Ted Lasso Session Three Predictions

I love Ted Lasso.

I think it is the best things that has ever been on television, with the possible exceptions of Roots, which I was too young to see, and Breaking Bad, which I've never had the stomach to watch. Where the character Ted Lasso is a straight up hero, Walter White is an anti-hero, which can be just as compelling.

You haven't seen Ted Lasso because you don't have Apple TV+. Right. It is free if you have T-Mobile, otherwise it is $8 a month or something. The tricky thing is that you can't share the password with your family because it is linked to your Apple ID, which means whoever you give the password to can also download apps on their phone to your account. Or something weird like that. Anyway, cough up the $8, binge it for a month, then cancel.

My Predictions (not to be confused with spoilers) as of Episode 6

• Season 3--and series--ends with Ted going home to Kansas City to be with his son, Henry. The season opened with Ted and Henry at Heathrow. We watch Henry go down the escalator to get on his flight. I predict the last shot of the series will be of Ted going down the same escalator to fly back to KCMO. Initially, Ted moved to London to give his failing marriage some space. Now that his ex-wife has a new boyfriend who is acting as a father figure to Henry, Ted will follow his heart and want to teach his son to play darts and watch basketball together. In recent episodes, Ted has been thinking about all of the good times he had with his dad, who committed suicide when Ted was a teenager. 

• With Ted leaving, Nate Shelley will be the new head coach of Richmond. Nate will realize that Rupert is a dick and he can't work for an amoral asshole. Nate will humbly make amends to Rebecca, the coaching staff and the team for being a jerk. Rebecca knows her ex-husband Rupert is an asshole, so she takes the apologetic Nate back.

• Sam and Rebecca will get together. I have reason for this other than Jason Sudeikis uncle was George Wendt, the actor who played Norm on Cheers. The show is full of other television and film references, and I think Sam and Rebecca of Ted Lasso will get together like Sam and Rebecca in Cheers. The character of Ted Lasso even compared Sam and Rebecca to the couple in Cheers when they started dating in Season 2.

• Jamie Tart becomes the breakout star, and is a nice guy in the process instead of a smarmy, pompous asshole.

• Richmond wins it all.

Sweat & $1,000 Legos

I worked out Sunday night for the first time since my surgery. It was an easy-peasy 20 minutes on the recumbent bike at the gym. It was the first time I've sweat since my surgery. Tonight, I did thirty minutes on the elliptical to prove that Sunday was not a fluke. I survived! I was sweaty and I survived! My can feel the muscles in my quads starting to reform. I'll probably need to hit the weight room soon. I've been frustrated with my slow recovery, but it is better than overdoing it and regretting it later.

I am looking for a gift for Pedro for his birthday. He still loves Legos, and Lego continues to expands its marketing to wealthy adults. I am beginning to think Legos might be out of my price range. There was a $630 Lego set of the Eiffel Tower, and a $679 set of the Titanic. I texted Pedro a link and said "WTF?!?!" 

His reply: I wonder when there'll be a $1000 Lego set.

I bet soon enough. But what would it be? What would be the Holy Grail, the most coveted set ever that people would drop $1K. It could be weird and obscure, that super fans of something would any amount to get it, like women in their twenties are dropping whole paychecks (more or less) to see Taylor Swift in concert. Or would it be something practical, like a side table for your living room? A planter? A bird bath? Would it be something iconic, like the Eiffel Tower, but I can't think of anything more iconic. They've already done the Taj Mahal. A mountain, like Mt. Fuji, or Mt. Rainier? 

Mt. Everest?

I went to BrickCon one year and a woman made the Tiger's Nest Monastery in Bhutan out of Lego. It was super cool.

I bet the geniuses as Lego are working on ideas for the $1000 Lego set as I type.

The M Word

I have a friend from high school who hates her teenage kids and husband.

Okay, she really doesn't hate them. Rather, she has a high level of frustration and resentment towards their lack organization, initiative, and willingness to take care of themselves.

My dear friend is my age, and has been been visited by the M word, where the baby factory has shut down, closed for business. Estrogen is flowing at a slower rate, thereby reducing her sense of nurturing and maternal instincts. The lacks of hormones makes her see more clearly: she hates her family because they suck.

Of course, she loves them, but she would hate them less if they could literally and metaphorically pack their own lunch.

I have experienced such things, but I am fortunate to have been a young enough mother that my kids were almost out of the house by time I hit the change. Poor Pedro was in his last years of high school when I turned to Medusa, using my superpowers to call bullshit on bullshit.

Here is an example of me before and after menopause. Let's say I get in my car thinking there is a half a tank of gas, but realize when I get in that my then husband drove the car for the last week and left it empty. I go to his car, and discover that car doesn't have any gas, either. Like the lights are flashing and the GPS automatically tells you the closest gas station kind of low gas. The estimated range of miles left is zero. Let's say this behavior repeats itself on a regular basis, even when the said husband has been gently asked before to put gas in the car. To be fair, my ex is an adrenaline junkie, so he knows when the low gas lights flash you, you can still drive like 32 miles, but at some point, you will run out of gas unless the magic gas fairy comes and puts gas in the car, which doesn't happen.

My pre-menopausal response to the empty gas tank: I guess Jack must be really busy these past few weeks, so busy that he doesn't have time to fill the car with gas and he's too busy to tell me before I need to drive the soccer carpool. No worries, I can take care of it before I cook dinner.

My post-menopausal response to the empty gas tank: How can the same guy who runs half a hospital not figure out how to put can in the car? I can operate fancy life-saving hospital equipment but doesn't know how to use a gas pump? Does he expect me to take care of all of this shit? What do I look like, his servant? Does he not respect my time? Now that I think about it, he only puts gas in the car before he goes skiing and that's it. How come he can figure out how to use the gas pump when he has something important to do but ignores it when it isn't about him? WTF? How did he get to be such a self-centered asshole?

The gentle and docile behavior serves women well when they are raising young children. I wouldn't want to tell a toddler to change their own fucking diaper. That would be bad, and probably invite a visit from CPS. Things start to shift when kids get older, and little bit of that attitude can serve grown children well. Like, "If you want to drive, pay for your own fucking car insurance." See? That doesn't sound bad. That sounds like you are encouraging responsibility in your kids.

While this transformation wasn't pretty, it was necessary. I don't regret what I did, but I regret how I expressed my anger. I have a friend who says he wants his next relationship to have "no bullshit, no drama," which is fine. The hard part of that is it needs to start within ourselves first before we can expect our partner to change. I joined a twelve step program to understand and dilute my rage towards humanity, and to find a way to be true to myself and not be a full on bitch to the rest of the world. I am fully capable of being docile and gentle, but my tolerance for bullshit is very, very low.

So here is how I imagine the "no bullshit, no drama," playing out in the gas station.

Put gas in the car like a responsible adult (no bullshit), and I won't turn into a lunatic when I have to deal with the consequences of your actions (no drama).

Perhaps this explains why some late middle-age men like younger women. Maybe it isn't because these women are fertile, but because they are deluded and docile from excessive amount of estrogen. These older men should just hope they die before their new younger wives hit menopause, because unless the guys change, the same shitty relationships are going to repeat themselves.

Belly of the Whale

If I had a bar

I'd call it "Belly of the Whale"

Where people could reach their nadir

The Bottom

The Pits

Despair.

Where people could come back to life

Rejoin the human race

with peace and dignity and serenity.

I have been in the belly of the whale

for much too long

Afraid

Angry

Annoyed

and now I am coming out 

Awakened

Alive

and 

Grateful.

"Dinners with Ruth" and Moses

I am listening to a wonderful audiobook: Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships by Nina Totenberg, the NPR correspondent about her decades long friendship with the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I am listening on my phone while I needlepoint in my craft studio.

I love this book with the themes of friendship between women, the power of women in the workforce and the beauty of marriage. I envy these women. "Dinner parties" were common in Washington, D.C. before the pandemic. A dinner party often wasn't massive, two or maybe three couples. People regularly hosted dinner for friends in their homes. I live in the other Washington, land of the Seattle Freeze, where dinner with friends isn't quite so common. I don't think the Seattle Freeze is a snobbiness. Rather, I think Seattle is city of introverts who aren't used to keeping the company of others.

As most Americans know, RBG was a tireless advocate for women's rights. Her main concern was that women be treated equal under the law. Nina's book delivers a fascinating look at the recent history of women's rights. Under the heading of "What the fuck?" was an Air Force policy back in the 1970s that said pregnant women officers were required to get abortions while they served or else they had to resign. I had no idea that such a rule ever existed. The female officer Susan Struck got pregnant, sued the U.S. government, and had her child. Ruth was on the team supporting the mother. The case was about to make it to the Supreme Court but then the U.S. military scrapped the rule, perhaps suspecting they were going to lose. 

Ruth I wonder what Ruth would have said to Moses about the Ten Commandments, specifically "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife." Since this is directed at people who have wives, it is okay then for women to covet someone's husband? I would love to hear her take on it. I wonder if she would have told Moses, "I dissent."