better than ice cream

Not that I make resolutions, but I have been pretty lax with my exercise regime for the past 17 days. Watching the Olympics will do that to you. Well, to me anyway.

I've been living vicariously through these athletes, watching them glide at dizzying speeds feet and head first down an icy slide, skating up and down a rink and taking shots on goal and, my personal favourite, whipping around that slick short track ice with legs burning. Seriously, all that activity really got my heart racing.

Add to that all the jumping up and down, screaming with fists clenched and running back and forth between the living room and the kitchen every time I heard the announcers ask, will it be a new world record?! and I must have burned a few hundred calories (not that I'm counting). You?

All told, it was the best Olympics ever. Ev-er. Canada won 14 gold medals, making us the most successful nation at the Olympic Winter Games. Go Canada Go!

And my favourite moment? Seeing Charles Hamelin win the gold and watching his love Marianne St-Gelais jump the barriers to get to him. There goes my heart again...

This was an ice cream moment if ever I saw one and I was without. Boooo... Instead, I clasped my hands together, cooed and cocked my head to one side like a dippy, lovesick teenager. They could have played that over and over and I'd never get sick of watching. It was an ooey gooey moment and I loved every ooey gooey moment of it.

Life should be filled with more of those don't you think?

whine and geez

When the boys all get together, alcohol consumption and pick-a-carb-any-carb activities rise quickly. While I am happy not to be part of this gross display of manliness, I will miss the moment when all 5'2" of me gets to stand up and yell at 6'-somethings: Simmer down! I said, simmer down!

Festivities will begin with wine, bread, cheese, cold meats and stuffed olives.

It's their show of civility before the truth of their get-together surfaces.

When that time comes -- and it's usually as dinner begins -- the wine will turn into beer, bread and cheese will turn into several pounds of potatoes and (I'm guessing) broccoli, and the cold meats will turn into 8-oz. steaks. The olives will remain intact.

All of this will go on during today's Olympic Super Sunday. It's Canada vs. the US in men's hockey, so this means the testosterone levels will be exponentially higher than usual. And the alcohol has a way of making them deaf, thus prompting them to yell all communications in each others' presence:

"OFF SIDE! THAT WAS OFF SIDE! FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD, I CAN SEE IT FROM HERE! OFF SIDE!" 

"WHERE IS MY BEER? IS THAT MY BEER? WHO TOOK MY BEER?" 

"PENALTY! PENALTY SHOT! IS THERE ANY SALAMI LEFT? PENALTY SHOT, MAN!" 

"PASS THE OLIV... GOALIE INTERFERENCE! DID YOU SEE THAT? GOALIE INTERFER... I DON'T WANT OLIVES. WHAT ARE YOU GIVING ME OLIVES FOR?"

So while their evening will consist of filling themselves with various foodstuffs and yelling maniacally at the television and each other -- fun, I know -- mine will consist of watching this hockey battle on my own terms. I will whoop it up with a yummy helping of shrimp and veggie orzo and a glass of wine and, better still, in what is sure to be a gas-free zone.

These boys, that broccoli and this hockey battle? It's a combination I know I can't handle.

world war beef

Tonight, Canada's Olympic Men's Hockey Team is playing Switzerland. The announcer said we would be "exacting our revenge" against them. Revenge? Really? 

In between stuffing himself full of crackers and goat cheese, Mr. Man wonders why revenge is even necessary against a neutral country. We weren't doing battle against them in either of the World Wars. Where's the beef? It's here, apparently, and it's hockey beef -- the juiciest kind. 

So in celebration of this event, Mr. Man has made hamburgers and potato wedges for dinner. I don't quite get the connection, but it's a night free of cooking for me so I'll take it. And in typical meat-eating man style, these burgers are Olympic sized. I tried to flatten them a bit before taking a bite, as my first attempt messily showed me I'm not quite the big mouth I sometimes know I can be.

[uh oh, Switzerland just cut our lead in half]

Dinner was consumed fairly quickly -- pub grub at home often is -- and now Mr. Man has moved on to a beer, firmly cementing himself into a corner of the couch.

But my favourite part of the evening is not the sound of oohing and aahing at the shots on net. It's not even that dinner was made for me. It's the squeaking of the coffee table during the plays. Mr. Man plants his foot on a corner of the coffee table when he's watching hockey, and his knees and ankles twitch as if he's actually skating in the game. I don't even think he knows he does this, but I find it endearingly funny.

Now if only I could train him to unconsciously make those dish scrubbing and rinsing motions and lead him to the kitchen sink more often.

[yikes. Switzerland just tied it up]

much ado

Too many do's on my to-do list this weekend.

I had planned to do some grocery shopping, visit the parental units and get my laundry done. The Winter Olympics are also on and apparently so is NHL hockey. And there's a giant bag of petrified brown sugar still sitting on the kitchen counter that was intended to be used for a batch of ginger molasses cookies ...

Multi-tasker? Sure. Executioner? Not so much.

Well, I did the grocery shopping on the way to the parents and watched some Biathlon while I was visiting. Next time, I'll start the laundry as soon as I get home, while scanning the channels to see how Canada is competing. And I'll only buy the sugar the day of or day before I actually intend to bake, so that I can roll those perfect little balls of dough while the rinse and spin cycles are running.

Although, breaking for a dark chocolate or two and a glass of red wine is okay. It is Valentine's Day, after all.