Wednesday, February 10, 2010

 

Oh The People You Meet, When They're Flaming Down the Street


(with apologies to Sesame Street)

Today marked the day that the Olympians came flaming through our community, complete with honking cars, screaming school children and so forth. Despite my reservations (read: major opposition) to this whole Olympics thing going on, my daughter's school was going, and I figured it would be a good idea to go with her. I mean, this was the only time we were going to see this and it's not like my pointing out that while they're spending giant buckets of cash while we have people starving on our streets was going to make them slap their foreheads and say, "Dude, you're right! Thanks for telling us; we'll stop right away."

We stood at the side of the road waving little paper flags and shouting obscure cheers ("Eh, Oh, Canada Go" or some such nonsense) while endless cars paraded past. The flame finally came through, waved cheerily in the air by a completely-unrecognizable Karen Magnussen (to be fair, I don't think I'd seen her for 40 years), and about a minute later, the whole shebang was over.

I'm not entirely sure it was worth missing sleep for, however there you go. I've now got a little moment of history to share with Her Surreal Highness (who will have forgotten it in about six weeks).

I've now been up for over 24 hours and have to work again tonight, so tales of our trip to the farm (and mislabeled calves, confused goats and pissed-off geese) will have to wait while I catch up on my ugly sleep (yes, I'm so damned hot that beauty sleep is completely unnecessary, and instead I go for ugly sleep, just to even the field a little for mere mortals).

I have, however, managed to update my store a little (link on the sidebar to the left) and there are another six skeins of "SF3" and eight of "Aurora" available. I have a couple of other things I'm going to try to skein at work tonight (two skeins of a new colourway: Heart of Darkness, and some of the heavy sock yarn I had a month or two back. May not happen -- I'm busy knitting some samples and there's only so much I can get done while catering to the calls of the terminally confused (no rilly, you'd have thought there was a full moon or something last night) but I shall do my best.

And now, I think I'd better sleep before I do myself some sort of (further) injury. Off to dream of incendiary sporting events, my pretties ...

Comments:
There will always be starving people, but seeing folks running with burning sticks is something really special.
 
Isn't it amazing how anticlimactic those things can be? We went to the end of the Tour of California last year, and it was like whoosh!! There goes Lance, and Levi, and Christian!! And then it was over.
 
unless they've been run out of town, the homeless may have more people to beg from than usual. i mean, vancouver itself's a lovely place in warm weather, but not ordinarily a big winter destination, is it?

i well remember my first indy 500 start. i was working, not spectating, but my boss sent me out to watch the start from a privileged media spot in the infield. i'd been listening to the race most years since '51 (dudes, i'm OLD), and expected it to be really thrilling to see up close and personal.

zoom -- there goes the pace car. zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom and so on for 32 cars. meanwhile, the driver i'd drawn in the office pool, larry "boom boom" cannon, blew his engine on the backstretch and didn't even get to take the green flag.

on the way back to our cramped little photo-staff office, the words of an old peggy lee hit drifted through my head:

"is that all there is? is that all there is? if that's all there is, my friend, then let's keep dancing. let's break out the booze and have a ball, if that's all there is."

i worked races there two more years, but never bothered to watch the start again, and after seeing video of a fatal crash (footage the public never saw), i quit going out to the bigger press room to see the video feed.
 
From the Husbeast of Fiber Ninja:

I have heard tell of your disdain for all that the Olympics brings to Vancouver, but I think you are missing the point...

It is quite clear that the athletic competitions are really just a front for the real athletic "events" that take place nightly in the Olympic Village. If you doubt me, consider the number of condoms that are being provided to the "athletes". The Olympics are clearly a forum for the exchange of knowledge and techiniques across international boundries.

The next time a hot little athlete teaches you something new or takes you somewhere you've never been before, I have no doubt you'll be singing (literally) praises to the Olympics.
 
My MIL and Karen Magnussen's mother were best friends back in the 1940's, before MIL married an Amurcan and moved down here.
 
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