Why I Hate the Winter Olympics

When the Seattle Seahawks annihilated the Denver Broncos earlier this month in the Super Bowl, among other things it meant that self-proclaimed “Football Widows” received their spouses back until training camps begin over the summer. What I personally didn’t anticipate was becoming a Sports Widower myself less than a week later.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I’m a big sports fan. I’m also a long-suffering one as I grew up a Cleveland sports fan. If you’re not a sports fan, I can best explain being a Cleveland sports fan like being the punchline in a nightmare. Anything that could go wrong inevitably does in the most publically embarrassing way. But I’ve grown to live with that. And now that I live on the West Coast with two young sons I seldom make time to sit through many games these days that aren’t Go Fish.  

So how did I come to find myself in the position of asking my non-sports fan wife approximately every 15 minutes every night for the last 2 weeks “is this almost over?” Two words: Winter Olympics.

Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t be any more pro-American if I had a pet Bald Eagle named Uncle Sam. I just can’t get into the Winter Olympics, no matter how half-heartedly I try. As I mentioned, I grew up in the Midwest, about 20 minutes from a place where I could have gone skiing every winter for 20+ years and opted to never do so. Intentionally. Unlike Elsa from Frozen, the cold always bothered me anyway.

Over the decade-plus my wife and I have been together, I’ve tried watching some of the Winter Olympic Games with her. However, beyond that I have a hard time recognizing it as a sport, spending time watching sequined couples “Ice Dancing” just doesn’t do it for me.

From what I’ve seen the primary objective of at least half of the Winter Olympic events could be listed as “not dying”. Hell, there’s a sport where the “athlete” lies face down on a tiny metal sled going 80+mph down a curvy icy chute, which is actually called “Skeleton”. Foreshadowing much?

This Skeletoner is laying still like a corpse.
How is this a sport?

Then there’s the Biathlon which combines that natural duo of skiing and shooting a rifle which so many people seemingly do every day. I’d call that Polar Military Training before I’d call it a sport. What about Cross Country, which most people who live in cold weather places refer to as “walking on snow”.

And don’t even get me started on Curling, a “sport” which my housekeeper could likely medal in based on her expert-level proficiency at removing piles of Cheerios from the floor with a broom.

As if their "sport" didn't make them look silly enough...

I was sitting with my wife the other night while she watched the 1^st of something like 86 rounds of some skiing event and kept hearing the announcers mention Rosa Khoutour, which I assumed was some sort of Russian fashion brand. Turns out it’s a mountain. Who would have known?

The centerpiece of the Winter Olympics is always the Figure Skating events, and those have eaten up a big chunk of my TiVo for the last 10 nights. No interest. I didn’t even like Blades of Glory and that starred Ron Burgundy and Napoleon Dynamite, two of the funniest dudes from the last decade.

Part of my ancestry actually stems from Russia and I still couldn’t be less interested in a “Homeland vs. Birthland” story line if NBC created one specifically about me, like the packages they show about athletes suffering from hangnails, misplaced iPhones and other tragedies.

The truth is that the most interesting part of the Olympic coverage to me so far has been Bob Costas’ Pink Eye, which would be a great name for a punk-rock band. Bob’s Oozing Oculars (another good band name) has kept me wondering what kind of medical attention he’s getting that he couldn’t work at an event he’d probably be preparing 6 months to a year in advance for. Who is his MD, Dr. Frankenstein?

The good news is that the games will be over in a few more days and I’ll get 4 glorious sequin-less years until they resume. How long until baseball season begins?

Dude Got A New Suit

Hey gang,

In addition to all the fun we have here on Dude of the House, I am now contributing to the great Draft Day Suit blog. I'll be writing posts that are sure to win at least a couple Pulitzer prizes, in order to keep the wonderful webmistress Sarah happy.

Here's a link to my first piece, written from the perspective of the bitter Cleveland fan that I am.

Check it out and make sure to bookmark Draft Day Suit.

Thanks!

Goodbye Blue Sky

In light of the recent tragedy at Chardon High School, I feel a pain that is difficult to truly express.  As a parent it’s hard to fathom that something like that could happen at any time and place to my innocent child. As someone who spent a considerable amount of time in Chardon while growing up, it’s just plain shocking.

It’s no secret that ours is a crazy world.  Incidents and accidents happen every day that unexpectedly and permanently separate loved ones.  Even though these situations are not preventable, they are no less tragic.

When T.J. Lane approached a table of random students in his school cafeteria last week and opened fire, he unexpectedly changed the course of countless lives. And not just the lives of his victims and their families, either.  The effects of his actions will have repercussions for decades to come. What if one of those three kids who died was the person who was ultimately going to cure cancer? Or become President?  How will the parents and siblings of these teens be affected by their loss for the rest of their lives?  

As my Little Dude is only 2, he is pretty much with either me or my wife 99% of the time.  But we are looking into pre-schools for him and it’s a scary thought.  I can’t fathom him being away from both of us, even if it’s only for a few hours each day.  Because once he is out of sight, I won’t be able to protect him and that’s really the ultimate mission of parents. 

T.J. Lane was charged with aggravated murder and has already admitted shooting his classmates and will be tried as an adult, so he’ll likely be locked up for a long time if not the rest of his life.  But sadly at 17, his life is already over, which is a tragedy unto itself.   It makes me wonder if this tragedy could have been prevented.  Did his parents, teachers, siblings and friends (if he had them) really miss all the warning signs? How did he get a gun and bullets?  I’m sure this will all be revealed during the course of his trials, but we’ll probably never really know the real motivation.

So why did this story affect me more than others?  The news was especially shocking to me because whenever you hear about these situations it’s usually somewhere else far away. If you live in Florida, it’s in Idaho. If you’re in Wyoming, it’s in Virginia, etc. Yes, I live in California, but I grew up in Northeastern Ohio and spent many amazing summers going to camp in Chardon.

Chardon was always a sleepy town at the end of a long two-lane road, known primarily for its maple syrup.   It’s not far from Cleveland, but not around the corner either.  My memories of Chardon include a perfectly blue sky during the day time and a million stars at night.  It was a magical place and I am lucky to still have friends that I made there 25+ years ago.  Some that I talk to regularly, some only occasionally via Facebook. Regardless, they are part of a large support system that I’ve been very lucky to have. People I could talk to when problems arise, or when I’m feeling down.  It’s tragic that T.J. Lane didn’t have that and as a result Chardon will never be the same.  

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Life Is But A Dream

Ninety years ago this week a man named Christian Nelson changed the world. Or at least made it tastier. You probably don’t know him by name, but you probably know his creation: The Eskimo Pie. On January 24, 1922 Mr. Nelson patented the Eskimo Pie, a block of ice cream covered in chocolate and wrapped in silver foil.  My grandmother loved Eskimo Pies. I guess it’s a small coincidence that she was born the next day.  

My grandmother was born 90 years ago this week.  Grandma Fran always claimed she was “born on the boat” on the way to America from Eastern Europe. She arrived in Northeastern Ohio before the Great Depression and still lives there today.

My grandmother has always been a fighter. She raised three children as a single working mother in the 1950s, long before it was commonplace.  She fought for advanced medical treatment when her oldest child, my mother, was born with a rare heart defect.  Then saw her through a complicated open-heart surgery long before it was made to look routine by the surgeons at Seattle Grace.  

For reasons beyond my control, Grandma Fran is the only grandparent I ever really knew.  And I knew her well. She always lived very close to my family when we were growing up and we saw her regularly.  When my parents had obligations or business trips, she stayed to watch my brother, sister and me. 

She never claimed to be a gourmet cook and could burn a steak like nobody’s business, but she always tried. She was there whenever we needed her.  If we called, she answered. Her life was her family. She unselfishly took care of her own mother until she passed away in her 90s.  

GF became a grandparent in her late 40s and enjoyed every minute of it for decades. She was an adventurer who loved to just pick up and go somewhere like Florida or Las Vegas on the spur of the moment. But she was also a creature of habit that ate lunch at the same place almost daily for many years.  Now she is a creature of habit for reasons beyond her own control.

Several years ago my grandmother started suffering from dementia.  Through no fault of her own, she was robbed of the independence that had been her trademark for decades.  Whereas she used to do what she wanted whenever she wanted, now she lives in a nursing facility among others who’ve been dealt the same unfortunate hand.  Now she has breakfast, lunch and dinner at fixed times while sitting in the same seat at the same table.  Her food is assigned, as is her dining companion. 

Since I live 2,000 miles away, I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like. But just before every time I do see her, I wonder if she’s fallen deeper into her own thoughts. I wonder if she’ll recognize me or even after I tell her who I am, if it means anything in her brain.  She always smiles when she sees me but I wonder if she still remembers taking me to Disneyworld when I was 11. Or taking me to Arizona to experience spring training when I became a baseball nut as a 13 year old.  She wasn’t an especially devoted sports fan but knew I was. It was just another selfless deed she performed in a lifetime of them.   

I’m lucky that BC has gotten to spend some time with my Grandmother when we’ve been in Cleveland.   I’m fortunate to have videos and pictures of every time they’ve been together over the last couple of years.  Just as she smiles when she sees me, she lights up when she sees my son.  She always offers a gentle caress of his arm and a smile. On a couple occasions she’s shared a few words even though it’s obviously not easy for her. For even though she resides in her own world now, she is still giving everything she can to her family. 

Grandma Fran meeting BC for the first time.

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