At some point, I’m going to have to re-tag and re-categorize some of these posts. I think I might start, in fact, NOW, with THIS one.
There, done. :-)
Now there is a category called “TAR Tips.” This means that WHEN (smile) we get picked we could “sort back through” all these blog posts and find tips to consider. Not that I’m going to go back and do it now, but I can at least do it “going forward from this point.”
The thing that I had had in the back of my mind and then forgotten was how indispensable a towel, and an Arab head scarf, were to two of the teams. When they did the “feed the elephant” challenge, the Afghanimals and the fiances each had something to “wrap and carry” the fruit in, which kept it on the hand truck.
This reminded me of something I’d said before (when the baseball bunnies were getting the dried fish down off of the ladder?) – the benefit of each having a SARONG.
First of all, of course, a sarong would have been helpful if found in the situation in the mines – when the teams had to add salt to a bath and then float in it. One of the teams was not “in their suits” and I can’t quite remember how they changed into them. But a sarong would work, especially as I would imagine I would have a Handfuls bra as my top at all times (which doubles as a swim suit top). If you put on a sarong, you can put on the bottoms without any issue.
Similarly, when the teams were in the temple in the UAR, the women had to wear black full-body covers. Now, a sarong wouldn’t do quite so well there, but a “makeshift” one at least in a Jewish or Buddhist temple could be a long-sleeved shirt, a sarong, and something over the hair (handkerchief?).
In the “dried fish” situation, I was unclear if they just couldn’t put the fish “on the ground” – if that was the case, then a sarong could have been spread out to lie the fish on instead of having the other team member have to carry them and wait.
I also really wondered, in the “cook the wedding meal” challenge, if the knives that they had to cut everything up with were sharp. Perhaps a FLINT could be a good addition – not sure about that.
Finally, I think it’s pretty integral to have SWIM GOGGLES. There has only been one “swimming” task so far (when they had to swing off the bridge, let go, then swim to the clue), but I think that swim goggles would be SUPER useful for some of the other challenges from other seasons.
One thing that they ALWAYS make you do is to “recount” where you have been if you’re the last teams standing. I think that we are one episode from that now, since we are down to 4 teams (fiances, ER dox, Afghanimals, Pinky and the ex). I wonder if on the first plane ride, ripping out the world map (that’s always in the flight magazine you get) might not be a good idea. Then keeping track on it. As you’re allowed at least one notebook per team, I would think that the best thing to have would likely be something like a mechanical pencil – because if you had a pen and it ran out of ink that would SO suck.
I noticed when the teams were leaving the UAE, they all were carrying little bags in addition to their backpacks. I’ve been thinking of all the things that they have had to have collected – I wonder what happened to the Viking shields? Interestingly, the baseball bunnies in their exit interview said that they had too MANY “hair products,” whereas the Ice princesses said that hey had “run out of” hair products. Not sure what that means – !
Today I haven’t done a doggone single thing – got up, and have had contracts to do. It’s Saturday, but tomorrow is the first of December, when clients have asked for things to be done. So I gotta do it. H wants to go look at cars today, but it’s already 3:40. (We didn’t get out of bed until 10, mind you.) We MUST do that – the BMW is on its last legs.
I have two more contracts for another client, and I have my Nutritional Cert questions to get to Shendl. Theatre tomorrow – though H somehow didn’t get the Calendar invite, so made plans with Analiz. I’m bringing Kat on his ticket – she came to Thanksgiving and Mom and Dad liked her. And then TAR! Where they are eating cobras, among other things ;-)