Sport?

Have I mentioned that I have a baby shower tomorrow? I believe that I have left it out...my bad. Well, I do! The Boy's Mom, angel of angels, is throwing it...you know, because she felt like just moving in with us for 10 weeks to play Nanny wasn't contribution enough:-)

I am actually sort of looking forward to it, and not just because it is an excuse to get out of the house for an afternoon! It gives me a whole other couch to be reclined on, which is very exciting...lol. Or maybe I can sit in the recliner. Or maybe I will just mix it up. Just the usual suspects, a handful of friends and some of The Boy's family, so it should be nice and relaxing and fun.

My Aunts are a little bit bummed that I can't come to Chicago, because they wanted to have a baby shower, too. So, I am a little bummed about that as well...but no traveling for this girl:-( Which also means that I missed out on the chance to spend Tinkerbelle's school vacation with her this week...also a bummer (last year we went to Disney and it was awesome!)

Other than that, very little going on in AM-land. Munchkin's foot is doing pretty well, and her physical therapy has gone according to plan. No more crutches, but she is far from 100%. At least she can walk around now, so she is less cooped up and bitchy...lol. (I kid, she really is almost never legitimately bitchy.) Her trip next month is still up in the air...

OK...I like watching figure skating, and I think they are remarkable athletes. But I have a hard time with any sport where you can't tell who wins without an arbitrary and subjective judge. Same goes for half-pipe snowboarding and moguls skiing and freestyle aerials. I love watching that stuff...and my love for stoner snowboard chicks is well-documented...but they are more performance art than sport. Can you imagine if the 100 meter dash was interrupted because, at the 50 meter mark, someone had to stop and do four dance moves and then keep running again? That is moguls skiing...

Which is not at all meant to demean the athletic ability required to do them. There is very little that requires more training and more pure strength and agility than ballet, but that doesn't make it a sport either. At the same time, it does not look like the curling team misses a whole lot of buffets and could well chain smoke and drink heavily while competing...but at least there is a totally objective means of telling who wins.

I am not sure what my point is...and I can't promise to have thought this through...but if you need someone to tell you who wins, and there is room within that for a judgement of artistry, then it is not a sport. And the corollary would be that you don't have to play a sport to be an athlete. Are figure skaters athletes? Absolutely! They train like the dickens, are in great shape and have physical capabilities above and beyond those of even superbly talented people. And curlers (or archers or shooters from the summer games) could never physically exert themselves even the slightest and still be great.

OK...that is my story and I am sticking to it.