London Calling

Anyone else excited for the Opening Ceremonies in London tonight? We're total Olympic nerds in this house. The Olympics are awesome. So awesome that I keep capitalizing the word Olympics even though I'm 50% certain that that's wrong. If you want to make me cry, taunt me about the time the Olympics came to Atlanta and they built the equestrian facility two minutes away from my house. Two minutes! Fifteen-year-old me thought that was one of the best things to happen in my entire life. I spent the four years building up to the '96 games dreaming of what events I'd get to attend. My forty-five year old parents of three thought that having all our roads shut down for security reasons and having to drive two towns out of our way to get anywhere for three solid weeks did not sound amazing. So I watched my friends perform in the Atlanta opening ceremonies from a recliner in my grandmother's living room in Jacksonville. Someone gave us sparklers to run around with outside during a commercial break, probably to cheer me out of my surly teenage funk. Then I accidentally stepped on one. Barefoot. Worst olympics ever. It does not deserve a capital o.

The London Olympics deserve a capital O. I wish we could be there. Seth and I got to spend two weeks in London visiting his sister a couple years back. She was getting her masters and had an adorable apartment where we could crash for free. You could see the stadium being built for the opening ceremonies from her front window. When you went to look out the window to see if that was the milk man you heard, delivering the milk.

On lucky mornings it came with a side of garden snail. Adorable.

I'm jealous that other people get to wander around the streets of London for the next few weeks, taking in the architecture, the food, the parks and all the general quirkiness the city offers.

To celebrate the London Olympics, we're having a few friends over tomorrow night for the opening ceremonies. We'll be eating bangers and mash, green peas, and bread pudding. In fact, I started a few new loaves of bread today so that I can use the remnants of current slightly stale loaf for the bread pudding. I'm hoping to talk Seth into allowing me to use a teensy bit of his scotch for the bread pudding too. I figure it's a little more in the UK spirit than St. Croix rum would be. Well see how that goes.

Are we the only ones who throw Olympic-themed dinners (with a capital O)? Do you have plans to watch the ceremonies tomorrow night? Will you squeal when they show Kate and whatever amazingness she gets to wear? Will you groan and throw things at the tv when they choose to take a commercial break during the VI's entrance into the stadium? Can you feel my excitement through my questions?