The Money Shot

I've probably watched more of the Olympics this time around than I have in a long time.  For two reasons.  First of all, I got hooked into the women gymnasts and secondly, with my new office, my TV is right at my elbow and whether I'm typing or working on a project, I can see it (unlike when it was on the other side of the room and I had to turn around to see it).

I have thoroughly enjoyed the successes of our athletes, but it does eventually start to feel like overkill.  Yes, I want each athlete in his or her particular sport to do the best they can, but when you are just watching the results and not necessarily the work that they went through to win, I start to feel embarrassed at our dominance of the medal count. it starts to feel like showing off.

(But then I'm the person who, when I was in grammar school and running for office, always voted for my opponent because I thought that was the polite thing to do and I assumed he/she would also vote for me.)

But the one thing that amuses me is watching the camera work.  Simone Biles has the same smile she turns on whenever a camera is pointed at her.

From what I have seen of her when she is not performing she is a happy person, but she can be having a serious moment and as soon as she sees the camera, she turns on the smile.  (It's the same before she begins her event.  Serious while she goes through the routine in her head and then the big smile as she gets on stage.

But the thing that amuses more than anything is the camera work at all the medal ceremonies.  

The athletes stand on the stand, get the medal put around their neck and then the national anthem starts to play.  You just know the cameraman is hoping to find a tear glistening in an eye.  If it begins to look like the athlete is going to get emotional, there is a slow pan to where the eye is the center of attention.  The camera man is often disappointed.

Michael Phelps admitted to feeling emotional and getting a little teary when he won his last individual medal, knowing it was the last time he would stand on that podium and see the American flag slowly rise in his honor.

If you see this photo in a larger size, you can see that his right eye is a little glistening, though no actual tears.

But the big money shot is to find an athlete who stands there with tears streaming down his/her face as the national anthem plays.  The cameraperson must have been positively orgasmic over swimmer Simone Manuel and her medal time.

But congratulations to all the winners and still-to-be-winners no matter which country they are from.  Let your tears flow freely--it's what the viewing public are hoping for, and the camera persons are praying for.

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I took the day off today and stayed home and got "stuff" done.  Finished a pocket letter, wrote a dozen Compassion letters, folded laundry, and cooked a Blue Apron dinner.

I even got a cooking injury.  I was slicing a tomato on our new super sharp mandolin and could not find the thingy that attaches to the food so you don't slice your finger.  I decided to wing it and found out why you don't slice food without the thingy that attaches to the food.  (Note my Superman bandaid, which I bought in case Ned is here and needs a bandaid again.)

As I made our dinner, I realized that over the months that I have been cooking Blue Apron I have learned a lot of cooking skills I never had before.  I have learned so much that when I watch 11 year old on Chopped Junior I am starting to know what they are talking about.

I have even learned that I can eat (and enjoy) kale, with the right recipe.

And I love all those little bottles of things that the liquid ingredients called for in the recipe come in.  This particular recipe, for chicken burgers with hoisin mayonnaise had a record number of little bottles -- mayonnaise, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, and sriracha

(That brown thing behind the little bottles is how a tomato is packaged so it doesn't bruise in transit.  when a recipe calls for an egg, it also comes packaged in something like that)

For Want of a Heel

I  was on skis once in my life.  It was when I was at UC Berkeley and there was a Newman Club ski trip.  I took pre-ski lessons from a guy named Mike McHale, where he taught us basic moves on our skis on the floor in the basement of Newman Hall.  We learned the position for the snow plow and I was excited to be trying it out.

We all packed up our stuff and headed to the moutains, snow, and the bunny slope.  

Learning the tow-rope was the first obstacle, and after some embarrassing failures, I finally made it to the top of the bunny slope.  In those days, I was the unofficial house mother for the house where Walt and other guys were living, so I had acquired the nickname "Mom."  I still remember my descent down the bunny slope, feeling out of control, Mike at the bottom yelling "Plow, Mom, PLOW!"

I might have become the Lindsey Vonn of my day if I had stuck with it, but something happened when I got to the bottom of the bunny slope on that fateful day.  Somehow I managed to twist my foot so that the heel of my boot broke off.

There I was with a Berkeley-rented boot with no heel and, apparently, no way to have it fixed.  Thinking back on it, I'm sure if I was diligent I could have found a work-around, but I didn't.  Instead, I spent the weekend in the lodge watching others plow and whatever the more experienced skiers did. I never tried hitting the slopes again.

I was never blessed with the athleticism gene, though my father had been quite athletic in his youth (he was into body-building) and my mother was apparently the star softball player on her high school team and one of the stars of the basketball team.  But my clumsiness today is only an exacerbation of how clumsy I was as a kid. I was one of those "last picked" for any team I had the misfortune to be on. I know I had to take gym class in high school, but I have absolutely no memory of ever playing on any team in any sport. (This is ironic, since my best lifelong friend, Sister Anne, was the gym teacher and quite athletic!)

When I was in Girl Scouts in grammar school, our group took skating lessons from Harris Legg (whom, I read on the Internet, has been described as "one of the greatest athletes to ever come out of Galt."  I wonder if my mother knows that--she was raised in Galt.)  Legg qualified for the 1936 Winter Olympics but couldn't afford to go, so joined the Ice Follies instead. After he retired from the Ice Follies, he opened a skating school in San Francisco.

I was terrible.  I barely learned how to do the skate cross-over that allowed me to make a turn at the end of the rink.  I never did learn how to skate backwards, but I did enjoy skating and my friends and I often went to the old Sutro Baths to skate.  In my father's day, the Sutro Baths, out by the ocean beach, was a large, privately owned swimming pool which, according to its publicity, was the largest indoor swimming pool in the world, containing seven different pools, six salt water in varying temperatures and one fresh water.

In my day, however, half of the pools had been walled off to the pubic and the other half had been turned into a giant ice skating rink.  

I really did have a good time at that skating rink, though I never learned to skate backwards and though could skate several feet without falling down, I never got actually proficient at skating. At least my ankles eventually learned how to hold my weight on two thin blades.

So with that as a background, it amazes me that every four years I spend hours watching winter sports.  I guess it's the vicarious thrill of watching all that aerial artistry and speed of the downhill skiers, the fearlessness on the luge and skeleton, and those speedy races, but I don't know any of the rules of anything and the rapid fire commentary by the pros watching each competitor on his or her downhill run doesn't help at all. I can't see the difference between any two competitors.  Unless someone falls, they all look the same to me.

I watch hockey games and when someone makes a goal I'm shocked because I thought the puck was at some other part of the rink.

The only sport I'm sort of learning about is curling which seems to be played at my speed, and slow enough that I can begin to understand the lingo and the rules.  I'm sure it's quite athletic, but if I had to choose a winter sport, I vote for curling.  At least if you break you heel in curling, you can probably continue to play.  Of course it does involve sweeping, which sounds too suspiciously like housecleaning to me...

The Olympics

I've been reading a lot on the internet from people who are disgusted and who are boycotting the Olympics.  Most are boycotting because of Putin's stance on homosexuals, and the continuing reports showing people being beaten and jailed around Russia this week in protests of Putin's policies is certainly a valid reason not to do anything that would put Putin (and maybe not even Russia) in a good light.

Others are boycotting because the NBC coverage focuses so heavily on American athletes and does not show the full event.  Or they are upset that it is such a media circus, which it certainly is.

Well, I gave this thing a lot of thought and I am watching the Olympics, or the events that interest me.

The athletes who have earned the right to compete are not showing support for Putin's bigoted policies.  I know that the American Olympic committee gave thought to boycotting the event, but just imagine  that you are an athlete who has devoted your life, training to be good enough to compete and then some bonehead comes out with an odious political statement.  Do you throw all that training away?   How about your parents who have paid for your coaches for all those years, expecting to see you on that medal stand at the Olympics?  It is certainly not their fault that Putin is a bigot (LOL..my fingers typed "that Bonehead is a bigot."   Maybe my fingers know better than I do!)

What about the athletes who are getting older and next year will probably be too old to be at the top of their game?  Do we punish them because of Putin and deprive them of their last shot at Olympic glory?

OK...how about the media hype.  The media will hype anything.   A state funeral will have its media hype, which shouldn't be blamed on the deceased.  Media hype is not the fault of the athletes.  It's the fault of the media (and those of us who buy the products advertised and give implicit permission for them to continue to hype it).  Because we are sick of the media hype does that mean the athletes don't deserve our support.

And then there is that TV coverage of it. I suppose some like it, some hate it.  I'm upset about some things that have been "cleaned up" on the political side of things in deference to concentrating on performers. But that should not have an impact on the performers themselves.  All those fresh young faces, so excited to just be a part of things

Some have said they are upset that we are covering only US athletes.   I don't know what that person has been watching.  Everything I have seen seems to offer lots of background and information on non-US performers.  No, they don't cover all of the athletes in some of the larger events, but they concentrate on the top 5 or so, whether they are US athletes or from some other country.  (Right now I am watching an American interview with the entire Russian skating team, including Evgeni Plushenko giving a big thank you to Putin.)

When I decided to watch the Olympics, I felt sort of guilty, especially after reading the reasons why people are boycotting them.  I did give up on the opening ceremonies, mostly because it was just downright boring and didn't hold my interest at all.  But when I gave it thought and  realized that the big story here is the athletes and not all the stuff surrounding it, then I allowed myself to wash away the guilt and just enjoy it.

So far it has been enjoyable watching it, and I'm so glad I got a chance to see little 15 year old Julia Lipnitskala's breathtaking solo program.

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Without giving anything away, I have to record that I was so rattlled by the end of tonight's episode of Downton Abbey that I very nearly went to Amazon.com to watch the next episode, which I know I can find there.  In my 60+ years of watching television, I don't ever remember being as affected by a plot point as I am with this one.

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It was November when I decided to sponsor a child through World Vision.  The child lives in a "sensitive area" and so we are cautioned not to publish either the name of our sponsored child or any photos.  I have been waiting all this time to get the first letter and yesterday something finally came.

It was not exactly exciting.  It's a stand-up thing you're supposed to fold into a figure you can put on your desk (if you can find room for it!).  It has the child's signature and "2014" on it.  That's it.   I hope that means that a real letter will be coming soon.