Another reason to LOVE the internet!

Everybody goes on the potty. I tell this to Baby-Bee EVERYDAY hoping that one day it sinks in. But where? Now there is a source to lead you to the right public potty for your needs. Whether you are walking through DC or Guam, this site is for you!

THE BATHROOM DIARIES

Why Divers Shower

After three days of watching synchronised diving on NBC, I finally turned to Tom and asked the question everyone was wondering "why do divers always shower after their dives"? Tom (who knows everything on the planet) responded to my question and then the subject was quickly changed and forgotten.

So, this afternoon I went to log into my yahoo mail and staring at me was the following article. Coincidence, or is everyone in America asking the same question? Oh, and don't even bother asking because I will tell you, TOM WAS COMPLETELY RIGHT with his response. He always is!

Over the last three nights, NBC has led its primetime Olympic coverage with synchronized diving. According to the stacks of letters that have poured into the Fourth-Place Medal Investigative Unit Headquarters, you've all been watching but are baffled by one facet of the competition. In that case, you're in the right place. After successful forays into the cases of Cullen Jones' disappearance and the identity of the hot Paraguayan, Fourth-Place Medal will today tackle the mystery of the showering divers.
After completing a dive, competitors swim to a ladder, climb out of the pool and head immediately to a bank of showers that sit adjacent to the diving boards. Then, in full view of the crowd and NBC cameras, they shower off. Divers keep their suits on, of course, usually appearing only to rinse off their hair and arms. Oftentimes, the divers will receive their scores while still showering off. What's the purpose of this?
Theories have ranged from 'to get the chlorine off' to 'they want to have fun' -- seriously, that last one is a direct quote from NBC's diving analyst, Cynthia Potter. Neither are the reason.
Divers shower in between each dive to keep their muscles warm after getting out of the pool. The temperature of the pool water and the air are usually different (the pool is usually around 80 degrees, with the air temperature between 68 and 72 degrees). This difference can cause muscle tightness. To combat this, divers warm up in either the showers or a hot tub.
Mystery: solved. (Although we're still a bit unclear as to why the showers are out in the open.The water cube cost over $200 million to build. They couldn't have put a privacy wall in?!)
If you have an Olympic mystery you'd like solved, leave your question in the comments section. For regular mysteries consult your nearest library and head to the children's mystery section. The selection of Hardy Boys books will provide all the guidance you need

Gregory Hines - DEAD

Today over coffee in Starbucks we were discussing Gregory Hines. I said that he was dead, and my father and Tom were positive he was alive. Since I was right, it warrented mentioning.

Gregory Hines was born on Valentines Day, 1946, and died of liver cancer on August 9, 2003.

Usually when Tom and I disagree on Trivia, I am wrong. Those things rarely make the blog

All Request Tudor Hour

I received a lovely comment from someone who enjoyed my "Tudor Series" inquiring as to where the Elizabeth entry I promised was. Several months ago I sat down to write one, and then lost patience because her life was so frickin' long (she died at 70 and reigned for 45 years!). However, I am re energized so here goes ..........................

Elizabeth Tudor is better known as "Queen Elizabeth the 1st" and sometimes refereed to as the "Virgin Queen" (though Robert Dudley would probably beg to differ). She was the only surviving child of Henry the VIII and his whore turned 2nd wife, Anne Boleyne.

She is also the 1/2 sister of "bloody Mary" (daughter of Katherine of Aragon) and 1/2 sister of King Edward (son of Poor, Poor Jane Seymore).

History has been good to Elizabeth, but I have no intention of letting her off easily. Let's take a look at some of Elizabeth's highlights, shall we?

1) She had her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots dragged from her lovers arms in Edinburgh and taken to the tower of London, where she was held prisoner for months before being beheaded.

2) She had an affair with Robert Dudly for years but refused to marry him because he was not Royal enough. This did not, however, stop her from having Dudleys wife, Amy Robsart, murdered. Amy was found at the bottom of a narrow staircase with a broken neck and no witnesses. Robert was with Elizabeth at the time.

3) She carried on a long flirtation with her step-father Thomas Seymore (he married Katherine Parr after Henry died). Thomas Seymore happened to also be the uncle of her brother Edward and brother of Poor Poor Jane Seymore (do you see a pattern here?).

4) She had over 900 people executed during her reign as queen. This is more then triple the number of protestants that her sister Mary burned at the stake. Just goes to show you that the "winners write the history books".

Elizabeth never married. Some believe that this was for political reasons and others say it is because she never found "love". Certainly Elizabeth did not view the institution of marriage as "kind to women"? Marriage did not work out very well for her mother or cousin/step mother Katherine Howard. In fact, it was Katherine Howard's violent death that might have had the most lasting impact on the Elizabethan Era. At the age of eight she met one of Prince Edward's classmates, Robert Dudley, and told him of an important decision she had made. "I will never marry," she said. It was a decision that would shape her life.

And now for something really special ...............

Here is the lunar moon today, the day I turn 40.



Here is the lunar moon on the day I was born.



Arent you glad you stopped by?

Happy Lefhanders Day!

Today is 13 August which means that it is International Lefthanders Day.

Here are a few fun left handed facts that you probably didn't know (as reported by http://www.lefthandersday.com/) :

- Most left-handers draw figures facing to the right.
- There is a high tendency in twins for one to be left-handed
- Stuttering and dyslexia occur more often in left-handers (particularly if they are forced to change their writing hand as a child, like King of England George VI).
- Left-handers adjust more readily to seeing underwater.
- Left-handers excel particularly in tennis, baseball, swimming and fencing
- Left-handers usually reach puberty 4 to 5 months after right-handers
- 4 of the 5 original designers of the Macintosh computer were left-handed
- 1 in 4 Apollo astronauts were left-handed - 250% more than the normal level

Just over ten percent of people are left-handed, meaning this day is not celebrated extremely enthusiastically by about ninety percent of people! However, it is enthusiastically celebrated by this list of famous lefties, and, by me!

The Tudors, part III

Today we continue our Tudor Series with a discussion of Henrys 3rd, VERY BORING Wife, Jane Seymour.

Jane served as lady in waiting to both Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Ten days after Anne was, um, disposed of in the Court yard of the tower of London, Henry and Jane were married. She was publicly declared queen on 4 June 1536. Interestingly Jane never received a lavish, public, Coronation like Anne and Katherine. Chances are that Henry was waiting to see if she could make a Boy before making that kind of commitment. Things became even more urgent the following month when Henry received the news that his only illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond, had died at the age of 17. There had always been the possibility that Fitzroy could have succeeded him, but now Henry VIII was left with only two daughters, both declared illegitimate (which happens when your marriages are declared illegitimate). It is certain that if Jane had not provided a son, she would have been quickly discarded. However, she got to stay.

After 29 years as king of England, Henry VIII finally proved himself capable of fathering an XY chromosome on 12 October 1537, when Prince Edward was born. The whole country rejoiced, everyone that is, except Jane. Queen Jane lay bleeding and delirious following the birth of the next King, and finally died on 24 October. Poor Poor Jane.

Janes body was embalmed and laid to rest in the tomb at Windsor Castle which Henry was building for himself. Years after her death, even while he was married to other women, Jane continued to appear in royal portraits as queen consort. Her special status as mother to the heir was never forgotten. The king wore black until well into 1538 and waited more than two years to marry again. This was the longest interval between marriages during his reign. No doubt he was diddling the maids during this time.

Tune in next time for Part IV of our Tudor series - Anne of Cleves.

The Tudors, part II

Part 2 of our Tudor series highlights Henry the VIII's 2nd wife and major whore ............... Anne Bolyne.

Anne spent her formative years with her Sister Mary in the French Court serving Queen Mary (Henry VIII sister) who was married to Louis XI. After Louis died, Mary returned to England to serve Queen Katherine (and became Henry's Mistress) while Anne remained in France to attend Claude, the new French queen. During the 8-10 years she was in the French court, Anne developed a taste for their culture, dress and food, and believed the English were beneath her.

Around 1581, she returned to England to Serve Katherine and awaited details of her marriage to the heir of Ormonde (which never worked out, I have no idea why).

While serving Katherine, Anne had affairs with both Henry Percy (who she presumably loved and would have married had it not been for Cardinal Wolsey) and Sir Thomas Wyatt. She also began flirting with Henry himself, though she would not begin an affair with him because she was on a "Queen or Nothing" campaign. Rather, she and her parents insisted that her sister Mary keep Henry "serviced" so his intentions didn't wander to any of the other Ladies in waiting. It was not long after this that Henry started to seek an Annulment from Katherine, moved Anne into Queen Katherine's rooms, and had Anne assume the role of Queen at all functions.

At some point in 1532, Anne finally gave in and let Henry do the deed, and by December she was pregnant. To ensure the legitimacy of the child, Henry and Anne were secretly married. Although the King's marriage to Katherine was not dissolved, in the King's mind it had never existed in the first place, so he was free to marry whomever he wanted. On May 23, the Archbishop officially proclaimed that the marriage of Henry and Katherine was invalid.

Knowing that she was carrying the future King of England, Anne took to her chambers in the summer of 1533 and on September 7, she gave birth to PRINCESS ELIZABETH. Oppps. Anne knew that it was imperative that she produce a son. By January of 1534, she was pregnant again, but the child was either miscarried or stillborn. In 1535, she become pregnant again but miscarried. The child was reported to have been a boy. It was also reported to have been HER BROTHERS! Yep, that's right. Anne was so desperate to have a son and so sure that Henry couldn't make a son, she was sperminated by her brother George. Desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose. Anne probably suspected that failure to produce a living male heir was a threat to her own life. Anne set a precedent by pushing Katherine aside and introducing the idea of annulment to Henry, and Henry was starting to spend a lot of time with Jane Seymore, Anne's lady in waiting. Ooooops.

Anne's fall was fast and furious. On May 2, 3 years after her coronation, she was arrested at Greenwich and informed that she was charged with: adultery, incest and plotting to murder the King. Almost immediately, 5 men where hanged for Adultery with the Queen. On May 5th, the Queen and her brother were put on trial at the Great Hall of the Tower of London and found guilty. The star witness for the prosecution you ask? Georges Wife! The sentence was to be either burnt at the stake (which was the punishment for incest) or beheaded, at the discretion of the King. I think we all know how that turned out.

Anne was beheaded on May 19, 1536. A few days prior, her Marriage to Henry was dissolved and declared invalid. Jane Seymour spent that afternoon choosing her wedding dress.

No matter what, you can always find reasons to smile ........

Well, it is official. I have been completely *(^& over by the complete self promoting incompetents in the upper management at work and have been screwed out of another promotion. I guess that I was expecting it, but am no less pissed by the result.

After sulking for about an hour, I decided to do something that I have NEVER attempted in the past. I looked at what was good in my life rather then dwell in the crap. It is really not surprising that I came up with a rather impressive list in a very short time:

- My 2 amazing girls
- Tom, who caught an early flight home
- Susie and Papa are healthy and close
- Two episodes of LOST on TIVO
- Good Friends, and;
- Showtime's upcoming series "The Tudors"

And it is The Tudors that will get the rest of this entry's attention. I am excited about this series, especially since it promises to be full of the political, sexual, and bloody escapades of my favorite Renaissance Pig - Henry the VIII. Always concerned about my readers, I want you to be prepared for the series so that you can enjoy it as much as I. Therefore, I am committing to writing a minimum of 8 entries leading up to the April 1 Premier. These entries will highlight each of Henrys 6 wives, and his two daughters. Tonight we will start with wife #1, who was arguably the classiest of them all (albeit stupid for loving the schmuck) ........... Katherine of Aragon.

Katherine was Katherine of Aragon (Princess of Spain) and queen consort of England. She was the wife of Arthur, Prince of Wales and when he died before they consummated their marriage, Henry VIII agreed to do the deed. I am sure that this had political ramifications, merging of powers, yada yada yada. I choose to believe that it was because Henry, tired of playing second fiddle to his fathers favorite son, found a way to bang his brothers intended and took it. A small detail like his brother was dead didn't matter, Henry won.

Where did Henry fail? All of the male heirs that he conceived with Katherine (5) died in childhood and their only surviving child, Princess Mary (later Bloody Mary) could not inherit the throne (little did Henry know that the People would speak loudly on that issue and both Mary and Elizabeth would take their turn as the head of state, but I digress). Henry decided that because he could not make a baby boy with Catherine (who was deeply religious and spent her entire life praying about it) he would have the marriage annulled and make a baby boy with Anne Boleyn instead (which never happened, thought many believe that he did make a bastard boy with Anne's older sister Mary).

The Pope refused to allow the annulment of Henry's marriage to Katherine, which set off a chain reaction that led to Henry's break with the Roman Catholic Church, and gave us the Episcopalian Religion (Catholicism with Divorce). Katherine and her daughter were separated and she was forced to leave court. She lived for the next three years in several dank and unhealthy castles and manors with just a few servants. She died on January 7, 1536 at Kimbolton Castle and was buried at Peterborough Abbey with the ceremony due for her position as Princess Dowager, not as a Queen of England.

This concludes our essay on Katherine. It would be longer, but I am still working on Phillippa Gregorys The Constant Princess. Tune in for next weeks Tudor edition, for an in-depth look at Henry's Hussy --- Ann Boleyn.

A random thought before bed ............

There is a difference between a Bumble Bee and a Honey Bee.

According to Wikipedia, Bumblebees are flying insects of the genus Bombus in the family Apidae. They are relatives of the honey bees, but tend to be larger and more visibly furry.

Honey bees are a subset of bees which represent a far smaller fraction of bee diversity than most people suspect. These bees are the only living members of the tribe Apini, all in the genus Apis, and all of which produce and store liquified sugar ("honey") to some degree, and construct colonial nests out of wax secreted by the workers in the colony. Other types of related bee produce and store honey, but only members of the genus Apis are considered true honey bee.

I did not know that there was this interesting distinction, and now I do. It is important for me to fully understand the difference since I suspect I will be watching a lot of Winnie the Poo in the near future.

OK. Off to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow. In addition to breakfast with my Parents (Happy Birthday Susie) and cooking dinner for friends, I get to prepare some papers for my Life Insurance Company. I was feeling rather stressed out about two months ago and decided to start a low dose of Welabutrin. At the same time we decided to get a little more life insurance so that the kids would be taken care of in the event of our untimely departure, which relieved a good deal of that stress. Well, now the life insurance company has decided to hold up our request for additional life insurance until they fully understand why I require an anti-depressant. Where do I start? How about, because I routinely have to answer to judgemental corporate insurance weenies like you who ask stupid questions about my mental health since I choose to take all possible measures to ensure my kids have a completely well balanced mom?

I digress. Night Night.

And now, for a winter history lesson ................

I consider myself to be rather knowledgeable when it comes to trivial historic facts and stories. After all, one can hardly live with Tom for 11 years and not become an encyclopedia of useless knowledge. However, upon circling the 1/2 frozen tidal basin with my friend Patty yesterday, I was informed of an ice age I never knew occurred. Since I was uninformed, I figured my readers were as well (all two of them).

You can read this link for details, but here are some excerpts from wikipda.org on the LITTLE ICE AGE which occurred for a couple hundred years and ended in the mid-18th century.

The Little Ice Age brought bitterly cold winters to many parts of the world, but is most thoroughly documented in Europe and North America. In the mid 17th Century, glaciers in the Swiss Alps advanced, gradually engulfing farms and crushing entire villages.

In the winter of 1780, New York Harbor froze, allowing people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island (ummm. If you are in Manhattan, why would you EVER leave and go to Staten Island?) .

The severe winters affected human life in ways large and small. The population of Iceland fell by half but this was perhaps also due to fluorosis caused by the eruption of the volcano Laki in 1783. The Viking colonies in Greenland, however, clearly died out (in the 1400s) because they could no longer grow enough food there. In North America, American Indians formed leagues in response to food shortages.

In many years, snowfall was much heavier than recorded before or since, and the snow lay on the ground for many months longer than it does today. Many springs and summers were outstandingly cold and wet, although there was great variability between years and groups of years.

European settlers also reported exceptionally severe winters. For example, in 1607-8 ice persisted on Lake Superior until June.

Beginning around 1850, the world's climate began warming again and the Little Ice Age is said to have come to an end it that time.

Some global warming critics believe that the Earth's climate is still recovering from the Little Ice Age and that human activity is not the decisive factor in present temperature trends (right, tell that to Mr. Gore).

And so friends, there you have it, history in a nut shell. I am completely aware of the fact that I might be the only person who didn't know about this meteorological miracle, but you what they say, "if you can touch 1 kid, you've made a difference".

Happy Groundhog Day!

D