Sunday, February 21, 2010

Please excuse Shannon's absence

Here's where I have been since I last posted: Kohl Children's Museum, downtown for dinner at Elephant & Castle, the gym (more than once, thankyouverymuch), my driveway shoveling snow, the library, Midway airport, the Walnut Room at Macy's, Millennium Park, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Signature Room on the 96th floor of the John Hancock building, Brookfield Zoo, Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum, Nielson's Bakery for Pączki Day, Oak Lawn Children's Museum, McDonald's playland, FunFlatables, and the mall in Hobart, IN.

Now, my last post was February 3. So, I think I've done a lot in 18 days. And that's in addition to my regular misadventures in laundry, cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing.

I also read the book Roses, which was awesome. It's the saga of a family on a Texas plantation from 1915 to 1985. Although it's still early in the year, it's my current favorite book of 2010. Now I'm reading the book Deeper Than the Dead, which is a mystery and therefore a departure from my usual genres. I have to admit I'm sort of plodding through it, but I think it will pick up in the second half. (Thanks to my Kindle, I can tell you that I'm 30% of the way through it.)

I saw the movie Public Enemies with Johnny Depp, which had way too much shooting and not enough scenes of old Chicago.

The winter Olympics: meh. I have watched snippets here and there, but I just can't settle in to watch hours on end. Part of it is that with Olympic coverage, you have to sit through a lot of sports you aren't interested in (along with interviews, commercials, fluff pieces, etc.), just to see a few minutes of the sport you care about. They should set it up so that each half-hour is a specific sport, and you know that based on the TV listings. So then you could tune in or set your DVR for figure skating at 8:30, without having to sit through coverage of curling at 8:00. But of course, that would not be in NBC's best interest, because they want you to sit there and watch the coverage for hours and hours, not turn it off at half-hour intervals.

Another thing about the winter Olympics is that I just don't care as much about the sports. I think this is partially because I don't have a lot of personal experience with most winter sports. Like, in the summer Olympics, I love swimming, because I used to swim competitively and I still swim recreationally. So, I have some frame of reference as to how fast these people can go. Ditto with running. I mean, I have never been much of a runner, but almost everybody has run and can appreciate how much faster these Olympians are. And the summer has sports we're all pretty familiar with, like volleyball, basketball, and soccer. Or weight-lifting. And really, we've all done most of those Olympic sports, just not nearly as well as the Olympians. But with the winter sports, most of us have not luged, curled, or slalomed. I guess there are people who are avid skiiers or snowboarders, so they have a little more appreciation for these sports, but I, personally, have never been much of a skiier. I have ice skated, so maybe that's why I like that sport. But I think it's really because it's pretty and fun with fancy costumes and music, and because everybody likes ice skating the best. That's why they show it in prime time on a Sunday night, probably interspersed with coverage of the sport where you ski and then shoot a gun.

So I'm looking forward to the end of the Olympics and the return to my regularly-scheduled programming. And now I will return you to your regularly-scheduled day. Goodbye.

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