Olympic Fever

It's an interesting phenomenon to me that every four years sports suddenly become very interesting to me. Normally, if I were flipping channels and came across, say, women's biathlon, I probably wouldn't linger more than a few seconds. Just long enough to get the gist; ski, ski, ski, stop, whip out a rifle, shoot at some small targets really far away, get penalized for each one you miss, then ski, ski ski some more. According to one of the commentators, men's biathlon in the Netherlands is the equivalent to the Super Bowl here. The weirdos.

Somehow, though, if it's for the Olympics, I find it all mesmerizing. I think it's the drama of it all. Every single one seems to either be the first to do something, be making some kind of record, or have some sort of huge travesty they've overcome. It's the only kind of reality TV I indulge in, and this year we are hooked.

I also find the commentators rather amusing. After awhile it seems like they run out of things to say about the event and even the athletes, but they seem conscious of the whole world tuning in and somehow have to fill the dead air. Poor guys. How much is there really to say about the ski jump? My favorite so far was during one of the qualifying ski jump events. During a lull one of the commentators spoke up, "You know, it's actually a pretty easy sport . . ." I'm sure that was pretty comforting to the guys who didn't qualify.

Brady has been teaching Ellie all kinds of important life lessons while we watch. Like how disappointed silver-medalists' parents really are in them, or that we don't cheer for Russian skater Evgeni Plushenko because "he wants to kill Harrison Ford in the movies."

He's also begun her training. We tried a little with ice skating her on the living room floor, and she shows some promise with trying to ski jump off my lap. Below is their prep for the luge. We've since added the boppy pillow as sled. On a good day of training, they get those floors pretty clean.