Oh look, it’s time for me to grab a couple Oreos, put my feet up, and watch unbelievably remarkable feats of athleticism on TV. Gotta love the Olympics. After the first five minutes, my guilt about curling up comfy & cozy under a blanket while those crazy people risk life and limb to prove they are the best, fades… after all, we each make our own choices, right? And, let’s face it, those athletes are not normal people. They are, with all due respect, freaks of nature.
Oh, sure, those cute ads during the commercial breaks about “you can make your dreams come true if you drink milk” tug at the heart strings, and “if you believe in it, you can make it happen” is motivational. But I’m sorry, these athletes are not like the rest of us. I mean, really… with each Olympics, the bar of amazement and perfection raises higher. The competitors are in a level of peak physical condition the majority of us will never even get close to experiencing or working hard enough to reach. Beyond that, these people have seemingly no fear — only drive, passion and a ridiculous amount of energy. Even more incredible is the number of them who have come back after accidents, injuries and trauma to do it all over again. “Yeah, ok, so I’ve torn my ACL three times, but what the heck, I feel better now, so let me go speeding down that mountain again.” While the rest of us mere mortals would be all “Nah, I’m good, I’ve got a nice spot on the couch.”
I’ve noticed something else this year too. They are all beautiful. Come ON. Just look at these people:
and of course, there’s this guy:
As if all that isn’t enough, for the most part they all seem to be really nice. In interviews and in comments before and after their events, they all seem excited, grateful and although confident, not snobby. They are tweeting cute and funny things about being hangry. Oh, I’m sure there are a few tremendous ego’s among them. Can we blame them? How could you NOT develop an ego when you are young, gorgeous, a world-class athlete, with lucrative offers of sponsorships and celebrity endorsements being offered, and – oh yes, you may just be one of the tiny fraction of the population who happens to have a large gold medal hanging around your neck.
So here the rest of us sit, watching these athlete superhero’s cavort around on mountains, ice and in the air, making us feel even more normal and regular and… well, real than ever. A couple of years ago, during the summer Olympics, I posted some thoughts about some activities that I thought we RW’s excel in on a regular basis that could be our own Olympic events. Once again, now as I watch Chloe Kim fly 10 feet in the air on her snowboard, and Mirai Nagasu land a nearly impossible spinning jump while on skates, I ponder our great successes.
What if medals were awarded for events like the Multiple Grocery Bag Carry as we struggle with bringing bags in from the car, or the Kitchen Speed Clean after dinner? How about the Balance and Agility Course between laundry area and bedroom? Then there’s the Mind Like A Steel Trap trials as R.W.’s everywhere remember birthdays, school permission slips and what to thaw for dinner all while tracking deadlines at work. The follow up event to that is the Multiple Pet or Child Household Feeding Program. And my favorite, the bonus round for extra points, the 60 Minutes or Less Workout . Those pro’s may be skating or skiing the equivalent of five marathons, but we pull off an astonishing few minutes on a treadmill followed by ten whole sit-ups. Darn remarkable.
As for looking like some sort of Sports Illustrated Cover Model, well, we’ll leave that to the Special Ones we are watching on NBC. We show our pride in ourselves for each day that we manage to wear matching socks, underwear that’s not falling apart, a blouse that looks somewhat ironed, and on top of it all, pull off a good hair day.
We all deserve gold, silver and bronze medals for our own Olympic events. We too deserve to have some sort of bling we can wear to show how outstandingly regular, normally human, and amazing we all are.
I do recognize, however, that I need to rethink my planned Medal Ceremonies. I keep eating the medallions.
I went to the bank at lunch time today. Yes, I actually went inside to interact with real humans to conduct my withdrawal and deposit business instead of pushing buttons on the ATM machine. Ever since our debit cards were compromised, I’ve gone back to my “old school” ways and have opted for human contact. It’s remarkably pleasant to be greeted by a friendly face, be able to verbally explain what I need done, and walk away feeling confident that my identity was not stolen.
Ahhh, the allure of cute winter fashion. As temperatures drop, snow falls, and days get shorter, we create images in our minds of looking adorable and festive in our trendy outerwear. We imagine looking, well, like this model. All matchy-matchy, smiling, stylish, happy and not the least bit cold. Because, after all, she’s decked out in her Lands End or LL Bean gear. She’s warm and beautiful.
Stuffed into any variety of winter gear until we look like we weigh 30 more pounds than we really do, causing us to walk like a penguin, and the only skin that is showing is red and chapped, and our eyes and nose are running. True Cover Girl material.
It’s been there, waiting. Behind closed doors, lurking. Conveniently ignored most days, yet silently beckoning for attention. It is…our home office closet. Or, more appropriately named, The Place Where Stuff Gets Shoved Away. A depository for a bizarre mix of buried treasure – everything from a few old toys and games my son played with in his youth alongside early school projects, to formal dresses and suits hung in protective covers, a whole box of various DVDs and CDs, stationery and envelopes, files that wouldn’t fit in the file drawer, stuff cleaned out of my old work desk, a cassette boom box – and oh, look, there’s even some fluffy bird-like marionette puppet tangled and hanging in the corner.
When I was a young girl, like most other children, I hated going to the dentist. In those days there were very few, if any, Pediatric Dentists… just family dentists who did basically the same work on everyone from small children up to senior citizens. There were no cute stuffed animals or toys in the lobby, no pretty pictures on the ceiling to gaze at, no funky sunglasses to put on. I do remember the hideous — and to me, terrifying — cat clock that hung on the wall, it’s eyes and tail twitching and ticking with every doomed minute of my time in the chair – glaring at me, smirking at my fear and pain. I remember virtually nothing about the dentist himself. In my mind he was some kind of ominous dark, serious, old male figure ready to inflict some sort of dental torture. In reality, I didn’t really need to have massive work done as a child other than an occasional cavity or tooth to be pulled… and that scary dentist was probably some young man fresh out of medical school, for all I know. Any truly major work I had done was later in life, like the removal of wisdom teeth (I remember being fascinated that I woke up in a different room than I started, wondering how I got there), nearly three years of braces, and various crowns and root canal issues.
A friend sent me a card some time ago that showed a woman standing at a store counter, a sign hanging above her that read Exchanges. She was requesting an exchange to get her old body back. I can totally relate.
Well, my dear R.W. friends, we are in the home stretch. Christmas is just a few days away, which means all of our frenetic warp-10 level preparations must soon come to an end. We know the holiday is almost here, not because of the calendar, not because of the 24/7 Christmas music in every store, not even because of the number of doors open on our advent calendars. We know simply because we are reaching our annual level of exhaustion and backache.
Most days the thrill of going to the mailbox has been replaced with a sense of tedium. For the majority of the year, opening that little door reveals junk mail and bills. Half of it goes in the recycling bin, the other half goes in the ugh-gotta-pay-this pile. Gone are the days when we used to write letters to each other, or send nice notes just because. Let’s face it, the outside of the box may be decorated with a seasonal wrap — or if you are in Florida, the whole box may be in the shape of a manatee – but inside is a dark and boring pile of blah. Until December. Now I’m like an excited kid eager to open that door (or more accurately, send my husband out in the cold to fetch the contents). Sure, the junk mail and bills keep coming, but mixed in, like some sort of old-school traditional treasure hunt, are holiday cards.
As children, we are filled with wonder at how Santa could possibly fit toys and gifts for all good girls and boys into just one sack. Surely that bag must be magic and bottomless. And for him to be strong enough to sling it over his shoulder? We kids start to believe that the cookies he eats must be filled with super strong-man protein.
As women, when we enter various life stages and age ranges, we do so with flair and celebration. Becoming a teenager is exciting yet hormone and drama ridden, and the world is ours to conquer. Going into our 20’s is a major rite of passage, ushering in our young adult years. Moving into the third (and in my humble opinion, best) decade is a fun combination of being young enough to have fun yet learning how to “adult”. The 40’s are for some reason a major milestone, requiring surprise parties and festivity as we pretend-groan about being “old.” After that, however, the transitions get a bit more muddy.
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