It was an emotional evening, climaxed finally when Amber Riley and
Derek Hough took home the treasured, glitzy, pretty tacky mirror ball on Dancing with
the Stars.
Watching Dancing with the Stars is kind of like watching Survivor
for me. I begin each new season kicking myself and thinking it's really a dumb show
to watch. With Survivor there are all those pretty unlikable people doing
things that are now predictable. They back stab, they go through amazing obstacle
races, they eat disgusting things and by the end of the season, I may have a
favorite (this year I don't), but I often feel I've wasted the time I spent watching the
show...and yet it's like a train wreck...I can't stop watching.
Dancing with the Stars is often a misnomer as the
"stars" are often people I've never heard of. And you know from the
beginning which are going to be the ones put in there for the sympathy vote, the novelty
vote, the ones that don't stand a chance of winning and are kept on week after week
because the audience votes for them.
But with Dancing with the Stars, I get sucked in. I
never particularly liked dancing and as a kid was always impatient for all those dance
numbers to be over in musical movies so we could get back to the plot, the part that I was
most interested in. Yet, by the middle of the competition, I am looking forward to
it, have picked my favorites, and wouldn't miss it.
This year it was obvious that Bill Nye the Science Guy and comedian
Bill Engvall were the ones that would be voted out early in the competition. Valerie
Harper, one of the few names I knew, certainly wouldn't last long. Her age
and her terminal cancer diagnosis were working against her. It was pretty certain
that Amber Riley, the fat girl from Glee, and Jack Osborne, Ozzie's son, would
make it a little farther, but the mirror ball would surely go to Corbin Bleu Rivers, whom
I'd never heard of before, but who was a pretty good dancer to begin with and turned into
an amazing dancer. (There were other "star"names I'd never heard before:
Elizabeth Berkley, Brant Daugherty, Keyshawn Johnson, Christina Milan. I knew of
Snooki Polizzi from talk shows and Leah Remini mostly for her connections to the church of
Scientology.)
Only, you can never predict where that show is going to go.
Yes, Bill Nye was eliminated early in the competition, but by golly Bill Engvall made it
into the final four contestants, beating out some pretty amazing talent, like
Elizabeth Berkley. He undoubtedly had the votes of thousands of fans because he was
a likeable guy whose dancing slowly went from nonexistent to not awful to kinda good over
the weeks.
But the big surprises were Jack Osborne and Amber Riley. Jack
overcame his nervousness and his feeling that he couldn't really compete well to being a
dancer who earned the highest scores from the judges last night. He positively
blossomed under the tutorship of partner Cheryl Burke. And in the end he was one of
the final three.
As for the fat girl I was sure would poop out early in the
competition, she won the big prize. Her freestyle dance last night was one of the
most amazing dances I've seen a contestant do...she had a big hand in choreographing it
and even veteran partner Derek Hough at one point in rehearsal admitted he couldn't do
what she was asking him to do. It was spectacular and was the dance that was voted
the one to be repeated on tonight's show.
When asked how she was feeling, after winning, she said that she had
proved to herself that anybody, no matter what their color or size, could accomplish
anything they put their mind to.
I just Googled "Dancing with the Stars," looking for a
picture of Amber and Derek to use as the Photo of the Day and as I scrolled down screen
after screen after screen, there wasn't one picture of Amber. It was all
the tall, skinny blondes that were shown. Nobody posted a picture of the fat black
girl...who just proved that she could beat all of them.
Congratulations, Amber. Well played, and a prize well earned.
Now there is nothing to look forward to but the new Bachelor
and I am proud to say that in all the seasons of that show and its female counterpart, I
have not seen one. single. episode of either. I do have some standards,
after all!
Looking over my entry from a year ago, I am remembering that at this time last year I was going through a terrible period of insomnia...for weeks...maybe months. These days I am sleeping soundly all night long, not even waking up to pee most nights, and I often take a nap during the day too. I think having my mother settled and nearby is a big part of my improved sleep habits. I cannot tell you how many nights I lay awake worrying about what was the right thing to do. I think we made the right choice, even with all the continuing deterioration of her memory that is going on. And it's so nice to sleep again!!!
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