8.21.2008

Warning: this Olympic-themed post does NOT mention Bob Costas' hair

So La Dolce Vespa will be broadcasting live from Seattle next week. Said trip to Seattle will represent a welcome reprieve from the daily grind as well as the Olympics-watching that has consumed my life for the past, uh… as long as I can remember. As for the daily grind, this will be my first entire week off work in two and a half years, and I am looking forward to it. As for the Olympics, I have no idea how I got so into watching them, as I don’t remember catching a single second of the Athens games. I recently bought a much larger television, and I’m pretty sure the 555 extra lines of video it provides has enabled Bob Costas to hypnotize me into watching entire marathons, synchronized diving and, say, women’s weightlifting. The other day I actually yelled “Show us the stro-mo!” Out loud. Who does that?! I even got a little teary the first three hundred times I saw the Derek Redmond VISA ad. And I never tear up at anything media-related, especially commercials. I specifically remember watching Old Yeller at school as a child and rolling my eyes at the end while all the other kids were bawling their brains out.

So the biggest problem with the summer Olympics is that it is hard to get anything done while they are going on. Thank you, oh glorious IOC, for only holding them every four years—although an even five might be better. The second biggest problem with the summer Olympics is that if you watch enough of them, they tend to make you feel like an unaccomplished, out-of-shape loser. After a while, it starts to seem as if everyone is breaking world records and winning buckets of gold medals—everyone, that is, except you. It was with this sense of overwhelming defeat that I began to research what Olympic sport was best suited for a thirty-two year old woman who had never been especially athletic. Said research has culminated in my decision to take up archery. See you in London, Zhang Juanjuan.

But the Olympics aren’t all bad. They sure beat anything else on the late summer television lineup, with the possible exception of Project Runway. There was one segment with Mary Carillo that featured a bunch of baby pandas, which was cool. And if you, like me, struggle with the occasional body-image issue, I might suggest watching a little women’s weightlifting (+75 kg). It’s good for the soul.

But with all due respect to Messrs. Phelps and Bolt, I have no doubt that their recent accomplishments will soon be trumped by one man’s brave willingness to part ways with his esophagus. Go Pdaddy!