Olympics*

*Dedicated to my sister and Josh

I spent this evening watching the Olympics with my folks. I have to admit, I love to watch the female skiers. My gaydar wails the whole time I watch them. It's highly enjoyable. My favorite sport has always been the luge, though. It looks like fantastic fun. I would love to take my plastic orange sled to the top of one of those slopes and give it a go myself.

When I was a child, I was fascinated by the Olympics to the point of wanting to form some event of my own. My sister, my best friend Josh, and I decided to host an annual Pet Olympics for all of the pets in the neighborhood. We spent months planning the event. We made medals and ribbons and a first place trophy. Josh found a big candle to use as our torch, my sister learned a speech by heart and recited it at the opening ceremony, and Josh cross stitched a Pet Olympics flag.

We started the day with Olympics music, the pledge of allegiance, my sister's speech, and the lighting of the Pet Olympic candle. Throughout the day, we put our pets through their paces, which really included us watching them sit and stare and then declaring them beautiful. My neighbor's dog actually had a little bit of talent. It could catch food in its mouth. My sister's rabbit could beg for dandelion leaves. My cat could play fetch if he would only cooperate. Josh's cat would sit in the gazebo and make his displeasure known to the world (he was a siamese, so everyone in the area could hear him). Josh also had very talented goldfish who were actually caught on tape sucking rocks (I think they earned second place in the talent category for that). We were all very serious about the whole event. We added events each year and had pets sign up months in advance. Josh made a styrofoam set of hurdles for the second year, and we watched the pets take turns stepping over them. All in all, we had very talented pets.

Every time I see the Olympics, I remember those days in my backyard with the candle smoking madly, Barney the cat howling loudly, and the three of us walking around with our scoring notebooks. It was marvelous fun.