A Pure Spectator's Look Back at Les Jeux Olympiques d'Hiver

I love the winter, but only in theory these days.  Having lived in winterless climes for the past umteen years, I realize that my tropicalization is nearly complete and I would probably hate the winter if I had to experience it for more than a day or two.  Full disclosure: I can't even feel my fingers and toes when the A/C is on full blast at work.  But, I grew up with winter, albeit a fairly mild version of winter of Long Island tempered by proximity to the Atlantic's warm waters.  It was winter nonetheless. The bay would freeze over and we would go ice skating.  The snow would fall and snowmen would arise in the yard.  Untold hours were spent outside making and throwing (and hopefully pegging someone else in the face with) snowballs, wearing too large snowpants and too small duck boots and knit mittens that within minutes were not only soaked but frozen stiff the wear of which seemed preferable to making snowballs with no barrier between fingers and snow.  No one wanted to come back inside until all the fun that was possible was soaked out of the day, because once you went in the warm crackle of the fire burning inside the lapis blue enamel coated cast iron fireplace guarded by the two stern hessian soldiers drew you in with its warm arms and wouldn't let you go.

There was that memorable childhood ski trip  to Vermont.  Velamints from the vending machine that accepted pennies and free hot cocoa at the lodge, lessons for the older girls from a (as legend has it) fantastically handsome college student named Rob who was equally and uniquely in love with each girl who remembers the story, lessons from some lesser human for the youngsters.  Thermal long johns, James Taylor, Carly Simon, and the Everly brothers as accompanied by John and sung in three part harmony by the ladies, with (loudest and longest) countermelody by dad and conducted by the perfect pitch having, knower of all harmonies, muth.

I even went to College in Colorado and had more than my fair share of ski trips to the various resorts of the region.  I just never got very good at the snow sports.  I think I was always scared of breaking something and thereby losing my place on the swim team, which was basically unimaginable as it was pretty much the only thing that kept me sane during my tenure at the Colorado Drinking College of the Rockies.  (If Yiotula is reading this: I remember when we went ice skating at the hockey rink...I thought I was so cool because a: seniors were hanging out with my lowly freshman butt, and b: I'm pretty sure that adorable blond firstie with the tats on his leg helped me up one time when I fell.)

So the Winter Olympics have a special whimsy to them in my sight.  I have memories, mostly good (although ask me about that snowstorm the night before my graduation, sometime, it's a doozy), of my times in snowy places to which I am always taken back whenever I see these games.  I was never a winter athlete so I have no delusions that make me want to become the oldest ski jumper at the next Olympics.  Just the right mix of memory, magic, fantasy, and snow to make them seem ethereal and otherworldly.  But these are sporting events, and there's no containing my rabid fan status of all things athletic, and there is no quelling my enthusiasm for #Murica.  So, here I have sat for the past 16 evenings, watching and screaming at the TV, hoping for these events to place the red white and blue at the top of the podium.

First of all.  Russia.  Not a huge fan.  Especially because I was constantly creeped out by Putin creepily popping up here and there with his creepy old man lurker face.  Plus, the venues with the ubiquitous "Hot. Cool. Yours." What are they Belks? "Modern. Southern. Style."  Free word non-association.  Words that don't go together in anyway whatsoever?

Bob Costas threatened to derail (said darryl) these games right from the start.  I guess, in his defense, perhaps he had never had that good Russian Vodka straight from the source before these games.  And maybe a few of the local Russian extras on set were daring him to go shot for shot, or sip for sip as they would think of it, with them.  Bob, note for next time: never get in a land war in asia, never go in against a sicilian when death is on the line...oh and only slightly less well known than those two - never try to drink Vodka (Russian slang for water) at the same rate as the fellas from Sochi. The drunkenness, aka Bob's eye infection (wink) made Bob even less interesting and more annoying than usual.  And believe me when I say Bob is nigh unto my least favorite TV personality.  They hilariously put him on the fast track detox program and we got a more than slightly mockish Matt Lauer as his replacement for a few days.  Talk about your travelling mercies!

The agony of defeat was really the theme for me, personally, as I watched USA set me up with Gold Medal hopes and then BOOM!  The flying tomato posts a score that would have won the gold by quite an impressive margin during the qualifying rounds and then doesn't even medal for trying so hard to put the most epic halfpipe run of all time down.  Bode Miller, my Winter Olympic love of my life, fellow old person, wearer of scruffily handsome facial hair, has the most impressive training runs, far outperforming the field, and doesn't land on the podium once the actual event arrives. Oh! Canada! Dealing our hockey boys and girls defeat after defeat.  Those two days were excruciating: all the effort of live streaming those games straight into my classroom in an attempt to educate these children of the south about a little cold weather culture, all the struggling not to screech at the players things that at are unseemly to say in front of ninth graders at a Christian school, all of the breath holding and high hoping.

In the midst of my disappointment at these games I was struck by the different kind of attitude the Winter athlete brings to sport.  I suppose it would be called the "slacker" mentality, but you see i've put that in quotes, because the sheer level of work and effort and hours these people put into their sports is decidedly UN-slacker-ish.  Oh yeah that is a real word.  I was amazed at the way that the contestants were all truly thrilled for the winners.  Instead of the downcast, dejected spirit you would expect to see from a first loser, or 10th placer, or DNFer, each participant in these games seemed to truly thrill and glow at the best performance of anyone, even if it wasn't their own, or even someone's from their own country.  Hugs were held, tackles were made, real genuine smiles were plastered all over all the faces at the bottom of mountains.  Perhaps the winter sports elite are such a small tight knit community that they all really and truly love one another.  Perhaps the fact that they spend their days in the cold causes their hearts to be so warm.  Or maybe these people are just terrific sports.  Whatever it is, it was a sight to behold. It didn't lessen my own disappointment, but it did bring a nice other perspective to the party and it encouraged me to be a little bit less of a negative nellie.

As ever, there was Mary Carillo, who is Bob Costas' antithesis, she is everything he isn't.  You love her for all the reasons you don't love Bob.  She is perhaps the nicest human being on earth.  I love all the spots that she did.  I love the enthusiastic way she embraces every experience.  I love the way she loves each person she encounters and presents the behind the scenes stories of the home country to us every time we watch these games.  She inspires me to be a better person and to get out there and do something new.

There were wins, to be sure: Ladies' snowboarding of all kinds, slopestyle skiing, awesome dogpile celebration, Bode getting that bronze (despite an epic interview fail on the part of the reporter, which he was both heartbreakingly sweet during and remarkably gentlemanly about after), Ligety getting his gold, TJ Oshie taking it to all of Russia, that baby girl Mikaela Shiffrin bringin' it in the slalom, the silence and chills inducing twizzle perfection of Davis and White.  We had a fashion wins as well, those sweaters in the opening ceremonies were almost enough to redeem the relative let down you felt watching these ceremonies in comparison to the London ones and the sad fifth ring refusing to open.  The Hollie Hobby throwback patchwork snowboard American uniforms that were almost entirely obscured by those gaudy Shochi bibs.

I love walking in the Winter Wonderland of the Olympics.  It reminds me of being young and freezing, in an awesome way.  It humbles (but in the actual sense of the word humble) me as I know I have no talent for any of these things, not even remotely.  It thrills and exults me as I watch victories, both expected and surprise.  It depresses me and sends me into hibernation because every time I fall in love with these strangers who represent this country and I cannot take it when I invest an abnormal amount of emotion in them and they suffer defeat.

But as for me (and my house), I am ready for summer.  I am ready to do a few extra squats and sit-ups, don a bikini, get my kids to the beach, build some sandcastles and body surf the ocean waves.  Because winter and I only get along for so long, then I need to get right back to my endless summer that is life in Florida.

PS...The Star Spangled Banner is the shizz as far as national anthems go.  Having heard a lot of the others, I miss even a bad rendition of our own.

Standing Joke of the Year-

There's a song by my old love David Gray that has at various times over the past several years reminded me of the ill advised marriage I bound myself in and the ridiculous human being that occupied the other half of that bondage for nearly a decade.  I love that welshman, the soft wail in his voice, and the sad way he can't seem to find a real love, at least according to his songs.

As I drove away from the Duval County Courthouse I heard the song quietly singing behind the loud cries of Jacksonville's new Black Panthers admonishing black men to stop rapping in a disrespectful manner about black women and treating them instead like the queens that they are, which was all oddly tangential of a completely necessary demonstration regarding the absolutely unconscionable murder of a black teen by a middle aged white man: because the boy's music was too loud.  The topic of that trial is so much more salient than what I actually am writing about, but I can't see past my own rage at my situation to give it more careful thought.  I too am a completely egotistical human, it's an inescapable sentence of these 46 chromosomes in collusion with a bent nature.

There it was, playing underneath the TV news tents as they set up to bring you whatever glimpses of the lawyers who would emerge in two or so hours when the courthouse closed down, no doubt both proclaiming a victory on the day:

It was a kind of so-so love and I'm gonna make sure it doesn't happen again,
You and I had to be the standing joke of the year,
You were a run around, a lost and found, and not for me I feel

Take your hands off me, hey,
I don't belong to you, you see,
And take a look in my face, for the last time,
I never knew you, you never knew me,
Say hello goodbye,
Say hello and wave goodbye


As I cursed my ex husband in my heart for his lack of employment, his current decision to devote his every waking moment to graduate school (how very nice for him, wouldn't we all love to have that particular luxury) for the next two years and the court's assent that this was somehow NOT CRIMINAL, I sang along, remarking to myself that the lyrics were oh so comically on point. It was at best a kind of so-so love, no real fire-he was short and not my type, which could best be described as uber alpha and ultra ripped and pretty darn handsome. There wasn't much of an intellectual equality either, but I allowed myself to believe his kitschy ability with music somehow brought him to a near rival to my own genius status-a non truth to which our marriage counselor once subtly tried to alert me. And he NEVER laughed at me, and as Taylor Swift knows I am seriously hilarious.


And I'm gonna make sure it doesn't happen again. In so many ways. So many ways. Every interaction with that (man?) reminds me that I will never marry again. Taunts me that I am incapable of love. Wards me off of any potential emotions I would ever dream of allowing myself to have at all. Ever...again.


The line in this song, that has for much of my marriage, and certainly post-marriage, gotten me where it hurts is, "You and I had to be the standing joke of the year." I look back on the early days of our relationship and there were those who knew better. "They won't last, she won't put up with that." "If I wanted to I could break them up today." "Don't get involved with someone crazier than yourself." Just juxtaposed to the men that I had always been attracted to, one had to wonder, why is she being so ironic. It wasn't irony i was going for. I just thought the opposite of my sinful, carnal, vile ways had to be the right way to go. I didn't know that there was a possibility that I was who I was on purpose. That there could have been constraints under which the satisfaction of my wants and needs were part of God's will for me. I could feel it when we went out, the quizzical stares as yin and yang went out to dinner and he would seem totally disinterested in me. But I buried it. I turned away from my perception of reality to try to be someone I wasn't. I knew my friends must secretly be saying that this relationship has to be a joke, but I told myself that if that was true it was simply because they could not possibly understand. I could hear the thoughts of strangers who were frantically trying to do the math, and it never added up, it never did for me either.


Nothing would give me any greater pleasure in life that for him to have taken a look in my face for the last time in that time at the courthouse, I never knew him, he NEVER knew me. Oh the ways in which he never knew, never understood me.


Say hello, wave goodbye. He couldn't' even muster the cajones to say hello to me. He couldn't even find the Richard to answer my questions in court. I cannot imagine that I was married to him. I cannot contemplate that I made four children with him. The insanity of it all makes me question myself at my core.


I hear him even now singing this line, "We tried to make it work, you in a cocktail skirt and me in a suit but it just wasn't me." Can't you? I mean honestly, I dressed up, I was as nice as any woman. I threw parties. I cultivated relationships, for myself and for him. I tried to make it work. He wore a suit, he tried working. That just was not him. Now he is who he wanted to be. The unemployed 38 year old psychology student. Physician heal thy FU(#!N% self.



You're used to wearing less, and now your life's a mess, so insecure you see


How does a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy justify not working AT ALL, and not SUPPORTING his FOUR children (who were his PLEASURE to bring into this world) at all? His life is most certainly a mess.


I had decided earlier in this evening not to be "that girl." I have gone back on that, and I am that girl. I hate him. And I don't care who knows it. I apologize for being this petty girl. There are secrets that I keep, so many of them, and this is not one. I want to scream, and shout, and let it all out (yes this is a quote from bit bit). I want to curse at the top of my lungs, but there are four young children present, and there are employees of the providence school who may read this. I can visualize cutting tendons and sawing through ligaments to flay his arms off his body and then beat the ever loving tar out of him with his own limbs. But I won't, because it is illegal, and because the release would only be temporary and I would then feel guilty.


Say hello. And wave Goodbye.


If only this was actually goodbye.

Kat In A Tree

 So this scene out of my afternoon totally reminds me of mom, and seeing as I'm on a muth souvenirs kinda kick lately, I'm gonna share this one too. It's pretty funny on its own merit as well.

My cat is getting to that age where she, in the words of my young sons, wants a boyfriend. She is hitting her estrous stride and has an itch that needs to be scratched.  So to speak.  As I was opening the door this afternoon she darted out of the house. And immediately ran up a pretty sizable tree as fast as dem kitty cat claws could carry her.

I was only home to grab a few forgotten items for my trip to Charleston, SC for the weekend. However, I didn't want to leave her outside to get knocked up by these hooligan strays so I decided to climb up and save her from a pregnancy none of us needed that she so desperately and furiously was scheming to make happen. I had just come home from work and as you can imagine was not properly dressed in repurposed curtains for the task at hand. I was instead decked out in my dress down Friday military chic finery: olive drab skinnies with multiple zippers, contrasting flannel, chunky cream infinity scarf, high heel uggs, and mil inspired jacket finished off with dads big green watch and a lapis enamel bracelet from Santa. It's a riff on my katniss weather day garb. Fellow prov teachers you know what I'm talking about.

The boots posed a particular impediment to climbing. The clunky square 3.5 inch heel was perfectly constructed for getting caught where branches conjoined. Undaunted by the clear danger they posed, I scrambled up the tree in my boots.

Just as I was approaching the tree a handsome slightly younger man with a very fine black puppy with white socks and a fine upright gait walked toward me. The man said, "awww poor cat up in the tree," in a deep sing songy voice. My eyes scanned up the tree for the appropriately large limbs to quickly grasp in order to demonstrate my athleticism and lack of need of assistance.

I sped up the tree and retrieved the cat. And proceeded downward. Here's where the trouble began.  I was halfway down the tree when small branches stretched out to poke at my eyes; I maneuvered my face around these slight branches but paying such close attention to them I placed my boot too deeply into a crevice between two branches. My heel got stuck. As I tried to wrestle my heel out of the tree crook, I realized I needed a new place to put my hand in order to have the proper purchase so to finagle that foot out of its current prison. I moved my hand to a Lower branch but this proved to be unhelpful as what I really needed was the full use of both my hands as one was presently occupied by petunia.

Handsome walked up behind me. I began to panic as my mind raced through several scenarios as to what his approach signaled. Was he trying to help me get down. I don't need help. If he did help me was he going to accidentally or not so accidentally grab my derrière as his method of aiding me. Because I hate my rear to be touched and above all I hate it to be surprise touched. Was he going to just stand there and mockingly or even admiringly, depending on his general disposition toward me, take in the view.

It took a wormhole-ish seconds that felt like minutes for me to free my heel. Only to get the toe of the same shoe stuck in the same branch joint.
A few more seconds (centuries) later my toe was free and I jumped from a branch that was slightly too high and landed in the plants below, rather elegantly if I do say do myself - for an old lady in her work clothes.

Handsome looked at me from where he stood no more than three feet away, the perfect distance to indicate one wants to leave your social space behind and enter your personal space with a handshake and exchange of names. He said, "That was pretty impressive!"

I looked at him, smirked, and in my best Jess Day from New Girl voice, replied, "I've climbed a few trees in my day."

Dropped the proverbial mic...(grenade?).

Walked away.

In my periphery I could see him pleasantly standing there, lingering just a few moments, in case I again became sane, decided to act my age and walked back to introduce myself. In your dreams thunder.

Whereas mom had a talent for turning a cat up the tree situation into a social win for everyone and would have thrown a parade including all the neighbors in the festivities and declared it a national holiday - victory over cats in trees day - or handsome men meeting day - I walked away without even getting cutie's name. And doing my dead level best to seem as offensive as possible so that he will never attempt to engage again. Well played, Jess,  kick him in the shins next time.