Olympic proportions

It's amusing to hear about the 2010 Olympics being referred to as 'jinxed' and 'cursed' and full of glitches.The Cauldron made me laugh, because it reminded me of "Spinal tap" when the pod refused to open on stage and the Stonehenge was only 18 inches high, instead of 18 feet. The fence was another miss, but at least a repair was swift and organized.

But have we forgotten the disaster of Atlanta? I recall stories about horrendous screwups regarding transportation,, scheduling and inept employees. Not only spectators, but journalists who covered were given bad direction and had to rely on gand braindead, inefficient employees who were unable to follow instructions because most of them were probably in written form. Journalists never arrived to events they were supposed to cover and some left in disgust.

Then there was the searing heat. Heat is always an issue in summer games: Mexico city, los angeles, athens..but those are, as they say, DRY heats. There's a reason it's called Hot 'Lanta. If you can't handle the oppressive humidity, you will suffer, but even more so if you're just sitting in it. Spectators had to be sprayed with water in the pitiless afternoon sun,where there was no shade. The horses began to suffer. (Of course, that was also a problem in Beijing, where the triathletes cooked like shrimp in a 27 degree water.) But when Atlanta bid for the games, they said their average annual temperature was 72 degrees. That means 90 in the summer and 50 in the winter.

Homeless residents (mostly black) were chased out of the area, so as not to scare off tourists and guests. However, a white trash lunatic managed to set off an explosive device, then fled and disappeared for 5 years. Obviously, Munich didn't have much of a lasting legacy.

And Lake Placid was plagued with similar transportation problems. Americans seem to have problems with public transportation. Unless it involves massive amounts of cars, it's beyond their scope.

I had a feeling all along that weather would be a problem and thought that Vancouver was possibly the dumbest place on earth for the winter Olympics, even with Whistler. As for the snow, I had a sort of premonition that this would happen. I remembered that Calgary, affected by warm chinook weather did have some snow problems as well.

Quebec city still has plenty of snow and perfect snow making temperatures, but it's not hard to understand why Quebecers would not want to take a dive into yet another Olympic toilet.

Oh, what a relief it is.

I just got over a horrendous bout of a flu-like virus. For the better part of a weekend I did little else besides sleep. I could eat almost nothing and was so weak, I could barely make it up the three steps to my front door to get the mail. I went through four boxes of Kleenex and generally felt as if I had aged in dog years.

When I was a child, being sick meant staying home from school and watching TV, eating my mother's chicken soup and reading my favorite books if I was well enough to concentrate.

No more, however. These days, according to ads for cold medicines, a cold and fever shouldn't prevent you from getting out and conquering the elements.. 'I won't let a cold or fever stop me!' says one superwoman, who rises from her sickbed to go kayaking. It's not enough to just feel well enough to get out of bed. No, we should be conquering Mount Washington, deep sea diving and being lowered into glaciers like Dr Agassiz.

Same for children. One poor mopey child in another ad, sits forlornly in front of a piece of paper. Alas, she's unable to be creative because she's got a cold, but give her decongestant and she's painting pictures again. God forbid the kid should get one day where she just lies in bed.

Adults need to get back to work, so a good decongestant makes sense. But do we need to risk bronchitis by climbing the polar ice cap? and do kids REALLY need to be creative when they have a cold? are they somehow slacking off if they don't take one lousy day off to watch tv and eat chicken soup?

Finally a week later I'm capable of going to the gym. A whole week and no glacier climbing. I'm a failure as a sick person.

The eyes have it

I am going in for laser eye surgery in early February. I would gladly have done this years ago, but it's just now at my advanced age that I can afford it, alas. I remember the interchange from Goodbye Columbus, where Neil tells spoiled Brenda, "Why don't you get your eyes fixed?" This was 1963? Getting your eyes fixed was probably on the same sci fi level as going to work in a jet-pack.

Aside from the good old fashioned vanity, it's really the convenience: no more stupid contact lenses when I want to go to the gym, or cycling. N0 more glasses fogging up in winter. No more contact lens solutions. No more having to put on cheap reading glasses over my lenses to see small print.

I will still need my reading glasses. Everyone else says, I like your glasses. They also always have perfect vision. I quote Brenda Patimkin, "Break the goddam things. I hate them." But even spoiled Brenda coudn't get her eyes fixed.

Now that I've ignored this blog, will it start acting out in school?

I was sick a couple of weeks ago (a cold, not Swine flu) and had the opportunity to do nothing but lie around and watch tv. A real treat, but it provided me with some valuable insights.

- The Palm Pre girl looks like a giant embryo.

- I don't get One Tree Hill. Maybe it's a generation thing, but The kids in it are so middle-aged. All they want to do is get married and have kids. I'm cooler than they are! Guys in their teens don't want to get married and have kids. They want to have sex. While it's admirable that they don't depict kids as dropouts and dope fiends, isn't there a middle ground between that and being 21 year old parents? Or giving up your dreams and career to get married, have kids and live in an ugly suburb?

-Vampires aren't any more interesting than anyone else, especially if they're living in suburbs like One Tree Hill.

- I get the feeling that the writers of shows like "Criminal Minds" jerk off while writing their scripts, which seem to deal with more and more kinky methods of killing, slicing, dicing and torturing women.

- I've become addicted to Psychic Detectives, on Global at 2 am.

workers of the world

I recently returned to the bagel shop where I came to the aid of a clerk who was being berated by a nitpicking harridan. The same clerk was working that day and when I asked about the mean lady, told me she had not returned.

In the spirit of labor day, I recall my own subterfuge against time wasters and the idle rich, whom I had to face on a daily basis at a fitness centre where I worked a couple of years ago. Worst of all the over privileged members were the Women with Nothing to Do. One of them, described as a Prominent Member of the Community, was someone I knew from the neighborhood; usually I would see her at the grocery store with her three homely, spoiled kids.

She probably didn't receive enough attention from them, and so insisted on instant attention from everyone else: "You're helping him before ME?" Uh, yes, since he was in front of you. Another time, she asked me if I could get someone to move the basketball net before a class in the gym.

I told her I'd get right on it. "Can you do it NOW?" Uh, what's the magic word? I picked up the phone. "Sure, right away." When she disappeared into the gym, I put the phone down. When she came back a few minutes later to inquire, my response: "They're on their way!"

There was another woman we called CatWoman. She lived with about 200 cats and would regale whoever was working at the Spa with endless monologues about them. Then she would talk about anything else that came to mind, usually without drawing breath, while the receptionist pretended to listen.

One of the girls who worked there told me how CatWoman drove her nuts with her monologues. At that age, you haven't developed those skills for getting rid of people who annoy you.

Me: Tell her 'hey, you'll miss your workout'.
Receptionist: That doesn't work!
Me: tell her you have to do the vacuuming, then start doing it.
Receptionist: But we already did the vacuuming.
Me: Yeah, but she doesn't know that.
Receptionist: Oh yeah.

Of course, the members' happiness and satisfaction were ALWAYS paramount.

Up the down staircase

This time, it's my sister's turn. She was not thrilled to find out that the new neighbors downstairs from her would be a woman and her two young kids, who would be outside yelling in the yard and screaming in the driveway.

It's the opposite. The two kids (who she describes as very cute) are in the house ALL DAY, watching TV and playing video games or just running up and down. In the middle of summer. They apparently have rotten teeth as well. I see diabetes and obesity in their future.

However, I told her she was lucky that they aren't upstairs from her, which was my case a few years ago, when a woman moved in upstairs from us with her boyfriend and young son. It was obvious what her life plan was: find a guy, live off him and sit outside all summer getting a tan. While her poor kid was in the house all day,in the middle of summer, bouncing off the walls. I felt sorry for the kid, who seemed to have no friends, never saw his father and had nowhere to go or nothing to do, and had a mother with the IQ of a houseplant.

I felt equally sorry for her boyfriend, who seemed to have gotten hornswoggled. I think she told him the same story she told our landlord: that the little boy came to visit her but lived with the father. Uhh...no. I don't think he ever saw the father. The Dingbat left right after, presumably for a new apartment and to find a new boyfriend to support her lifestyle.

Some people, when I've related this anecdote, asked, "Why didn't you do something? it sounds like that kid was neglected." Do what- an intervention? "Pardon me but your kid is being neglected." Or "why didn't you offer to spend time with the kid." People think life is a TV show like Judging Amy. Duh... maybe the MOTHER should spend time with the kid- or try to put some effort into finding him something to do?

Of course, if there was serious trouble, I'd call social services in a minute. Otherwise, there is little you can do for the shitty parents of the world. Just pray they don't move in upstairs from you.

New Additions to the Marlexicon

Saffy Friends: Inspired by Saffy, the sarcastic daughter of Edina in AbFab who had numerous nerdy, multi-cultural friends. Refers to like persons or people, male or female. Example: "I saw her walking down the street with her SaffyFriends."

Brookhaven: The Westmount Y, or any place frequented by depressed, emaciated anorexics. From Brookhaven, the famous eating disorder clinic.

Schindler's Mother: A specific type of mother that seems to inhabit the Westmount area, grim, anal retentive, relentlessly chewing out their kids for some petty infraction. I recently saw one of them grimly tutoring her poor son ( in the women's locker room, which he was way too old for) then dragging him out by one arm like he was a sack of potatoes. I saw another ragging her teenage daughter for taking the wrong shopping cart at Metro.