Phelps Phever

Currently Watching: Flipping between Summer Olympics and Red Sox/Rangers baseball

Between the wedding, the Move, and the Olympics....I'll be getting no sleep at all for the next two weeks.

Ever since Friday night's controversial* opening ceremonies, our television has been on and tuned into NBC for as much coverage as we can possibly stay awake for.

I love the Summer Olympics. Love love love them. I was in my first year of college during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney (spare me the typical "you're such a baby!" comments, please), and my roommate and I watched them nonstop.

Our favorite? Swimming.

Why? May I point your attention please, to Exhibit A:



I'll give you a moment to take that in. Yummo.

Now before you start in on me about being a(n) (almost) married woman, please keep in mind that Natalie Coughlin (also of swimming fame) and several beach volleyball players provide plenty of eye candy for Operaboy. He knows about my love of Michael Phelps.

Anyway, I digress (very much).

What was I saying? Oh, right. I love the Olympics.

There's something just so amazing about watching people with whom I really have nothing in common (save a mutual love and loyalty to these United States of course), pushing their bodies to the absolute limits, and for what? A medal? Perhaps. National pride? Maybe. But I think it's more than that. I think that I just respect these athletes so much because they set such incredible goals for themselves and they love the pain that comes from muscles screaming towards the finish line so that you can finish one one-hundredth of a second before France (ahem, a-thank you , men's 4x100 relay team).

I also love watching the gold medalists stand, bodies spent, on the top platform and fight back tears as they mouth the words to their own national anthems. Americans or no, I always enjoy watching the medal ceremonies.

Speaking of medal ceremonies, finally we come full circle, to the beginning of this blog. The reason I didn't sleep last night (other than a few hours of packing/excavating the apartment and cutting out hundreds of monograms to put on wedding favors) was that I got myself all riled up watching the men's gymnastics fight for the bronze (and even have a chance at the silver for a few minutes). My dreams, once I slept, were filled with men with strong upper bodies swimming in pool lanes decorated with our new monogram.

Hmm.

Perhaps I should get some sleep after all.





*I say controversial not necessarily because of anything in the media, especially over the last couple of days (fake fireworks, children picked to lip-synch words sung by a not-as-attractive child, etc), but because of just the general ominous feeling I got from the opening ceremonies....like China itself is a tank that is an unstoppable force. But that's another blog for another day perhaps.