The Great Escape

So, lately, we've been walking in the door from work to find that Dino has somehow let himself out of his room. There's no way he can jump the gate, it's 3 feet tall and he's 3 inches tall. We tried everything down to rigging the gate with poster board so he'd have no traction when trying to climb... only to find that he still somehow escaped, poster board untouched and in perfect condition.

Undoubtedly, Dino is acrobatically inclined, but still whines for help getting up and down from our 1.5 foot high couches. Is he really THAT smart? Climbing walls and jumping 3 feet in the air when we're not home and pretending he can't climb the curb in the driveway while we're there?

We finally caught him. So now, his punishment: I shall exploit his agile ways and he will be my trick monkey from now until the day he dies.

Click here to watch the video.

And you can't see it in the video, but when he landed, it was on all four feet, perfectly, and then he immediately bounced back up for the finish: on two legs with his front paws posed straight in the air.

Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

Steve and I recently took a Scuba certification class. The rest of the class is certified as of a few weeks ago. But I am not. I went to the crater on the first day of the certification test to have one of the most traumatic experiences of my life thus far and needless to say, didn’t show up for the second day of certification.

Ask any experienced scuba diver and they will tell you the most important thing to master in scuba diving is buoyancy. More specifically neutral buoyancy, which, when achieved, will allow you to neither float nor sink in the water. If you are not neutrally buoyant, you can sink or float rather quickly without knowing it, which is bad because if you don’t know that you are changing depth, then you won’t adjust your mask, ears, etc to compensate, which could result in serious injury.

So back to our class (where we weren’t taught anything about buoyancy, other than reading a paragraph about it in the textbook… no application): Our first several dives were in the swimming pool. Easy. Then comes the final class certification at a crater/hot spring nearby. The first day of certification entails two dives: a 25 foot dive and a 40 foot dive. During the 25 foot dive, because I was told to use 18 lbs of weight while practicing at the pool, I sunk. Fast. Without knowing it, because on top of being a crater with limited visibility, it was also 10pm and I couldn’t tell up from down, or find the rest of the group. I in fact thought I was going toward the surface, when really I was sinking. Finally an instructor on the dive found me – this is after my common sense had switched off – I’m already screaming swearwords and sobbing into my regulator – oh and voluntarily taking my regulator out of my mouth only to continue breathing as if the water were air.

So my first dive was somewhere around 45 feet, while the rest of the group dove to 20 feet. I had so much weight on, the only way to get to the surface was by inflating my BC (buoyancy compensator - vest full of air) so full that it slipped up around my neck once I got to the surface. This is why I didn’t participate in the second dive. And I haven’t shown my face in class ever since. I’m not generally a quitter in situations like this, but I’m so pissed off at the instructors (who were recently fired because others had similar experiences) for not even checking my buoyancy or giving me a chance to adjust it once we were under water. In fact, they were yelling at me to hurry up and get in the water. What if I had, I don’t know, forgot to turn my air on in my rush to comply and get in the water asap?

The owner of the scuba shop has agreed to work one-on-one with me until I’m certified. That’s a nice gesture and all, but do I care about being certified now? Do I EVER see myself enjoying scuba? “Getting” scuba? Taking scuba trips? I am scuba-ruined. Should I give it another try one-on-one? Help me.

Blaze Me, Baby

I was recently reminded of the reason my parents named me McKenna, here. At one point, the top baby name on the list was Erin (which I feel is no match for my personality) until my parents saw the movie Somewhere In Time, where Jane Seymour played a character named Elise McKenna and I’ll let you finish the story in your own head. But that’s not so important as what my destiny would be, had I been given the Y chromosome. If I had been a boy, the plan was to bestow the name Blazer upon me. Every time I remember this interesting fact about me, I’m thrown into a deep quandary about my destiny, which sadly and quite obviously would have been the choice between a Chippendale dancer and an American Gladiator. Which would I choose? This is the quandary. So much is in a name.

So Long, Ace

I've really enjoyed some of my fellow bloggers' reviews on American Idol (you can see them here and here) but I haven't been one for writing a review myself until today. Because FINALLY America has pulled their heads out and realized that ACE is an awful performer and it's time to go home. I couldn't be more exhilirated. So long, farewell, au revoir, auf Wiedersehen!

Mother Very Earnestly Makes Jam Sandwiches Under No Protest

I always love it when Oprah blows the lid off of hidden crises in America, especially when it’s not a political statement in disguise. She did a two-part special this week on the lack of education in our public school systems; a situation I believe is epidemic.

As of right this second, 735,828 kids have dropped out of school since January 1^st and the number goes up every minute. Our nation used to be ranked among the highest in most educational subjects and now we are in the high 20s in many subjects including math and science. It’s about expectations in the schooling system: there are none. We hear so much lip service from political leaders about the educational system so we think something is being done. It must just be kids these days. But it wasn’t too long ago that I was in high school and I’m telling you… the crappiest of kids – the ones who make you say “kids these days,” would rise to the occasion if more was expected of them.

Case in point: I was always among my teachers’ favorite students. But I was an awful student! I refused to do meaningless busy work for the grade, and if I felt the curriculum for the day was lame, I’d skip class and go to Barnes & Noble, my happy place (smell of coffee and books). What happened when I admittedly (to my teachers, even!) skipped class (sometimes 3 days per week)? Well I would confess lightheartedly and because of that, my teachers would laugh. THEY DIDN’T CARE! I held a 3.8 GPA all throughout high school and the only class I didn’t regularly skip was choir.

I learned about a charter school called KIPP. They’ve developed a totally non-conventional way of teaching kids. I watched and cried and wished there was a KIPP school in our area while my brother was going to school. My brother, who everyone said had severe learning disabilities but now I feel has NO learning disability. The real problem was the teaching system in his schools werejust created in 1956 and never since changed. His teachers didn’t truly care and the curriculum didn’t allow for higher methods of teaching. I have to think, no, I know, my brother’s life would be a lot different if he had gone to a school like KIPP.

To my 5^th grade teacher’s credit, although I couldn’t until yesterday recite the state capitols, or point out 15% of the states on the map, or tell you the first five presidents of the United States, I did somehow remember – and the memory came busting through out of no where; I mean I swear the memory didn’t exist, it was like my mind was creating it as it sang so loudly from my lips…that Mother Very Earnestly Makes Jam Sandwiches Under No Protest: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

Although, like the entire US education system, this acronym needs a serious re-vamp with all the planets they’re discovering lately. They named them “Santa”, “Easter Bunny”, and “Sedna”. I bet God is so displeased.

Go visit StandUp

Completely Unaware Of His Size - or Lack Thereof

Sorry, I’ve been gone a while. Life got a little crazy for a bit – Urban Botanic did a bridal expo – The Bridal Extravaganza. Then I took a trip to Grand Junction for Urban Botanic. Add to that a website re-vamp, tons more on my plate, and a new addition to the family:

Dino - The Tiny Warrior

We have been taking Dino around to meet his cousins. At each new house we enter he immediately starts shaking in my arms as if a big, bad, ugly monster were screaming in his face. This lasts about two minutes and when he finally settles I put him nose to nose with the dog he’s meeting. They sniff each others’ faces for about 30 seconds and then I put him on the floor so they can sniff each others’ butts.

Last night we took him to meet Gina & Eric's immaculately trained Dobermans, Zephyr and Liv. After the butt sniffing stage, Dino surprisingly decided he wanted to play with Liv. He would jump up, nip Liv’s nose, and then instantly retreat 20 steps the opposite direction as fast as he could run, certain that Liv would retaliate. Then when he realized he wasn’t being chased, he’d craaawl slowly on his stomach commando-style until he was a few inches from her feet and then hunker down, jump, nip, and retreat in one speedy, hilarious movement.