Skate

The olympics are over! Which really just means that I have now missed at least two olympic cycles with no proper TV, and therefore no ability to actually watch the figure skating. Because, guys, figure skating is awesome. When I was a kid I would pretend I was a skater, twirling around on the slick grass (AKA overgrown weeds) in our front yard at night, just the porch light on. I could never even stand upright on skates, and actually didn't really mind so much. The handful of times I even tried were all on school field trips. We took one trip to a roller skating rink and one to a super-ghetto ice skating rink per year. I steadfastly refused to actually *do* anything while I was there. For years. I would just sit in the stands and have a perfectly lovely time entertaining myself for several hours. I, mustering determination only slightly stronger than my omnipresent fear of failure, put on ice skates ONCE and oodged around the outside edge of the rink while holding on to the railing desperately. Yeah, that was enough of that. But I love watching the olympics. I think I am still slightly heartbroken that Timothy Goebel had to retire after only one medal. Looking at the videos now he looks so tiny and young! But at the time I could have just eaten him up! 12 years ago! I lived a totally different life in a totally different world 12 years ago.

The news coverage this year has been all Nancy Kerrigan v. Tonya Harding. All. The. Time. Which sort of cracks me up. I remember watching that year. I distinctly remember watching them do their free skate while I sat on my grandmother's bed with the other ladies of the family. The whole scandal had been EVERYWHERE for the past month, so everyone knew about it. But I was 12? It's not like I had an opinion. I had never seen either of them skate before. I remember feeling sort of dreadful for Harding, who skated like she was terrified and unprepared, and feeling utterly unimpressed with Kerrigan, who managed to medal (as far as I could tell) simply because everyone felt sorry for her. The girl who won gold was Russian and amazing, and she was wearing the ugliest costume on the planet. All fluffy maribou stuff to match her fluffly 90s hair.
It's weird the things you remember all of a sudden. Things that take you back to a different time and place. Green paint. A shelf of porcelain cat figurines. My little white leotard with pink rosettes just below the chin.

Gymnastics, etc

So, the Olympics. Anyone excited? I am not a sports person, but I will usually watch whatever Olympic event happens to be on, just for the hell of it. Though I am more of a Winter Olympics gal, really, for the figure skating. Do I think figure skating/ice dance is a sport? Not really, but it's certainly the only thing that interests me! I never claimed to be a sports fan. Anyway.
Because I don't have access to an actual TV anymore I have to put a certain amount of effort in to watching Olympic events, and that means I am not going to bother with anything that is boring. Like beach volleyball. Or whatever.
I am really only interested in things that are choreographed and musical. But, the only Summer event I could think of was ballroom dancing. And everyone knows that ballroom dancing is an Olympic event now, right? It's been the butt of every Olympic joke for YEARS. I couldn't recall ever seeing it listed on events calenders, so I went looking for it. Guess what? It isn't going to be an event this year. Because it has never been an event EVER. The Olympics committee okayed it, so it could theoretically be included, but it never has been and quite probably never will be. Geeze! How about that.
After a sad disappointment with Olympic fencing a few games back (it's actually super boring and no one even buckles their swash or anything) all I can think of that might be vaguely interesting and fit my above requirements is synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics. 
You know, rhythmic gymnastics, the thing with the ribbon that we all wanted to do SO BAD when we were five. Cuz it looked cool, right? And pooking around online brought me to this video, which is probably the closest thing to ballet you can get without any of the grace, beauty, or expressiveness:

Which is not to say that the girl hasn't got some mighty impressive business going on, here. It's technically really amazing. It's just... lacking the emotional prettiness of an actual ballet. Also, is anyone else super irked that her tutu isn't tacked tightly enough to keep it from flopping all around when she does those wacky back flip things? Tacking guns exist. Tacking guns are your friend.
I did go and look this gal up on YouTube, though. And there are some great videos of her doing the ribbon thing. No wonder every five year old girl in the 80's was excited about that! It's kind of distracting, though! Also: just watching that makes my wrist hurt.