You’ll all be pleased to know that my Dad made it safely home at about 2:35 this afternoon, but not with any help from the airline.

No, he and his buddies decided to drive home. That’s only, you know, about 1,260 miles (that’s about 2,027 km for you metric people). The four of them were on the road for about 22 hours, and naturally, my Dad got practically no sleep at all. (He can’t sleep in the car, never could.) But, boy, he’s sure tired now! We’re just glad to have him home safe and sleepily sound.

I worked on my Olympics sweater tonight, but really, there’s not much to show, the picture wouldn’t look that different than last night’s, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I have one other complaint about the “real” Olympics–not only are the program directors sadistic and keeping me up far too late at night, but every time I sign onto AOL or check out the msnbc.com page–I’m getting spoilers. “So-and-so wins gold in the ___!” Whatever happened to keeping these things quiet until after the events have been aired? I mean, of course you can find out the winners at any time, and that’s fine, but in other years, there have been “Click here” options for results–not big pictures and names right there that you can’t help but see as you glance at the page. I’m watching the Pairs figure skating competition right now, but because I glanced at the MSNBC page . . . I already know who won. Sigh.

Incidentally, if you like figure skating at all, or just like reading good books, may I recommend Joy Goodwin’s The Second Mark? It purports to be about the Pairs scandal from Salt Lake City (you remember, the Canadian pair was perfect, but the gold went to the Russians because of the French judge, etcetera). But. This book is amazingly good because it tells the story of the three pairs who medalled in that competition–the years of training, the efforts of China to develop a competitive figure skating program . . . the people. It’s such a good story, and the actual “scandal” is actually a very small part of the book. And, let me tell you. You want to read about determination? Read about what Chinese Shen Xue and her parents went through to get her into training. Brrr!

Speaking of the Olympics…. (from the Daryl Cagle page)

Can you believe tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day? As usual, I don’t have a Valentine, of course. Well, unless you count Mom, the original family Valentine. And naturally, my boy Chappy.

Tags: Family, General, Reading // 8 Comments »