Crazy People

Following yesterday's blog I am determined to write a much more uplifting one today. I came across a poll a few days ago asking whether the Winter Olympics are becoming more exciting than the Summer Olympics. How absurd! I can't perceive how it is remotely possible that the Winter Olympics could be more popular in a country such as Australia than the summer games. As a mainly arid country with limited amounts of snow covered peaks and most only in winter there is no possible way we can ever compete with most of the countries that dominate these games. We can only aim to win at most 3 gold medals. People will say that it is about more than winning, pft! Watch the competitors' reactions to following an imperfect performance and tell me that. The amounts blood, sweat and tears each of them puts into preparing for these events are phenomenal. Winning gold is everything and so it is with the countries they are competing for. Many countries offer great rewards to gold winning athletes just proving my very point.

Is there any event that doesn’t require huge amounts of unbridled lack of concern for one’s well being? There are the moguls that totally shatter your kneecaps while catapulting down an almost vertical decline. The downhill skiing reminds me of a young child in a toy car launching himself from the roof of his parents' home. It can only end in tears. Others that instil absolute terror in me include the aerial skiing (at which Australia is quite good), the snow boarding (again Aussies are good, we won a gold), ice hockey (don't feel like being rammed against a pane of perplex today thanks, figure skating – yes figure skating (their butts must hurt a lot), speed skating (imagining me in those condom like suits if terrifying in itself) and many others that escape me at this moment.

You could argue that the cross-country skiing is no more fear provoking than going for a leisurely ski across a snowfield. But have you seen what is involved in this event? Going up hills appears to almost burst the quads in their legs. No wonder their legs look sacks full of basketballs. The effort of all of this renders them completely ronnied by the finish. They truly rival marathon runners for the award for the most pooped athletes after an event.

There couldn’t be a more terrifying event than the luge, well maybe the skeleton but that can be debated. Hurtling down what looks like a frozen water slide with the ice polished to a gleam in a converted billy-cart on huge skates can only be described as petrifying. I cringe every time the thing goes round a corner or up the side. It captures scenes from my childhood when shooting down a water slide. Gathering speed you gradually get higher and higher up the sides as you are flung around the corners. Each becomes more terrifying as you believe you will be hurled up over the edge of the slide. The difference being the speed these vehicles are travelling. All this while the young Georgian man must be in their thoughts. His death must be the one of the most tragic occurrences to happen on the eve of any Olympic games.

Looks like the curling would be best for me to try. Best get myself a pair of skates and start learning to ice skate. Oh anyone know where there is an ice rink around here?

To die or not to die...

Ok day 2 of my endeavour to blog as often as possible. We were kid free last night, sound very exciting but after 14 years of marriage it isn't so. If you are imagining wild and abundant amounts of imitate bonding then you are sadly mistaken. Although hubby would have loved this to be so I do believe I have a relevant excuse considering I am still in the grief process. Losing my father almost 4 months ago was one of the hardest experiences of my life. To watch someone you love so much suffer immensely is something no one should have to do. Any right to lifers willing to engage me in a conversation regarding Euthanasia be warned I am highly volatile regarding this subject at this moment and I can't imagine that will change any time soon.

Anyway who has the right to preach to others how much they should suffer? I endured years of sporadic full body paralysis, if the doctors had told me that this was how my life was going to be until the day I died I believe I would and should have had the right to determine that I no longer wanted to endure life in this way. No one can start imagine what it is like to be completely paralysed. Those quadriplegics who are so dependent on others for every activity of daily life qualify, in my honest opinion; to come to the decision when it is all too much and they yearn to continue on to what ever may follow this life. It is all too simple for healthy people to say that life is precious and should be maintained at all costs. The old adage "Walk a mile in my shoes" can not be topped in arguing how narrow minded and ignorant it is to think that you, as a person with full capacity and relatively pain free, can dictate to others that they must endure the suffering that has been bestowed up them. To see my once extremely strong and robust father whose pain threshold was higher than anyone I know in indescribable agony so ghastly that the most powerful drugs the nurses could legally give him wouldn't even scratch the surface was to leave a permanent horror in my psyche. Even if my dear father had been allowed to pass away only 2 or 3 days earlier the pain that he would have been spared would have been tremendous. How can we as an advanced society not have some way where it is legal to put a human being out of tremendous agony when there is no hope, no chance what so ever for a miracle to occur to bring back our much adored father, husband, grandfather, son, brother etc. We didn't want him to die! We just wanted his torture to end and sadly in this instance death was the only way it could eventuate.

I see the story in the news concerning Ray Gosling, British veteran TV presenter, who mercifully ended the life of his ex-lover, who was dying of AIDS, and my heart breaks for him. He must have truly loved him to forget all concern for his own welfare and fate to cease the immense suffering his friend must have been enduring. It will be an abhorrent day if this man is sent to jail. He only did what most of us don't have the balls to do. I know I didn't...

Can I achieve this?

Ok so I've had this blog for a while now and haven't even managed one entry! So here goes... I'm hoping doing this will help me develop the skills to enable me to express myself a lot easier! I'm sitting here all alone, TOH is at golf, my daughter is still in bed, what to write about. Suppose it would be beneficial to have an exciting life but alas mine is rather mundane. Take yesterday, for example, it was a rather exciting day in my less than eventful life. I was invited to my SIL's place for morning tea along with 3 other nice young ladies. We had a lovely morning filled with chat, mainly about children! Following this my SIL and I enjoyed a lovely lunch together, my niece was very gracious and slept through it all. I felt rather guilty afterwards as I indulged in a huge iced chocolate, no good for losing those kilos in time for my brother's wedding in which I am a bridesmaid! Oh well back on the horse today, hopefully. The weekends pose a greater problem than the weekdays for me. Too many temptations arise over the weekends such as meals out, the lure of fast food as opposed to cooking and children hanging around eating delicious chocolates etc.

This takes me to last week. I had dieted and exercised hard for a month to lose the grand total of 3kgs. It didn't exactly feel like a great loss considering the amount of effort I put into the whole process. I had 2 reasons for desperately needing to lose weight. The first being a long anticipated trip to Sydney to see my heroes (well 2 of them), the hosts of Top Gear. I knew the high speed pace of the 2 days (and I'm not referring to the cars) would be grueling especially with extra weight to lug around. We needed to catch a flight at about 3pm on the Thursday afternoon, arriving in Sydney at about 4pm. From the airport we were required to navigate our way to Olympic Park. On the map it deceptively looked not too far but requiring 3 different trains. It ended up being much more enduring than expected considering Sydney put a glorious day of 36 degree Celsius with very high humidity for us. We hadn't counted on the number of stairs we would encounter. Then it was back home the following day. It was a relief that I had been able to shed those 3kgs in the end. Anyhow back onto the point I was making. Two days in Sydney (including my birthday) plus the weekend and I had put on 0.7kg! Why on Earth is it so hard to lose and so bloody easy to put on? It's a conspiracy I tell you. I must have the slowest metabolism known to man. It's slower than James May in a Top Gear challenge! Am I doomed to be overweight forever? Now this is a vicious cycle, you put on weight you become despondent and turn to food once again and end up ballooning to a all new high.

Oh God I'm off for a cream doughnut or something with a similar calorie count! See ya later 10kgs heavier....