The West Commences: Miracle revealed

I’m spending Mon., Feb. 10, BC Family Day, quietly at home. I did my civic duty and shoveled the walk in front of the house just before lunch. I almost could have swept it, but it felt good to be outside, so I shoveled and did the bit in front of my neighbor’s too. She works a night shift and consequently doesn’t get the kick out of going outside in the middle of the day to shovel that I do. As for family, I had a good talk with Jay for about an hour at 6am. I had awakened at around 4:30 and not been able to get back to sleep and I can’t have any caffeine, not even herbal tea for the next 4 days leading up to and including the stress test, so I needed a kick, but as I have skied every day for the last 4 days I didn’t want anything more than a bit of light shoveling to keep me awake. Even with that, I had a nap after lunch.

I went to a movie, ‘The Book Thief’, last evening with a couple of friends. It’s a plain but affecting film about people in a small German town just before and during WW2. It’s based on a book written by an Australian, Markus Zusak. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would since I knew beforehand that it was going to be narrated by the Angel of Death and that some of the horrifying events the people endure involve the Allied bombing of their town. Dad was a navigator in Bomber Command, and although I know what that involved, I don’t often come so close to feeling the fact that the Allies weren’t always the good guys.

On a brighter note, ‘What about the Canadians in Sochi?’ We have 8 medals already, 3 of them gold. Jay and I talked about the games this morning. He’s mostly aware of the bad news about the Olympics that he picks up on his main source, his smart phone. I, on the other hand, am watching nothing but CBC monopoly propaganda, so I’m getting a more positive spin. Before the games, they did cover a lot of the intolerance of the GLBT community in Russia, the poorly compensated displaced citizens of Sochi, the graft and corruption that led to the massive overspending, the glorification of Putin, the fact that much of the infrastructure and many of the buildings are not even yet complete and the terrorist threats that shrouded everything, but now it’s all about the competition, except for the odd allusion to the predictable scandals concerning the judging of figure skating. The French media (famous for eschewing rumor), started a story about the US and Russian (BFFL) judges getting together to keep the Canadians out of some medals. I hope that that is the least of Patrick Chan’s worries at the moment.