Have I made my point yet?

I forgot to mention one thing: she ran from the 13 post position. That's her, all the way on the outside of the track. No one has ever won the Preakness from the 13 post position.

The only thing that could make me cry harder? The Kentucky Derby winner, Mine That Bird, ran from the back all the way to second. So close.

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All the ladies in the house say yeah-uh

In literary journalism today, we had a brief discussion, during break, about crying during movies--specifically cheesy movies (ahem MK). I listened, sympathized, but openly admitted that I don't cry during movies. It's not because I don't want to--it's just that I guess I rarely get invested enough in a movie to be moved emotionally.

I do, however, sob--wait, that needs more emphasis--SOB during a much more obscure televised event.

Horse races.

I cry during the pre-show of every horse race I ever watch. I start crying because they montages they do are incredibly epic and well edited. I continue crying because our family business used to involve adopting racehorses after they couldn't run anymore. My mom, sister, and I adopted trailer loads of broken, slow, and unwanted horses from racetracks on the east coast. We taught them how to jump, how to relax, how to eat grass--and most of them were no more than 3 years old.

I know how devoted thoroughbreds are to their job. They know what they're doing, they know they want to win, and the amount of sheer talent it takes for them to make it around that racetrack is incomprehensible.

All of that being said, I cried through the whole Preakness this past Saturday. Why? The super filly, as they call her, Rachel Alexandria. Most people don't believe in racing girls against boys, but she did just that and she won.

She won without any balls, any testosterone, any male aggression. She just ran (and not even as well as she could) and became the first filly to win the Preakness in 85 years.

Yes, girl. Yes.

photo credit: Jason Szenes/European Pressphoto Agency, from http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/live-from-the-134th-preakness-stakes/?em

Soggy fish

Four words: Long John Silver's commercials.

Imagine: you're sitting in your local Long John Silver's, about to chow down on some deep fried crispy fish when SPLOOOOSH--a huge wave crashes over you, leaving you, your hushpuppies, and your fish dripping with water.

I know fish come from the sea. And I know it's tempting to put water with seafood. But if the point of your restaurant is to have crispy fish--and you dump water on customers--don't you then have soggy fish?

Take a minute to image what soggy fried fish tastes like.

I'm just sayin'.

7 courses, 1 hour. Go.

I, lucky girl that I am, got asked to be a judge at Greenfest's Top Chef competition this weekend.

Noble Fare versus Cha Bella.

7 courses delivered at the speed of light into my inadequately sized stomach.

At the end of the event, we had to turn in score cards.

There were four categories for each course:

1. Taste
2. Presentation
3. Creativity
4. "Green"ness

Do the math: four categories times three courses times two chefs--that's 24 boxes that need numbers in them. I waited until the end of all course to fill out my card in terms of being fair to both parties. Apparently I was the only one to do so, and this is the flak I got for it:

Score card collector guy: It's not rocket science, you know.
Me, laughing lightly: I know, I know.
S: I mean, hurry up. We're all waiting on you.
Me (glancing down the 10-person-long table): O.K., I'm just trying to do a good job.
S (slaps the already collected scorecards against his leg impatiently, whistling).

Guess what I wanted to say? This:

Listen, asshole. You're not as cute or as funny as you think you are. Your only job today, possibly your only job in life, is to gather cardboard scorecards and give them to someone who can actually do the math. That's right, I saw you looking at them, discreetly counting on your fingers, trying to find out who had the advantage. I caught you. Your lack of math skill automatically prohibits you from accusing me of being too dumb to score my seven dishes. I was doing the math on my own card so your English pea-sized brain wouldn't have to do it.

So excUSE me for taking my job seriously. And excUSE me for actually caring about who won the award. I hope the scorecards get recounted, the award gets recalled, and you get publicly shunned for being horrible at your job AND rude to guest judges.

Damn--that was harsh even for me, wasn't it?

It's been a rough couple of weeks.

Wait! There's more...

I was relaying my parking experiences to some friends the other day, half laughing, half raging about my expired tag fiasco (that you all now know about). We swapped stories back and forth, commiserating on how terrible parking people are in Savannah.

"You guys don't even know how bad the officer is around my house. I caught her, just the other day, ticketing someone because their bumper was barely over a yellow line. Barely! It's ridiculous," I said foolishly, unknowingly daring the parking gods to strike me down.

And they did.

I come out of my house this other morning. Parking ticket. Improper parking on yellow.

It was less than a bumper on the yellow. Less than a sliver. There's only 4 inches of yellow curb before it disappears, and I had to get a ticket.

$15 dollars, down the tubes.

*$^*((*&(^%^&%&$^

It's ON

I woke up this morning with one thought in my mind: my tags are supposed to arrive today. I had a tight schedule, so I was planning on receiving my tags, going to parking services, trying to get the ticket voided, returning home and going to my other obligations.

First of all, the post office person didn't even KNOCK on the door. I'm sitting upstairs, folding laundry when I hear the mail slot open and close. I go flying down my (dangerous) metal stairs to see a pepto-pink Sorry We Missed You slip. "You can pick up the package after 1:00" the slip said.

So I angrily wait until 1:00, head to the Post Office. Whew. Great--license plate and registration are in my posession.

I head straight to Parking Services, park my car, go inside, show my ticket and my registration. The clerk voids the ticket and I skip happily out of the office, feeling like a responsible and productive adult for the first time all day.

I drive merrily home and just when I'm about to park, I see it: another ticket crammed under my windshield wiper. I jump out in insta-rage. Ticket says: Expired tag. 50 dollars. I squeal tires in my angry U-turn back to Parking Services.

They void it, again, and I storm out of the office, my day throughly dampened.

Officer Pinkney--I blame you for everything.

Parking Officer Pinkney

My Dad keeps forgetting to give me my new license plate and registration. He forgot 2 weeks in a row, after which he passed on the duty to my mother, who proceeded to forget this past weekend.

So my Dad sent the license plate in the mail today, express, to get here tomorrow at 11 a.m.

Today is also the day that Officer Pinkney, the plague of my life, gave me a 50 dollar ticket for an expired tag.

She let the expired tag slide for a whole week, drove by it multiple times a day, but nooooo, she couldn't wait 6 freaking hours today, of all days, for my tags to get here.

I'm watching you, Officer Pinkney.