sports | rachelmankowitz

The Summer Olympics

Posted on August 13, 2016 by rachelmankowitz

Cricket has been losing her mind even more than usual lately, and I’ve decided to blame it on the heat. Of course, I’m projecting. I can’t stand the humidity of summer in New York. As a kid, I went to sleep away camp in the mountains, which was just a smidge better, until they made us play sports in the middle of the day, and ruined it. I am allergic to the heat. I get sun poisoning, usually on my arms, so I end up wearing a light jacket all summer long, and taking it off when I get indoors, which drives people crazy. I put sunblock on my face year round, so as long as I don’t stare up at the sun, I’m alright without a hat for a few minutes at a time. But the worst part of summer humidity is when I feel like I’m breathing through a straw, but not a nice, normal flexible straw, one of those hard plastic crazy straws that look like a roller coaster for tiny ants. Oh, and I don’t like bugs either.

So, as I was saying, summer is clearly a problem for Cricket.

Cricket has been tossing Platypus around like, well, like a stuffed animal. The problem, is, even though I still take the dogs out four times a day, none of those trips takes them beyond the backyard. We don’t walk through the goose poop fantasia of the duck pond, or get into the car and drive to the beach to sniff seaweed and rotting fish. We don’t even walk up the hill past the Seven Eleven for a hint of cigarette butts and old ham sandwiches.

“Play with me!”

“Platypus likes this game, Mommy!”

“Let’s go outside!”

Cricket is getting stir crazy. She is barking at the next door baby (she made him cry!) and she’s been using me as a trampoline when I try to take my afternoon nap. Butterfly has been fine with the current level of exercise, though. She might enjoy a few more minutes of staring into the distance and listening to the wonders of nature (those birds are such gossips!), but she comes inside willingly and goes back to sleep until real physical need hits again. But Cricket wants to run and jump and hip and hop. I’m afraid to let her watch too much of the Olympics because it will give her too many ideas (though she would never want to go swimming – it’s like voluntary bath time – are they insane?!). The dogs would be fantastic at the Treat Toss and the Chase-The-Mailman race, but somehow these events have not made it into the big competition.

“There’s more room in my mouth, Mommy. Throw another one.”

Of course I am watching the Olympics. The TV stations have conspired to have nothing else on during the Olympics, so this is all I’ve got. It’s not really a relief from the political drama of the past year, though, because the broadcasters keep making each event and race seem like life or death, not just for their chosen protagonist, but for the masses of unknown people who never even made it to the Olympics and are therefore at home in deep dark depressions with no idea what to do with their lives. Woo hoo!

I try to be inspired by the Olympics, but certain sports make me feel vicariously exhausted. When I watch Michael Phelps flap his arms over his head, my shoulders hurt. And those long distance runners give me leg cramps. I can’t watch women’s beach volleyball at all, not because it’s too sweaty, but because in those outfits they might as well not be wearing clothes at all; there’s no safe place to look. I can watch the gymnastics and swimming pretty comfortably, because they are indoors and nice and cool, but the Track and Field events look too damn hot! I think there should be some breaks in the coverage for a nice ice skating routine so we can cool off.

My favorite place over the summer is next to my air conditioner. I wish I could carry my air conditioner with me everywhere, like one of those old time boom box stereos, right up next to my ear. Maybe someday they’ll make high powered air conditioners the size of iPads and summer will finally make sense to me.

I’m sure I will end up watching some sports that do not usually interest me at all, out of guilt, the same way I watch Luge during the winter games, because someone worked really hard to get to the Olympics in that sport, and it seems only fair to give them a glance. Though I haven’t yet given in to my curiosity about the boating races. There’s something about watching athletes dodge old couches in the middle of rancid waterways that worries me.

One night, I found myself sitting on the couch, kicking for dear life, willing Michael Phelps to the end of the pool – as if he needed my help! I don’t bounce around the room during the gymnastics events; somehow I feel like I have more control over the outcome in the swimming.

At some point in the evening, inevitably, I have to pause the action on the TV and attach the dogs to their leashes and brave the Sauna that is the out of doors. And of course the dogs meander and sniff and pee multiple times and drag me to the far end of the yard for every possible exciting hint of cat, until I am a puddle of sweat. And then we go back inside, and I sit down next to my air conditioner to watch the gymnastics, and I know in my heart that I have done my share of the work and can now revel in team USA’s success.