When Your Life Revolves Around the Olympics

I am married to an Olympics junkie.

My husband, Dan, does not sleep for two weeks when the Olympics are on. This winter, he has been watching everything, even the weird stuff.

Curling? Scoot that round stone thing down the ice at painstakingly slow speeds with a broom and stick thingy.

Luge? Who cares if people have died doing this? Go ahead and race down an ice track on your back.

Biathlon? (I know Boise had a local competitor in this event, but . . .) Skiing and shooting? That's just strange, but it does sound like an Idahoan's dream sport.

I came home from a workshop yesterday to find that Dan had been watching the Olympics for eight hours straight.

"I was only going to record the ones I wanted to watch this year, but I ended up recording the whole thing," he said with a sigh.

And when he says "the whole thing," he even means the special interest stories about nesting dolls and the girl who found the Russian parents who gave her up for adoption twenty years ago.

Our decision to watch this Olympics this time around was not without controversy.

"We should boycott these Olympics, considering Putin's human rights record," I mentioned a few weeks ago.

Dan grunted.

So instead of standing strong with Pussy Riot, I've been practicing "twizzles" around the house. (Twizzle is the best word in the world.)

Then, in the midst of my twizzling, Dan saw the pairs skating move where the guy throws the girl sideways above his head and she flips around a couple of times mid-air and he catches her (we hope).

"We should try that!" Dan said, and he chased me around the house until I was able to get into a room with a lockable door.

Of course, the Olympics have reminded us of something that Dan and I don't really want to think about . . . we're not getting any younger. It doesn't help that the commentators keep talking about the mid-thirtyish athletes who are too old for their sports.

Last night, Dan turned off the T.V. and said, "This is the first Olympics where feel like I related to the old guys."

Oh well, I guess you can't dream of someday riding a half pipe in the Olympics forever.

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