Tracey's Space

Nothing beats the Daily Show's election coverage.

This showed up on my inbox today forwarded from a friend of a friend. (Yes this is from a real person- it's not one of "those" forwarded emails.) Make of it what you will:

On Monday, the 17-year-old son of our friends Mandy and Melissa had
gone to the Twin Cities for the day with his pastor and a group of
teens to peacefully protest the war at the RNC. While there, he was
brutally beaten by five police officers and detained without being
Mirandized and without a phone call, despite his repeated requests to
call his parents - a violation of Minnesota law. He was ultimately
released without his wallet, phone or shirt and wandered the streets
until he met a stranger who let him borrow their cell phone to call
his mom.

If you want to know even more about the protests at the RNC, do not
rely on your favorite major news organization. Go to YouTube and
search for RNC Protesters. Or dig deeper on the internet to find news
from independent sources. Corporate news companies are still toeing
the party line on this story - Anarchists got out of line, the police
heroically stepped in to save the RNC and the people of the Twin
Cities from the dangers of rioters. But this is only about 10% of what
happened yesterday. It is important to see it for yourself and make up
your own mind.

Scary. Here I was laughing at the people carrying marijuana signs behind Chris Matthews' head on MSNBC but I had no idea stuff like this was happening.

Day two of school began this morning with me finding Juliana's backpack with cat pee all over it. Inside was the mountain of school paperwork I had spent yesterday afternoon completing. Yeah.

Things are back to normal!

(Click on any of the photos for the whole gallery.)

Juliana Year 8:

I guess you can say I've been in sort of an Olympics bubble this past week. Staying up past midnight is very unlike me but I've been on a shifted schedule for a while now taking in every lap of the pool and flip on the balance beam. Jason is nice to put with me and my sometimes way too in-depth knowledge of gymnastics (Nastia was robbed at the bars final! ) and I will miss Bela Karolyi when he disappears from my television for four years again in a few days.

So when this morning I read a blurb on MSNBC about Jennifer Lopez complaining that Michael Phelps is getting more attention than her I about lost my oatmeal all over my keyboard. Here's a highlight:

Lopez, who appeared on "Good Morning America" Aug. 18 to discuss her preparations for the Malibu Triathlon, was overheard saying after the segment that she "couldn't understand why everyone is talking about that swimmer," according to a GMA source. "She couldn't come up with (eight-time gold-medal winner Michael) Phelps' name, and then she yammered on about how she was the one training for a triathlon just six months after giving birth, and how that was the big story right now, not 'the swimmer.' "

Uh. Sometimes I will hear something that I think can't possibly be real because it's just so retarded. This is one of those times. It's like I can't believe somebody would actually be that stupid and I have to remind myself that we're talking about a grown woman who calls herself J-Lo. (I could call her "that actress" but it would be using the term very loosely.)

You know it's all fine and good that she's training for a triathlon but before she starts wanting the world to be so impressed with her post-baby athleticism maybe she should consider that Paula Radcliffe won the New York City Marathon a mere ten months after giving birth. Not to mention she finished the Olympic marathon this week on basically one leg.

So congratulations, J-Lo. You are now dead to me. (That is if I ever actually cared that much in the first place, which remains in question.)

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Go Bears.

I signed up for the Milwaukee Race for the Cure!

It's not until the end of September but color me hyped.
(And expect emails from me about donating.)

My knee injury is a thing of the past! I'm so happy. It's been touch and go for some time but this past week I've started running 2-3 miles outside again with no pain (except for the sweltering heat.) Let me say it again: I AM SO HAPPY! I can sign up for the Komen Race for the Cure now without any anxiety. Not to mention I can work out the way I want to again and hopefully slowly raise my mileage so the same injury doesn't happen again. I'm inspired by the upcoming Olympics and really want to get into top form in the coming weeks. It's been almost a year since I started my last full-body overhaul and though I'm a bit disappointed that I couldn't keep off the second ten pounds of the twenty I lost last fall I'm trying to be happy that I could at least keep off ten for this long. (Plus, I will be re-tackling the second ten pounds with a slightly less mountain to climb so yahoo!) Of course, I need to keep reminding myself that Olympic athletes have no other obligations other than to train all day so tranforming myself into 41-year old Olympic swimmer- and overall pillar of awesomeness- Dara Torres is kind of unrealistic.

So... I'm hyped to be a running machine again (if only a puttering slow one) and after nearly a week in to my new regimen I'm feeling fantastic.

Now I just have to figure out a way to stay healthy on our vacation next week where I will visit THREE 5-star restaurants in three days. I have spectacular timing don't I.

RUBBER leggings! You can thank Urban Outfitters for these babies.

Dy-ing.

Even I can appreciate something like this:

3 Catholic Women To Be Ordained Priests