I love the Olympics! From the opening ceremonies to my favorite gymnastics to the snuffing out of the Olympic flame at the end, I’m hooked for two weeks. This is reality TV at its finest, with REAL athletes competing in REAL situations with REAL drama unfolding right before our eyes.
The only problem is that the Olympics are killing me. Not literally, of course, but if you count sleep as something we need to stay alive, then I’m like an out of control downhill skier about to wipe-out on the course. Thanks to technology, Hubby and I record the broadcast and spend our nights watching it when we get home from work. If we both were to get home at a decent hour, this would not pose a problem. But we’re usually sitting down to watch the competition about 9:30 pm. Even fast-forwarding through commercials, we are still up late before winding down for the night.
When we were in our twenties, midnight was nothing – the night was just getting started. Now that we are past the age of 35, staying up till midnight after a full day at work is an issue. Especially when we have to get up early the next morning. One night of this is fine, but two weeks?
Apparently Hubby and I should have started training for the Olympics months ago. Whether we hired a coach or trained on our own, we could have gotten our bodies into top shape to withstand the stress of Olympic competition. I’m sure there’s an app for this; why didn’t we download it? Training to watch the Olympics probably includes sleep deprivation marathons, followed by some sort of all-natural-looks-like-grass-in- a-blender protein drink. There’s probably training on the fastest way to use the DVR controls, the most efficient ways to watch the events and instruction on how to power nap while waiting for the judges’ scores.
Unfortunately Hubby and I did not get the memo telling us to prepare for the games. Our training consisted of sporadic trips to the gym, attempts at becoming a human pretzel in yoga, racing home from work to throw something of questionable nutritional value in the oven and, since we seem to live on the surface of the sun, sweating profusely from walking the dog in 100+ degree heat so she can have a potty break. This was all followed by a cool-down period of sitting on the couch with an ice cream treat.
We may have missed the mark with our training program but we are really enjoying the Olympics. Even if it kills us.
© Tami Cannizzaro 2012 All Rights Reserved
Like Tami, I was terminated once (By my best friend, BTW – he is now on the board of the agency I lead, so I got him back – ha!), but you don’t have to be unemployed to learn something from this book. 
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