YAY! London Olympics 2012 Equestrian Events

I give less than two sh*ts about most professional sports. I hate football. I fell asleep in the stands at a Pirates game once during college. I played basketball in Jr. High and I sucked so bad that the coach usually just sent me to the end of the bench, handed me some towels, and told me to give pep talks to the first string girls when they came in for a water break.

But I LOVE the Olympics. I don't think that one even needs to care about sports at all to be able to appreciate true athletes who are at the peak of their physical shape, have trained practically 24/7 for their entire lives, and get ONE CHANCE - sometimes only a few seconds long - to prove to the world, their country, and themselves that they are truly the best of the best. CHILLS!

I'm especially interested in watching the Equestrian Events, most especially to see Reed Kessler compete in Jumping. She just turned 18, and is the youngest equestrian to ever qualify to compete at the Olympic games. How awesome is that!

Here is Reed competing on her Belgian Warmblood mare, Cylana. I can't wait to cheer her on - I just wish I could be there in London!


Image from theequestriannews.com.

So cool :)

The equestrian events are thrilling for me to watch because I rode horses for years when I was a tween/teen, and even competed in little local shows in the Short Stirrup Hunter/Jumper and Equitation classes. I wasn't able to keep it up once I started working part-time in high school, went to college, etc. (plus, it ain't a cheap hobby by any stretch of the imagination), but I miss being around horses and riding all the time and would love to get back into it. Maybe watching this year's Olympics will be the thing that finally pushes me to make the time to start taking lessons again!

Here I am, grinning like an idiot, accepting my Reserve Champion ribbon at a local horse show in 1994. I rode a school horse named Cash, an old chestnut gelding who always took very good care of me.



The Opening Ceremony for the 2012 Olympics begins at 7:30pm EDT tonight. The Equestrian events start tomorrow, July 28th at 10am EDT with the Independent Dressage competition. The full schedule can be found on www.nbcolympics.com.

Chelsea Clinton is Getting Married

The former first daughter is getting married this Saturday to Marc Mevinksy, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs whom she's know since college, at the Astor estate in Rhinebeck, NY. The media is going NUTS over this, and I've got to say I'm kind of annoyed.

Not because I have anything in the world against Chelsea - quite the contrary. I have always really liked her a lot. She and I are almost exactly the same age, and I remember thinking at 12 years old how strange (and awesome and sometimes sucky) it must be for her to live in the White House. I felt so bad for her when people were calling her "ugly" as an adolescent - arguably the WORST time to have to be in the public eye, and so I thrilled at seeing her with her pretty new bob haircut and sleek suit, perched between Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna at fashion week in 2002. She handled her father's presidential sex scandal quietly and with dignity (on the campaign trail for her mother's Presidential run, a reporter had the gall to ask her how she felt about the whole Monica Lewinsky thing, and her reply was, "I don't think that's any of your business."). At a time when Britney and Christina and Jessica (also my age) were gaining fame and fortune by taking off their clothes and/or singing poorly, Chelsea was going to Stanford, then Oxford, then getting a job and enjoying her independent young womanhood - far more of a role model for me than any reality star celebrity.

I guess that's why I'm so bothered by the media coverage. She's lived a normal, albeit pretty exceptional, life since leaving the White House - you can't just let her have this day to herself and her friends and her family without trying to sell it to someone? I guess people just LOVE weddings so much that they want to get in on the action. I have done same thing with royal weddings and some celebrity weddings, but I guess I would just like Chelsea's wedding to roll by with a little online blurb about the details that I could read and think: "How nice, I like Chelsea. I hope that somebody saved her a piece of cake."