8/1/12 Sympathetic Couch Twitching for the Gold

What? Oh hey, Internets! Glad you found me. It's been radio silence over here lately because last week we took ZB on vacation for her first trip to the beach. We had a blast and I'll tell you all about it but first I have to edit some video. (Yes, it will be a multi-media presentation since ZB LOVES sand and she LOVES the water and she's just too darn cute to be limited to still photos).


(But first I have to cut out the random shots of my feet and the sky and then quickly back to my feet).


(And the two minutes that I thought the camera was off so you get a close up shot of my right nostril while you hear me say riveting things like, "This sand gets everywhere!" and "Hold on. I think there's some sun screen on the lens".)


(Obviously this is Emmy winning material).


But all that is coming later.  Right now I'm completely glued to my tv set as I bob and weave my way though the uneven bars routines from the comfort of my couch.  Ya'll, I am a total Olympics junkie.  Biking, swimming, synchronised diving, fencing, judo, beach volleyball, men and women's gymnastics...I've watched them all.  And I feel like I've competed in them all since apparently I cannot sit still while the US is competing.  I duck my head, I wave my arms, I tuck my legs up in time with the athletes.  Tony actually left the living room and went upstairs last night because he said that my "help" with Gabbie's dismount from the beam almost knocked him off the couch.


And in case you are also tucking and rolling with me, I'd like to recap some of my couch Olympics favorite and/or interesting moments:


1.  I'm bawling like a baby over the girls gymnastics. And not just over the All-American Jordyn Weiber fiasco. Not about them winning gold anyway.  Not even just for the Americans.  Just in general.  Something about these tiny girls trying so hard just gets me every time. They train and they train and they train and they are so small and strong and young and...I could just scoop up every one of them and give them a big hug.  Not that NBC is helping any with their constant back stories about how they had to move across country without their families to train with coaches that could get them to the Olympics. Swimming? I'm fine. Synchronized diving? Not so much as a sniffle. But these 16 year old girls flying through the air doing flips and leaps? I'm sobbing like I'm the one who just won or lost the gold. I don't know why they get me like they do.  I'm a blubbery mess.


2. Did you see where Great Britain's Bradley Wiggins won gold in the road cycling time trials?  I was feeding ZB breakfast at the time he was racing so I didn't get to watch/couch cycle with him, but I listened to it as I cleaned mashed banana up off the floor.  I'm glad he won.  I always root for the host nation if the US isn't in medal contention.  That goes double for Great Britain, since they always seem to come in 4th for everything. Plus I just like saying the name Bradley Wiggins.  It sounds so English, doesn't it?  Wiggins.  Like he's Paddington Bear's best friend or something.  


3. I read an article the other day that said that the organizers provide 100,000 condoms to the athletes in the Olympic village.  (Up from 70,000 at the Sydney games when they had to order another 20,000 when they ran out).  Apparently when you put 10,000 young, attractive, fantastically in shape and mostly unsupervised athletes under a lot of pressure together, they erm, find a way to get rid of that excess energy.  I guess some of that's to be expected, but 100,000?  That's a lot of excess energy.


4. So what the heck is going on between the sets for men's beach volleyball?  All these couples in swimsuits are waltzing around on the sand.  Like, literally waltzing.  I'm assuming it's some kind of weird halftime show?  Instead of cheerleaders or bands they have beach waltzing?  That cracks me up.  Those crazy Brits!


5. This doesn't have anything to do with this Olympics, but if you get a chance, read this article in the Atlantic about a gold medalist in the 1896 Olympics in Athens.  It's crazy how things have changed between then and now. 


6. Did you know that they used to have an Olympic swimming obstacle course race?  I'm not sure how they did it, (buoys? nets? underwater mines?) but I wish they still had it, because I think that would be awesome to watch.  I like to watch swimming, but sometimes it gets boring watching them just splash back and forth in their straight little lanes.  Let's put a ring of fire at the end that they have to jump through.  I'm thinking a cross between the 200 meter freestyle and that show Wipeout.  Get on that Olympic committee.


7.  Oh my goodness.  Did you see the Chinese synchronized diving?  Blew my mind.  How many hours and hours of training do you think that takes to be able to not only do a complex dive, but to do it exactly like someone else?  And the other teams get ready and go, "Okay on three.  One, two, three!"  The Chinese just stand on the end of the board and say one word, which I'm assuming is just "go".  And then they go.  Together.  Perfectly.  I kept jumping up and down and going, "Did you see that?!?  They even have identical water ripples!"  I tell you, these athletes blow my mind.  


I realize it's weird to stop on the number seven, but I can't think of any other Olympic moments right now.  If you have some, feel free to add them to the comments.  I'm sure there are some great ones that I've left out, but after staying up half the night to watch the Latvian underwater basket weaving team weave their reverse double-loop way to gold, my Olympic reflexes are a little fuzzy.