There’s not a lot of Bo in my girls’ games.
By Bo, I mean Bo Jackson, the super athlete who got dudes started on two sports back in the 1990s. For my girls, the year’s split into two seasons: Soccer season, and count-your-wounds-and-fight-with-each-other-until-soccer-season-starts-again season.
That’s fine with me.
Other families transition into basketball after fall soccer. Can you imagine? After tournament drama, come sit in a gym and listen to sneaker squeak hell. Marie played an intramural basketball game once. I’d pay anything to be able to go back and see it.
Reportedly, she ran through the other team like a Longhorn through one of those Chinese paper walls. You know the ones. She hadn’t learned the difference between a basketball foul and a soccer foul.
The girls and I attended an NBA game here a couple of years ago. The team was still the Charlotte Bobcats. The first foul called, the girls snarled. “What did he do?” Marie asked. “He touched that guy’s arm a little when he shot the ball. Watch the replay.
“Right … there. See? I think he grazed him.”
All three girls scoffed. We enjoyed the game. The girls picked favorite players and cheered during the Bobcats’ rally. Ultimately, though, the girls knew: Soccer’s a beautiful game, not only in its refinery but also in the way it tests and pushes them physically.
Makes me wonder how Bo could have done on the pitch.
1. Is that field hockey?
Were they slinging a little, rock-hard ball with hooked sticks?
Then, yes, that’s field hockey. You girls do enough damage to each other with your feet, hands, curtain rods, and whatever else you get your hands on. It’s soccer, kind of, but more like hockey. Hence, field hockey, because of course.
Field hockey is 11v11, like soccer, and apparently, people the world over played it way before AstroTurf’s invention. Arabs, Aztecs, Greeks, Persians, and Romans all played a version of field hockey back in the day. Wouldn’t that be a cool tournament?
2. Is the ankylosaurus extinct?
Sadly, yes.
*moment of silence*
Cool as they were, with a battering club tail and fierce armor, the last ankylosauruses kicked the bucket 66 million years ago. We once called it “when that meteor hit”; it’s politically correct to call it the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.
What if ankylosauruses somehow survived the meteo… Uh, I mean, event.
Ankylosauruses lived in Montana, Wyoming, and Canada. They were probably libertarians; they ate veggies only but believed wholeheartedly in fiscal responsibility and homeland security. At least as far as their armor was concerned.
Voted the entrée most likely to bust a T-rex’s femur before becoming lunch, the ankylosaurus might have even sported armored eyelids. How cool is that? He also inspired a Godzilla adversary, Anguirus. Check it out, and you make the call.
3. What’s The Consignment Gallery?
What the hell?
I wish I could remember where this question came from! It’s a fancy furniture store – in Colorado Springs. It wasn’t even around when I lived in Colorado. They’re the best consignment gallery on the Front Range. Boy, that region’s name brings me back.
Consignment shops give people a place to get items for sale in front of as many eyes as possible. When the items sell, the consignor gets a cut.
Check out what’s new here. Personally, I dig the mission desk and nook table set. What about you?
4. Are all cartoons on Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
The movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit contained more star power than the Republican National Convention delivered. Favorites from Walt Disney, Warner Bros., MGM, Paramount, Universal, 20th Century Fox, and King Features syndicate came together in the name of toons and put on a good show.
It makes We Are the World look like the Buffalo Bills’ Lombardi Trophy caretaking staff.
It has Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Buggy Bug, and Tinker Bell. Bugs Bunny and Sylvester the cat are in the Warner Bros. contingent. MGM sent Droopy Dog and Meathead. Betty Boop and Wiffle Piffle showed for Paramount Pictures. King Features’ Felix the Cat was there.
Woody Woodpecker headlined the Universal Studios bunch. Chilly Willy was mentioned but never seen. It’s considered the biggest Hollywood slight on penguins since Cry of the Penguins (1971).
These are just a few of the characters in the movie. See a complete list of cameos here.
Bet you didn’t know that some characters got cut or had legal red tape hold them back from appearing in the film. (Toons, you know?) Chip ‘n’ Dale and one of the vultures from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs didn’t make it.
Pepe Le Pew, Tom & Jerry, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle had plans to be there, but ultimately, it wasn’t meant to be.
5. How do they coach kids for a spelling bee?
There’s a list of 100 study words for each grade level. Learn them, love them, LIVE them. Like a special portal into specialness (or wherever Chilly Willy wobbled off to), only a teacher with a password can access this list of 100.
Word Central and Spell It! are other online resources to flex your spelling muscles.
That’s all to become a Scripps Spelling Bee Champ.
Heavy duty spellers practice 40 minutes a day, in addition to private coaching.
You must attend a Scripps registered school. Past champs’ families have yanked them from their regular school and moved them to a Scripps school, because they had the ‘gift.’ Some spelling coaches charge $60 an hour.
Heavy duty spellers practice 40 minutes a day, in addition to private coaching.
Sorry, Marie, but I have to spill it.
See, Marie won a class spelling bee once, and we thought we had a future champ on our hands. She chose not to participate in the school-level bee. I wish she had! A girl who can power through a soccer match kill it with words such as orthognathous or esquamulose.
(I actually misspelled “bee” when I Googled those.)
Foul on dad. His first, team’s first. Marie will go to the line for two.
Just a dad ... 
I’d love to show Little Guy Roger Rabbit, but I think it’s locked in a vault somewhere. 😉
It’s worth breaking it out, Jenn!
Sixty dollars an hour to practice spelling words? I guess it’s worth it if one’s young speller goes on to glory and is signed to a hefty contract when they turn pro. Oh, wait…
Know what I could do with $60? The Pro Spellers Tour must pay well. Can you imagine?
What a fun roundup of questions. You’ve definitely inspired me to watch Who Framed again – and believe it or not, I’d totally forgotten it had a cross-studio cartoon cast! I recently spent time researching Felix the Cat and was delighted to find he’s been in existence since the 1920s. That’s a lot of meowing. Speaking of which, that Mission desk is indeed the cat’s meow, and the Nook set is the cat’s pajamas. No more piles on paper of the table – you can simply sit on them in.
Thanks Deborah. That movie was the ultimate all-star game of toons! Felix the Cat definitely qualifies as old-school. He inspired Sylvester and Garfield, I’m sure.
I’d had one fresh pad if I could add those two pieces, for sure. Anyone got a truck?