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Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2002 - 7:42 p.m. - A Little of This and That
Shame on me! It’s been far too long since I wrote my last entry. I vowed to write at least 4 entries a week, and I think I’d been doing a pretty good job of that until this last week. Quite frankly I just got super busy. Between being a social butterfly and this fatigue I still have, not to mention the Olympics, I’m afraid my journal has taken a back seat. Have I mentioned yet in this journal how much I love the Olympics?? Especially the Winter Olympics! There is just something that I love about the international competition and yet the feeling of camaraderie that seems to also come with the Olympics. Perhaps that is the case in sports in general, but I’m not a big sports fan. Heck, I’m not a sports fan at all, so I wouldn’t know. But for those few weeks every 4 years (actually every two years now that they’ve staggered the Summer and Winter Olympics) I love to watch the drama that plays out in the various sports. The Winter Olympics have a special place in my heart for a few reasons. For one, one of my earliest memories of watching the Olympics must have been the Winter Olympics in 1976 in Innsbruck with my family. Each night during the Olympics we would eat dinner then my parents would clean up while we children got changed into our pjs and then we would all crawl into my parents bed together and watch the Olympics. It had special meaning to my parents since they were being held in a German speaking country and they showed many of the sites and talked about the culture as well. I think my parents were still a little homesick for Europe even then, so they still enjoyed seeing broadcasts from ‘home.’ Anyway, I just remember feeling warm and safe and all cozy snuggled in bed with the whole family and sharing in the triumphs and tribulations of the athletes each evening. Then in 1984, I was a senior in high school (yes, it has almost been 20 years since I graduated) and very much into the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. Those are the Olympics I remember most vividly. I followed all the articles and kept a whole folder of information on all the athletes but most of all on Scott Hamilton! I had a huge crush on him. I was so “into” Scott Hamilton. My one regret is that I never did get to see him skate in person. I still admire him and think he must be a wonderful person. Of course, Scott won the gold medal in 1984, so this girl was quite happy with the results. Besides that, a lot of athletes from Washington State participated that year – Bill Johnson, Phil and Steve Mahre – so there was a lot of excitement surrounding those Olympics. Anyway, so now that the Olympics are on, you’ll know what I’ll be doing each night – I’ll be planting myself on my behind on the couch enthralled with sports that normally would never interest me and often cheering for the underdog! So Friday Michael passed his his last MCP exam and got his MCSE!!! To celebrate he wanted to go to a movie, and he wanted to see Ah-nold’s Collateral Damage, so that’s what we did. I’m not much into those kinds of flicks, but it was his day and what he wanted to do. Then that evening I left him to his own devices and went to Spinster Dinner where we also watched the Opening Ceremonies together. Quite enjoyable. The next day, Michael tromped off to yet another exam (one he didn’t have to take, but decided to take for, as he put it, shits and grins). Thankfully he passed! So he got another feather in his MCSE cap! In the meantime I went to lunch with a dear friend and had an enjoyable afternoon with her. Of course following this I was completely exhausted and ended up taking a long nap! Sunday we went to the Flower and Garden Show. The first time I ever went and it was quite interesting. We took a few pictures of things that interested us, but lack of income squelched any buying impulses we might have had (not a bad thing). Of course, returning from that, I took a nap and then watched the Olympics! Yesterday was Michael’s 32nd birthday. We didn’t do too much, but I baked Michael his favorite chocolate cake. For two weeks I’d been bugging him to tell me what he wanted me to make him for dinner and even yesterday he still didn’t know what he wanted. Finally at around noon, he decided he’d really like this Thai duck my SIL had made us at Christmas time. Of course, I had no duck, had no clue what the ingredients were (my Thai SIL didn’t even know what some of them were in English – which makes it difficult to buy them, let alone ask for them at an Asian market), and would have to run around half of Seattle to find all the ingredients. Needless to say, I was not about to start making a duck. This caused a bit of tension in our household (Michael : “Well, you asked what I wanted for dinner for my birthday.”), but in the end I sent Michael to the grocery store to get a few items, and while there he decided he wanted fajitas for dinner, so that issue was solved. My parents and sister came over to sing Happy Birthday and eat cake with us and shower Michael with presents, so I think it ended up being a pretty good birthday for him in the end. So that’s what I’ve been up to. That, and watching the Olympics!
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