Mom! I Need Underwear!

I had an interview with Lisa Belkin for her XM radio show Life's Work. I sounded like an idiot myself. She asked me, "What have you learned from blogging?" I stammered on for an eternity at least 20 minutes and I didn't say one single thing that made sense. It was a train wreck - I was sounding like a moron, but I just couldn't shut up. At one point, I think I told her that speaking in public makes me feel like throwing up. Then she said something along the lines of, "I see you're a keynote speaker at the BlogHer conference." I was like, um no, I'm not. I'm speaking on a panel, but I'm not a keynote speaker. She was sure she'd seen it on the BlogHer site though. She was wrong, but it made me more confused and delirious. This is not me just being hard on myself. Oh no. This is the honest to goodness, sad, pathetic truth. And to top it all off, at one point during the interview, Clay burst into my room and shouted, "Mom! I need underwear!"

Lovely. Now the world can hear my insanity up close and personal on XM radio.

I had been invited to a roundtable discussion with 5 time Olympic medalist, Janet Evans. I was really honored to be asked to participate. I mean, here I was talking to the folks from Johnson & Johnson, Janet "gold medal, tons of swim records" Evans, and these other prominent bloggers: Christine, Kariana, Heather, Jill, and Jennifer.

This discussion was to take place at 1:00 Pacific Time. No problem. I tried to dial in at 11:00 Central Time and couldn't get through. I couldn't figure out why. 1:00 Pacific = 11:00 Central. What's the problem? So I called the organizer of the event.
"I can't seem to get into the conference. Any clue what I'm doing wrong?"
"You're an idiot." "You can't log on until the conference starts."
"Right. I'm trying to get on now and I can't."
"Wow you're dimwitted!" "It starts at 1:00 Pacific Time."
"I know. That's 11:00 Central."
"Are you for real??? "No, that's 3:00 Central. Pacific is 2 hours behind you."
Then I saw her roll her eyes at me through the phone.
"Oh my gosh. I know I'm not mathy, but that was pathetic even for me. I'm so sorry. Duh. I'll talk to you in 4 hours."

We were invited to ask Janet questions and I came up with these thoughtful nuggets - "I heard, on your website, where you said you got up at 4:15 every morning and swam 12 miles a day. If that was my kid, I would've told him, "No flippin way am I getting up at 4:15 every day to drive you to the pool. Pick another sport."

Now, let me tell you - this conversation revolved around Johnson & Johnson's (official partner of the Beijing Olympics) "Thanks Mom" campaign. You know - as in "thanks mom for driving me to the pool everyday so I could become a gold-medal-winning Olympic athlete." Do you see how my comment was just perfect for this theme? I'm such a dork. In fact, that wasn't even a question at all! Just a stupid comment.

Then I came up with another, equally fabulous, comment. I believe it went something like, "I saw the video of you flying through the air on Celebrity Circus and the mom in me wanted to shout, "What on earth do you think you're doing?! You're going to crack your head open! Get down from there right now!"

Score another well thought-out comment from yours truly.

Actually, it was an enjoyable conversation. Janet is not only a 5 time medalist (4 of those are gold), but she's a motivational speaker (no, she doesn't live in a van down by the river).


She wants to be a role model for her daughter Sydney and she wants to inspire young athletes and let them know that doing your best (and not winning) is what makes you a champion and is what's important. Her plans are to travel to the Olympics in Beijing on behalf of Johnson & Johnson and hang out with the moms of the athletes because, let's face it, if it wasn't for the efforts and sacrifices of the parents, those athletes wouldn't be there in the first place.

I admitted that I have difficulty finding the time to get in the shower some days, let alone taking care of the kids, the house, the laundry, dinner, shopping, etc. Then I asked her how she managed to find the time to write a book, do motivational speaking, teach swim clinics, be a mother and wife. She told us that her parents, much like they were when she was training for the Olympics, are still a huge support to her.