"You know, a lot of your liberal comrades don't like the Olympics because money is wasted on new infrastructure that ends up abandoned or unused and because the city is torn up and taken away from the people. And the people have to live under a sort of police state, not to mention that the poor and homeless are often displaced," I pointed out.
"It's good for the economy while it's there," Dan said. "Besides, I love the swimming races."
So it was settled. We would be spending four hours every night in front of the television and more on the weekends or if Dan had the day off. When the Olympics ended on NBC, he checked NBC Sports or MSNBC or CNBC or Bravo to see if those networks had any additional coverage.
Also, as Dan informed me, "They are streaming it live on the Internet, so you can watch it in real time, in the middle of the night even! It's kind of weird though because there's no announcer."
Last Saturday, I came home from the closing of Willy Wonka, Jr., a youth musical I had been music directing for the summer.
"I've been lazy," Dan confessed, "watching the Olympics all day."
The rowing competition was on at that moment, and Dan had absorbed all sorts of fun facts about the sport such as:
"The women on the rowing team eat 5000 calories a day. It's one of the Olympics' most strenuous sports. The track athletes told the rowers, 'You're in the wrong sport,' because it's such a hard event."
"You really would watch any Olympic event twenty-four hours a day if you could, wouldn't you?"
Later in the day, I overheard Dan as he read an advertisement on Facebook.
"'Is the Olympics inspiring you to get healthy?'" He answered the ad with, "No, it's inspiring me to sit on the couch."
At first, Dan was reluctant to even go on vacation. Unfortunately, the only time we could get away was right in the middle of the Olympics
"We were out of town during the Olympics four years ago," Dan lamented. Then he added with an sigh, "Swimming is the first week though."
Of course, Dan is not the only Olympic maniac in my family.
"This will be a tough two weeks of avoiding Olympic results," my brother posted the other day. "I will have to avoid Facebook, avoid turning on ESPN and seeing the scroll at the bottom, and even avoid making eye contact with my wife because she will already know all the results too!"
This makes my brother sound very busy, like he is someone who works so hard he has to record the Olympics and watch it in his spare time.
But as my sister-in-law explained, "He wants to avoid the results because London is nine hours ahead of us, so people can find out who won before it is televised."
Although four hours of television a night is not my idea of a good time, I let Dan be the attentive Olympic viewer while I blog or read or check Facebook . . . until women's gymnastics. Don't even think about interrupting my women's gymnastics.
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