! that means you, pedestrians, who wander out into the intersection because the light for cross-traffic has turned red, neglecting to notice that we don't have the walk sign because the people turning off Michigan Ave. have, wonder or wonders miracle or miracles, a left turn arrow. But they can't complete their legal, non-hazardous left turn, because you, princess in the fur coat, or you, stinky cigar guy, do not respect the left turn arrow. Please folks: Celebrate the left turn arrow. Embrace the left turn arrow. Respect the left turn arrow. Wait the extra 10 seconds until we get the walk sign. It's really not that difficult.

And you, YOU, Mr. Lexus Boy -- You have a left turn arrow. That means you turn when the arrow tells you to. You do not have an excuse to follow on the driver who actually makes it through the arrow. The arrow will turn green for you again. Really. You need not fear it will go away. Just wait your freakin' turn, ok?

Here endeth the rant. Next time: Why people at work who take their food out of the microwave before the clock runs out but don't hit "clear," so the clock continues to blink "1:23" or however much time is left, should be keel-hauled.

Or not.

I am a home-owning, tool-wielding goddess! I rule the minor repair world! Look upon my works, ye mighty -- ye contractors, ye handymen, ye folks who would charge me a gazillion dollars for 10 minutes worth of work -- and despair! I just used a hole saw bit on my cordless drill, and nobody died or was maimed! No state of emergency was declared! Wendy didn't have to call 911 or anything! It's all very exciting.

OK, fine, it's all very exciting to me, but you have to understand that we're talking about someone who broke her arm walking. I trip over nonexistent objects; I have the hand-eye coordination of a blind snake. I tend to be pretty hopeless when it comes to anything physical or practical. But I was able to drill a 2 1/4 inch hole, without incident, in our carport fence so we could chain it closed -- thus allowing us to secure the fence against forcing, and prevent the folks who kept robbing us from having an easy way to get things out into the back alley. So, hah! Fie on you, robbing people! Nyahh nyahh nyahh nyahh nyahhhhhhhhhh!

Wendy did point out that people can (and do) still easily climb over the fence, but I don't care. I feel strong! I feel invincible! I am woman! Hear me (and my drill) roar!

Now if only I could figure out why the extension hose in my kitchen sink doesn't work, and where the water pooling on the right side of the bathroom sink comes from, and why I only get a trickle of cold water in the bathroom sink, and ....

This was supposed to be a productive weekend. Oh well. It was apparently vitally important that I sleep most of the day Saturday, so, um, I did. Not only was I seduced by the napping couch, but the guest bed also worked its devilish wiles on my when I was supposed to be cleaning the kitchen. It's pathetic, I know. I did manage to rouse myself in time to get to Christine and Brian's for dinner, which consisted of beef tenderloin and a bunch of other grown-up things. Dammit, we might actually be adults.

We were talking last night about the foods you ate when you were little, and I was shocked to see how deprived I have been when it comes to crap foods of the 70s. My mom actually cooked real food all the time -- hell, she bakes fresh bread every week -- so I never had Steak'Ums or Mac and Cheese from a box growing up. I remember how pissed I used to be when we'd have pizza, because it was homemade, not Dominos. Tragic, I know.

I made up for all this health crap by living on Cap'n Crunch, bagels and Diet Pepsi throughout college.

I redeemed myself a little today, but still didn't finish cleaning the apartment or organizing my tax stuff. This is the first time I've ever relly looked forward to getting my taxes done -- wait, that's wrong, I mean this is the first time I've looked forward to getting my taxes done and will likely be pleased by the results. Last year I was all psyched to get the taxes done, because, come on, we'd bought a house. The whole point of buying house is that you get buckets of money back from the federal government, right? It didn't quite work that way last year: See, the whole reason we were able to buy the house is that when the Trib sold me, basically, they let my retirement stock vest fully, so suddenly I had enough money for a down payment. So I sold that stock. Which, as it turned out, was not the correct response: I owed major amounts of money on that stock sale, and ended up gettng nothing back for the whole house deduction. I was very bitter.

Note to self: Next time I make a major financial move, consult the accountant beforehand, not after the fact. Sigh.

The Olympics were sort of bizarre tonight: The Cross Country relay? Look, they're skiing! Still skiing! Still... ok, this is getting old. There was a classic moment, however, when the announcer, talking about the Norwegian handoff, spoke in glowing terms about "that impressive, experienced Nordic muscle" and the "bom-chick-a-wow" porno bass (should have) started up.

Another great quote, about the Finnish cross country team, which had been shamed by revelations about doping: "Cross Country skiiing is Finland is not going away." Um, yeah... because the entire country is under 12 feet of snow for about 10 months out of the year! What the hell else are people supposed to do?

Also, ice dancing: Why? It's ballroom dancing with knives on your feet. Wendy and I were grading people on "Most innovative use of flashes of pink in a costume" (the Canadian man, who had peek-a-boo pink cuffs and a subtle pink mandarin collar -- well done, sir!)and "flagrant abuse of the concept of a shirt" (the second Russian couple -- oy) and "best application of eyebrows" (the Lithuanian chick, hands down.) I basically started veiwing it as a way to warm up for Oscar-outfit mockery.

What amazed me, though, was the rapturous and loud applause the ice dancers kept getting. Who sets out to be an ice dancing fan? Who decides "I like the thrill of pairs skating, but all those jumps and throws are just distracting. And the costumes just aren't gaudy enough." How can you get all ooh-y and ahh-y about very cold ballroom dancers? I just don't get it.

Based on the reaction of the crowd, however, its was a series of death-defying, timeless performances. What ever. My theory is that they're pumping nitrous oxide into the stands. You can't be that wrapped up in ice dancing without chemical enhancement.