Everything must go, but nobody takes anything!

So the neighborhood had a yard sale today. Woohoo! I mean, it's Georgetown, and the weather is getting nice, yard sales are always going on. (When we lived in Bradford, the little old lady at the end of the street had one every Friday and Saturday in summer. She was, how do you say, a professional yard saler.)

I digress. Someone decided to organize a neighborhood swap meet (I mean, yard sale), which is always good to generate more foot traffic.

Now, after the neighborhood yard sale we did six or seven years ago (in Bradford - competing with the professional on the corner), we ended up with a big, fat fail. Made about $200, sweated about 20 pounds (that was happiness), and watched everyone go across the street because she had all the baby/kid stuff. All I had were books and stuffed animals from my childhood that followed me around and had to go. (Let me backtrack - I still have stuffed animals from my childhood. Just because they followed me did not mean they automatically ended up in the sell pile. No, no, no ... there were, and still are, a handful that I won't even give to my daughter. If you know me, I'll give Munchkin anything ... "sure baby, you can have that machete, just let me teach you how to use it safely, okay?" ... so that's saying something. But again, I digress.)

I swore I would never do it again. I meant it. But our house was starting to look a little bit like an episode of "Hoarders" and it just had to go. Since someone else organized the yard sale, all we had to do was deal with cheap people, right?

It wasn't quite that easy. Poor Scott had to get ready for the event without me, as I had plans elsewhere. (You think I did it on purpose, and had I know the date of the yard sale ahead of time, I so would have done just that. But this is pure coincidence. I swear.) We hauled all our crap down to Chris and Laura's house because 1) their house is on the main street of our neighborhood so better visibility; 2) putting their stuff and our stuff together made it look like more (and it was all mostly kids/baby stuff) so that would generate more foot traffic; and 3) the kids could play together, which is always a good thing (even though, as it turned out, mine was super-crabby).

They got started early, and actually did have a few decent sales. Scott managed to sell the rocking chair that I thought was so far beyond repair I was going to throw it in the trash truck myself, next time I saw it. Shows what I know.

I swoop in around 12:30, four and a half hours after it gets started. Hey - wait, before you hate on me, I brought back LaRosa's and if you're familiar with northern Kentucky and pizza then you know LaRosa's is the best, and the furthest place south I can get LaRosa's is still a 30-45 minute drive from home. So, there you go, I brought lunch. Woohoo. I start my duty answering idiotic questions. Below, actual exchanges...

"Can I leave you my name and number? My niece just found out she's having twins, and they've got nothing. She's not that far along, so they don't know what they're having, but I don't want to just go buying stuff yet. So, maybe you can just save what you don't sell and give it to her?"
Laura and I both have this blank look on our faces at this point. The lady repeated her plea and this time she said something about a "small price" for the lot. Oh, she she wasn't necessarily asking for handouts. Cause after she left, Laura and I were both like, "umm, if we're giving something away, it's to Goodwill so I can claim it on my taxes, thankyouverymuch."

There was this one lady who was insanely large and lacked much of a personality. (Which is funny because isn't it the general thought that bigger/more unattractive girls have better personalities to make them desirable AND if you're going to go offer people next to nothing for their items, you might want to at least have some charisma or ability to develop a rapport to do that.) Anyway, she picked up some VHS tapes. VHS? REALLY? Wanted to know if there were more. We had some in our closet, so I sent Scott home to get them. She did end up with quite a few VHS tapes when it was all said and done. She also picked up a picture and wanted to know how much. I hesitated - I paid $75 for that picture. So I didn't know what was fair. Was $10 fair? Seemed a little under-value, so I told Scott to put a price on it. He goes, "Two dollars." She goes, "I'll give you $1.50 for it." My heart sank doing the math. I can't believe I let that happen. Scott was pissed later when he found out it originally cost so much, he wondered why I didn't put a higher price on it. Mainly because I knew this bitch would walk away, maybe not even with any of her coveted-VHS tapes, so you know, trying to keep the customer happy.

We also had the droves of Mexicans descend upon Sutton Place. Come on, if you're going to buy my stuff, at least have the decency to speak English to me. (Don't get started. I can go off, I sold car parts to them for two years. They never looked me in the face. God only knows what they were saying to my boobs as they rattled off in Spanish.) But, anyway ... more than once I saw them put their kids on the tricycle we were trying to sell, push the kid around, and we'd kind of do that happy dance of "we're going to get rid of that obnoxious thing!" and then the Mexicans get pissed off (probably because we either don't have the prices in pesos or we're not willing to speak Spanish to them) and leave. Don't even make an offer on the tricycle that entertained the kid(s). Hey, screw you too. Perhaps you were unaware of this fact, but a yard sale is not where you go to test drive the kiddie toys. You're supposed to buy them!!! You test drive them at Toys R Us, where at least the people who work there are getting paid to deal with your dumb ass.

Chris said the Mexican women were awful when it came to the clothes. He'd say $2 for two or three baby shirts and they'd freak out. Like they were expecting to pay a dime for three shirts. Umm, no, the sign said "Sutton Place Yard Sale." It didn't say "Five and Dime."

Laura had this toddler bed we've all attempted to get rid of. I listed it on craigslist. She listed it on craigslist. She had it out there and people inquired about it all day. There was one lady who placed money in Laura's hand (not as much as Laura wanted, but it was something and it was out of her house) and the lady goes, "Oh, wait, I don't need this, the one at home converts." And just like that, sale gone. There were countless people who would ask, once they got an answer they'd call someone. My favorite response after one of those moments was, "Yeah, she just didn't want to spend any money." So, when you asked "do you want to BUY a toddler bed" she's like, "No, but they can give it to me if they want." Yeah, well, get in line behind the other ballsy chick asking for handouts.

I also love the lady who rang our doorbell after dinnertime. She bought something (or someone did earlier) and she was coming back to get it, and she didn't know where to go to get it. That seems really mean. First of all, to do for the seller, because what happens if you don't come back? And it's mean to do to the poor customer, because then they look like idiots to the 15 people who answered the door saying, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

All said and done, we didn't hardly make enough to cover the amount of money I spent shopping out of catalogs tonight. (Haha, before you even say it, I was not buying more stuff for a yard sale - I am buying the stuff for other people.) Stupid yard sales. Next time I say, "Hey, let's get in on this, it won't be that bad." Shoot me. Just shoot me.

Review: My Vega meal replacement products (AKA I do have tact, really)

It’s always fun to walk around Sam’s Club on the weekends because the little old ladies are out with their free samples of all kinds of good stuff. Shoot, you don’t even need to eat lunch, just go to Sam’s Club, you’ll be stuffed before you leave! (And probably spend way more than you intended, that’s just the way it goes at Sam’s.)

We didn’t go to Sam’s this weekend, we went to Whole Foods. Yay organic food! True to form, they had their people out peddling their brands at Whole Foods too.

We were about done with our trip and heading to the check-out, and I passed a guy with meal replacement bars on a table. Well, I’m always about a decent, quick breakfast, so I stopped. He had three kinds – “original,” “green vibrancy,” and “chocolate.” I tried the chocolate – it was a bit strong, but I choked it down. Then I tried the original, which really wasn’t too bad. It was kind of sweet, he goes, “That’s the agave that sweetens it.” Well, he said agave and something else, but I have since forgotten. See how much of an impression he made? But I picked up one of the “original” bars and put it in my cart.

They also had some powder for meal replacement drinks. Eh, I’m a sucker. There were three flavors: Berry, Natural (which was tropical fruit with a hint of cinnamon) and Chocolate Banana. I opted to try the natural, considering I like Trop-a-Rocka tea, and that’s tropical fruit flavored with cinnamon.

This is not the same
green sludge, but you get
the point.

He gets a little taste-tester cup, and he pours out the natural-flavored shake. What came out of that blue bottle looked like seaweed puree. I am sure Scott read the look on my face, which translated into, “OMG, do I have to drink that?”

I took a sniff. It actually didn’t smell that bad.

I took a tiny taste and said, “It tastes better than it looks.”

The guy goes, “Yeah, they decided to focus on taste first, and looks second.”

Well, dude, here’s the thing … you eat with your eyes too. If something doesn’t look good or smell good, as those are the senses that are engaged before taste, no one will taste it. And I am most certainly not drinking green sludge for breakfast every morning.

Furthermore, the taste was okay. It didn’t gag me right then and there, but I didn’t really want to finish it either, and all I had was about a shot of this stuff. So, I walked away, promising I’d look on the website to buy the stuff. Scott asked if I wanted him to throw the still mostly-full cup away, and I told him there was a trash can back by the bakery. Unfortunately, he had to pass the My Vega guy on the way there and he’s like, “Oh, I’ll take that.” So, yeah, Scott inadvertently ratted me out. Thanks Scott. I was all nice and tactful, for once in my life, and you had to go ruin that one shining moment for me!

But wait – there’s more!

This morning Scott packed up my lunch for me, and threw the bar in there for me to eat for breakfast. I opened it, took a bite. Okay. Tolerable. Definitely not my choice for breakfast every day, but it wasn’t gag-inducing. Until the second bite. For whatever reason I can only handle this bar in one-bite increments. I guess it’s the after-taste combining with the actual taste of it that just about made me throw it out the window. (Why didn’t I, you ask? Because I like birds too much to feed that to them. Maybe I’ll shove it down the throats of the evil geese at work, though.)

I ended up in the drive-thru at Chick-Fil-A for breakfast instead. It was his pleasure to serve me. And dammit it was my pleasure to eat my chicken bagel instead of this vegan crap. Note to self, scratch “become a vegan” off the bucket list. Not happening.

Raw, meat-free, gluten-free, soy-free, yummy-free bar My Vega people can bite me. I am an omnivore for a reason, darn it.

I think I'd rather this Vega kick my ass than My Vega.

Confessions of an “As Seen on TV” Shop-a-holic

Okay, well, we all know I like to shop. That’s no secret. Especially for shoes.

My little known secret – I love, like with a crazy passion, those insane infomercials you see when you’re an insomniac and there’s nothing else on at 2:30 a.m. Of course, a lot of products have gone away from the insomniac-only demographic of late-night infomercials, and have put shortened versions on every day TV. Enter my bad habit.  

“Hmmm, that could be interesting.”
“I wonder if that really works. Shoot, it’s only $10, and I get two for the price of one.”
“What? There’s more? Sweet!”

When I found out there was an “As Seen on TV” store in Eastland, I had to go. But, of course, now that Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Rite Aid, CVS, Kroger and any other store in between has an “As Seen on TV” section, that sort of made my trip to the Eastland ghetto moot. Believe me, it didn’t break my heart that I could feed my obsession for worthless junk for $20 without having to drive over there.

Now, I admit, I haven’t bought everything – in fact, out of respect for the late Billy Mays, I’ve slowed down a lot. And I will never, ever buy OxyClean again (or anything else Mays used to hock that Sully is now saying “his friend Billy” believed in).

But, below, a list of things I have bought and what I thought about them (and links to the item on Amazon in case you feel the need to buy it).

Slap Chop

Before you think I’m crazy, I’ve been using these things for years. Whenever my mom made pecan pie, I always asked to chop up the pecans because this thing was just too damn fun for words. Of course hers wasn’t a “Slap Chop,” but the concept has been around forever. I gave my mom my good Pampered Chef version of this when hers bit the dust, thinking I had another one lying around. I didn’t. Scott was upset. So, for fun, I bought him the “Slap Chop” as a replacement, cause I thought he’d find it funny I bought the one endorsed by the “ShamWow” guy. And it came with a “Graty.” Woohoo. And you got a free one, and a free “Graty,” for when you decide to have a “Slap Chop” contest???

Anyway, I didn’t really want the second one, but I ordered it online. Did it give me a choice to opt out of the second one? Hell no. Believe me, I looked. Nope, had to pay the extra $14.95 shipping (or some other astronomical number that I, in no way, believed was actually the shipping costs). All said and done, my $19.95 “Slap Chop” and “Graty,” along with the second set I didn’t even want, ran me almost $50. Was not happy. Screw you “ShamWow” dude. (I know, he has a name, it’s Vince, but dammit, he’ll always be the “ShamWow” dude to me. It better be on his tombstone when he dies a horrible as-seen-on-tv-spokesperson-drug-induced death.)

Shoes Under

Being a shoe person, this notion thrilled me. I have shoes in two different closets in my house. I have black heels, I have white heels, I have tennis shoes, I have peeptoe heels, I have boots in various forms and colors. I have flip-flops. I have canvas shoes. I have a lot of shoes. So I thought this would be perfect for those that I don’t wear a whole lot (like those that are relegated to a single season of the year – or like, my white heels, which the last time I wore them, I was wearing a wedding dress).

So, we were be-bopping around Target and Scott passed the “As Seen on TV” endcap (btw, little known fact, “As Seen on TV” is actually the name of the company and NOT an adjective for the product). He picked up a Shoes Under, which comes in a box no bigger than my fist. Okay, maybe a little bigger. But not much. It was very obviously not exactly what I expected, but I figured I’d give it a go.

Got home, pulled out the Shoes Under and it’s just a zippered pouch with 12 different “compartments” for shoes. But, unlike the pictures, the sides are completely fabric, as are the separators. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to actually resemble a box because it in no way does. Doesn’t even come with cardboard inserts to make it remotely sturdy. And are the compartments adjustable? Nope, not on your life. Which means you cannot put big heels or boots in it (both of which are the vast majority of my shoe collection). It’s still crumpled up under my bed with two pairs of shoes in it, neither of which I’ve worn since I got this monstrosity to shoe storage years ago.

Perfect Brownie Pan

In theory, this is awesome. I mean, you get perfectly cut brownies without the work, you get a display (if you like that cheap wire pan look) and – best of all – every brownie has an edge. My favorite part! It’s non-stick, so you just lift the divider out and go, right?

WRONG. The divider does not just lift right out. Of course it doesn’t. You have to use a whole can of Pam to grease the thing up before you even start. Then, after the brownies are done, you have to go around every single edge (and that’s a lot of edges) with a thin blade to loosen the brownies first. Then, if you’re lucky, the divider will come up. But odds are, if it does actually come up, you’re bringing about half the brownies with you.

They do all have edges, which is cool, but the ones in the middle still aren’t as good as the ones on the outside. If you’re going to give me an all-edges brownie pan, I’d much rather have this one from ThinkGeek, thankyouverymuch.

Pasta Express

This was the most worthless purchase ever. I followed the directions. I even used angel-hair pasta. Yeah, it was still only half-done and so starchy. You don’t get the luxury of rinsing the excess starch off like you do using a colander. So, yeah, give me a pot of boiling water and a colander any day of the week. I actually donated this to Goodwill with my last donation. I actually feel sorry for whoever ended up buying it from Goodwill. My apologies to that poor unfortunate soul.

Perfect Pancake

Oh, I was so excited about this one. This one I actually purchased (well, my mom did) from the “As Seen on TV” store in Eastland. I remember making pancakes the next day in my first apartment in the tiny-ass kitchen it had.

Why does the tiny-ass kitchen thing stand out? Because I had pancake batter EVERYWHERE in that kitchen after using this stupid thing. If you don’t flip your pancake at just the right time (which is at the point where it looks like it’s too done), you get pancake batter everywhere as you flip. Because, see, the two pieces don’t actually close together, there’s about a one-inch gap between them. That gap, coupled with flipping the pan 180 degrees in a quick motion equals huge mess.

Even worse, you only get one “perfect” pancake at a time. So, by the time you’re done making your short stack (or tall stack, depending on how hungry you are), your first ones are either cold, or saturated in syrup (and I hate that – both scenarios, actually). Yeah, so, this one sucked. I got pissed and threw it away. Before I managed to clean up all the pancake batter from my walls.


Smooth Away

I hate shaving, I really do. I don’t know any woman who will tell you otherwise. It’s a pain in the behind. So, when I saw this on sale at CVS, Walgreen’s, some place like that, I figured I’d give it a shot.
I got home, and imagine my surprise to see a little pink plastic thing with sandpaper. I am not lying, it was sandpaper. The back piece of paper you take off to reveal the adhesive even had the 3M logo. It was sandpaper. Have you ever sandpapered your legs? It’s not fun. It doesn’t smell good either. It’s one step away from the smell of singed hair. Yeah, that one didn’t get used again either.

PediPaws

Here’s one I bought in the attempts to make Oscar’s life easier. He hates having his nails trimmed. He whimpers and cries and tries to bite. Yeah, it’s not cool. Plus, his nails are black, so it’s hard to determine where the nail stops and the quick starts. So, I bought this thinking it might make it a little bit easier.

WRONG!

First of all, it’s a Dremmel (which I already freakin' owned!). That’s all it is, a cheap Dremmel tool. With an attachment on the head with holes of various sizes to “hold” your animal’s nail still (which doesn’t work worth a damn). The idea of Oscar (or even Booger, because he wouldn’t let me do it either) sit there while I got his nail situated in the correctly-sized hole is laughable in and of itself. But then add doing that while a noisy mini-drill is running. Hahahahahahaha.

I’ve given up on this one. It’s still around, but it really needs to just get thrown out. Oscar sees it just sitting there and runs and hides. It’s not worth the fight. Seeing as how this did not make the nail clipping any easier, we resorted to our old-school clippers, purchased from the pet department at Wal-Mart.

Well, you know what they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions … more good intention abound…


BarkOff

We all know Oscar’s a barker. We’ve tried everything, including the spray bottle to no avail. (The spray bottle does work, but the problem being it’s never where you want it when you need it, especially with a two-year-old running around the house, AND she thinks she needs to spray him, and we don’t really want that.) So, I saw BarkOff in a catalog for $8 so I opted to try it out. (Only after I ordered it from the site, but because it was backordered, I was able to cancel that order and get it way cheaper.)

I’m so glad I only paid $8 for it because it doesn’t work worth a damn. It didn’t stop Oscar from barking. On top of that, the ultrasonic sound it emits is audible to humans. So I heard it too. Between that and the barking, I wanted to jump out a window.

Turns out I should have waited for that experiment, my mother-in-law, who had great intentions, bought us one for Christmas. So I could have learned it was a waste of money without wasting my own had I been patient. But, if you have known me for any length of time, you know I am far from patient.



Potty Patch

Oscar (you see a pattern here?) hates going outside in the snow/cold/rain/anything other than 70+ degree sunny days, actually. I bought him a custom-made water-proof jacket once – he scraped up against the side of the house trying to get it off. We bought puppy training pads, but only put them out in the case of inclement weather, and that wasn’t enough for him. So the minute I saw the infomercial for the potty patch, I signed up. I didn’t care how much it was, how much the shipping was, I figured this was the solution. (Turns out, it ran me over $50.) Didn’t care. Was so excited about the notion of finally saving my carpet!

Turns out I was wrong, oh so wrong. He hated the thing. Wanted nothing to do with it. I’d put him on it, he’d look at me like I was even more crazy than when I put his jacket on him. “WTF lady?” I tried putting a puppy pad underneath it, so he’d smell that and associate the two. Didn’t work. I tried taking the grass part off, and putting the puppy pad on the bottom tray for a few days. Nope. Nothing. Back to disposable puppy pads it was, thanks Oscar.


Shake Weight

Everyone I know has made fun of Scott and I for buying these. We both have one, actually. Do I buy into the whole “getting a substantial workout in six minutes” thing? No, I know better. But I thought it might be an easy one to fit into my daily routine (since that’s my biggest obstacle to exercise). Believe it or not, after a few minutes with the Shake Weight, you really do feel it. Though, believe it or not, the hardest part of the workout is doing the exercises without cracking up laughing at how stupid you look with this thing moving back and forth in front of you. (See the picture? Yeah, the picture says it so much better, it really is worth a thousand words.)

The kicker on this thing is that we thought it was battery-operated (which makes the issue mentioned above even funnier if you want to think about it). So, imagine how stupid we looked as we turned the thing over and over after we freed it from the box, looking for a battery compartment and an on-off switch. We must have looked for a good five or ten minutes – looking like monkeys doing math problems – before I got out the little pamphlet that said, “this is a manual device.” Of course it’s a manual device. We don’t want anyone to rely on battery-operated devices alone. We must always remember to give our wrists a good, solid workout on a regular basis. (*cough*)

Yoga Booty Ballet

This one Scott saw the infomercial for and told me about it. He knew I liked yoga, so he thought this would be a good fit. I agreed.

The first DVD I did wasn’t too bad. The second one was a little bit harder. But when I got to the “booty” part of this, which involved a cardio hip hop routine, I realized I was, in fact, too white and lacked too much rhythm to be able to do much of anything besides stand there, exasperated, watching the DVD. My workout at that point involved walking to the kitchen and getting a bowl of popcorn while I watched these skinny bitches, who have never struggled with weight a day in their lives, tell me to “get moving” and “hip hop my way to thin” or some other worthless junk like that.

I tried to sell the set on eBay after that failed attempt, but here’s a shock, no one else wanted them either.



Crunchless Abs

Yeah, this was a stupid purchase on my part. Like every other fat person in the world, I hate doing crunches. So, imagine my surprise when I saw “Crunchless Abs” on TV for the first time. “I can lose weight in my belly without doing a crunch. Score!” Um, no, not so much. In fact, I didn’t feel a damn thing. Yeah, it’s crunchless abs, but it’s also non-working abs.

Bender Ball

I bought the Bender Ball at the same time as the Crunchless Abs – I got them in a set, woohoo, lucky me. I was thrilled with this one, I thought this would be awesome. Yeah, not so much. Oscar, who always thought when I laid down on the floor to exercise I was getting down there to play with him, was elated at the prospect of me on the floor, and a ball. Let’s just say, the fact Oscar made deflating volleyballs in less than 30 seconds into an art form, my Bender Ball posed no challenge to him, whatsoever. After a fruitless workout, and constant fighting with him, I gave up and just let him do what he wanted to that ball. Figured at least that way someone derived some sort of pleasure and the money was not all lost.

Bring on the World Equestrian Games

Well, I’m back after a long weekend that was insanely awesome on multiple accounts, the most of which revolved around the most awesome boot sale known to man where my best friend and I both left with a pair of matching boots, and me with a second pair of boots, all for only $100.

Now, I could blog about my awesome weekend – but most of you read about that on Facebook. I could even blog about how much turning 30 scared the living hell out of me, but it actually wasn’t near as bad as I expected … in fact, I think I’m quite comfortable with it. If that doesn’t scream maturity, I don’t know what does – but blogs screaming maturity don’t really make for good reading.

Instead, I’ve decided to unleash my inner-cynic.
--

And now, ladies and gentlemen (drumroll, please) – it’s Trysh vs. the World Equestrian Games.

Before the last few years, did any of you know that the World Equestrian Games even existed? I know I didn’t. In those last few years, though, I’ve learned that they do, in fact, exist; they do, in fact, cause massive amounts of development to take place unnecessarily; and they do, in fact, cause a massive uproar for nothing.

Let’s start out with a little history, shall we?

The games have been held every four years, halfway between sets of consecutive Summer Olympic Games, since 1990.
Wow. They’ve been around for 20 years. All I have to say is when I first heard about the major hoops Lexington was jumping through to host this competition, I thought it was older than I am. Apparently not. Wow, being that I’ve got 10 years on the competition, I wonder how many hoops I could get the Lexington government to jump through for me.

The FEI World Equestrian Games are the major international championships for equestrianism, considered by many horsemen to be more important than the Olympics.
Now really, they are comparing a 20-year-old competition to the Olympics, really? That’s like comparing an amoeba to a human in evolutionary terms. I mean, come on people.

Of course, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that people make that comparison. We all know horse people are snobby as hell and narcissistic to boot. Don’t you go scoffing at me – I don’t mean any person with a horse, I mean “horse people.” You know who I mean. And if you don’t then you obviously don’t know any horse people, and therefore you should skip to the next point.

As of 2010, 57 countries are represented by 800 people and their horses.
Really, wow. I’m impressed. At the 2008 Summer Olympics there were 10,500 competitors from 204 countries. Yep, that’s comparable. Of course this is more important than the Olympics. Silly me.

The 2010 FEI World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky marked a series of firsts in WEG history: the first time WEG were held outside of Europe; the first time that championships for all eight FEI disciplines were held at one location (the Kentucky Horse Park); and the first time WEG had a title sponsor (in this case the animal health and nutrition group corporation Alltech, headquartered in the nearby city of Nicholasville).
Well, you know, the Olympics are usually brought to you by Coke, so why not sponsor the World Equestrian Games?

I’m truly shocked, though, that with that overwhelming capacity of 800 participants and their horses, that they didn’t have to spread to multiple locations to hold all the competitions. Bravo, way to go Kentucky, to house all of that. Just think, because Lexington could handle that, maybe we should be in the running for the 2020 Summer Olympics. Chicago couldn’t  get it for 2016, but I don’t see why Lexington can’t, after all, it did successfully house a competition for 800 people.

Permanent upgrades added to the Kentucky Horse Park leading up to the event included the completion of a 6,000 seat, climate-controlled indoor arena and completion of a 7,500 seat outdoor stadium.
Yes, permanent upgrades that degrade the beauty that once was the Kentucky Horse Park, and that we all paid for with our tax dollars to house this bust of a horse competition. Wow, why wouldn’t anyone who lives in and around Lexington not be bitter about this? (And if you’re not, you’re one of those snobby horse people.)

Now what are they going to do with the arena and stadium? They tried to do basketball there, but even that got moved to Frankfort (so I’ve been told). Now what? Will they try to turn the Kentucky Horse Park into a concert venue like they do with every other place in Kentucky? After all, we’ve had concerts at Kentucky Motor Speedway, Churchill Downs, Applebee’s Park – why not add the Horse Park to that list? Gotta make use of the stadium and arena somehow. Can you imagine the venue fees they will tack onto any ticket prices to recoup the money they wasted to build them? To think I thought a $13 venue fee for a concert at Rupp was bad.

They estimated that we’d have an extra 250,000 people in the Central Kentucky area for these games. Alas, only 60,000 tickets were actually sold. A lot of them were local, people wanting to take part in the “history in their backyard.” (Hahahahaha) A lot of them that weren’t local never showed thanks to our burgeoning economy (thanks, Obama!).

We were led to believe that if we wanted any sense of normalcy, we should bunker down in our houses like they are bomb shelters. If you didn’t have a stockpile of food to last you through the three weeks of the World Equestrian Games, and you would have to venture out to the store, or worse, a restaurant, then shame on you. Traffic would be an abomination, you’d best leave an hour and a half before needing to get to work in order to make it through all the traffic.

Let me tell you, I live not far from the Horse Park, traffic has not been up, save for the clusterfuck they turned Ironworks Pike into. (Might I point out that they put cops out there, but most of the time they sat in their cars, watching people sit at the exit 120 off-ramp trying to turn left for 10-15 minutes before they finally got their lazy asses up to direct traffic. Forgive me if I don’t just explode with my overwhelming gratitude to Lexington Police Department.) But I have not had any problems going shopping, going out to eat, or even commuting to and from work. Just another example of the boy crying wolf.

Now, I really must ask, do they go all crazy like this for the games in Europe? I seriously doubt it. I could be wrong, I haven’t been there during the four-year frenzy prior to the second-biggest let-down in history (preceded only by Plymouth Rock).

Ah well, at least I have a great story to tell my grandkids.

Oh, wait, no I don’t.




* All facts and figures are quoted from Wikipedia, which is not the most ideal source, but the best one I could do in the limited amount of time in which I am squeezing this rant into my day.

More interesting trivia drawn from a vacation

Fact: Plymouth Rock is a giant let-down.

Now the story… because you know there is one!

On one of our many family vacations when I was a child, we headed up to New England. That would be my mom’s stomping grounds, so we always had to make our trek though the bowels of the earth, otherwise known as New Jersey, just for her. (Just kidding, Mom!)

One year we went to more than just New Jersey – thank God! We went all the way up to Maine! Along the way, we stopped in Massachusetts. Mom, being the history teacher, just had to see Plymouth Rock. Me, being the ass-kissing nerd I was, couldn’t wait to go too.

We get to Plymouth, and check into our hotel. It was kind of quaint, little cabin-type things. Okay, it was more like little duplexes, but still, better than just a giant block of rooms. Then we leave to go see the great Plymouth Rock.

Okay, so Plymouth Rock, is a rock. It’s not even a giant rock. I mean, okay, probably a little bigger than I would be able to pick up, but still. I mean, I pictured some enormous boulder or something, you know, like the size of a car. Not this thing that would be better served as the cornerstone for my flower bed or something – not something that we hear about for ages and ages in history books.

What’s worse, it’s way down at the bottom of this glass-topped shaft. Yep, you stare down and peer at the ‘1620’ engraved upon it. (Which, from the looks of it, was done by a machine, which means it wasn’t done back when it happened.) Oh, and this stupid rock isn’t even on the shore. Nope, like 50-100 feet away from shore. Well, how is this special? It’s not even the first place they stepped foot on if it’s way the hell over here.

God, what a let-down.

There was nothing else fun to do either. Welcome to Plymouth, Massachusetts – where you look at the rock, get disappointed and leave. Hope you enjoyed your stay.

As an extra bonus, we’ll give away your hotel room while you’re looking at said disappointing rock.

I’m not making that up. After we got back in the van and headed back to the motel, we noticed the lights were on in our room. There were people in there too. What?

Apparently some idiot at the front desk didn’t realize our room had been rented out, so they gave it to someone else. Luckily there was another free room, so it wasn’t like we were out a place to stay, but just one more things to add to the list of disappointments that day.

A note about potatoes (a continuation of worthless trivia)

I wanted to include this on my last worthless trivia post, but, well, there’s a story here for it all to make sense.

The worthless trivia fact: “You can’t get gigantic potatoes in Idaho, home of the Idaho Russet.”

To explain…

My stepdad is from Idaho. I’ve heard all kinds of stories about how the school year was altered so they could go out for the potato harvest without missing school, all that kind of fun stuff.

The summer of 1989, we went out on a three-week long vacation, and one of the many places we stopped was in Idaho Falls, Idaho, so we could meet my stepdad’s family and see where he grew up.

Mom was thrilled. See, my family, we’re what you might call carb-aholics. If it’s starchy or sugary and Dr. Atkins says you shouldn’t eat it – then my family wants it. It should come as no surprise, then, that Mom couldn’t wait to order a giant baked potato from a restaurant while we were in Idaho. She had Russets before, after all, you can buy them in any grocery story, but it’s always better when you go to the source.

Here we are, sitting out at dinner and Mom’s plate is set down in front of her. Her potato is no bigger than her fist. Mom is shocked.

Being the wonderful woman that she is, she didn’t take it out on the waitress. Shoot, it’s not her fault. She didn’t even send it back to the cook, demanding a bigger one. Nope. What did she do? She turned to my stepdad and inquired about this sad-looking potato sitting in front of her.

Without missing a beat, and serious as a heart attack, he replies, “Well, we ship all the good ones out.”

To this day, 21 years later, my mom still tells that story. But wait, we’re not done yet.

After my mom’s disappointing dinner, we met my stepdad’s mother. What did my mom do? She jumps all over this woman, demanding to know what happened to the “good” potatoes you’re supposed to be able to get in Idaho. Without missing a beat, she replied, “Well, we ship all the good ones out.”

Of course.