I grew up in Tampa, Florida, where if the temperature dipped below 76 degrees, the entire city moved to an evacuation shelter in Miami. Anything performed on ice or snow \u2014 or more clothes than a loin cloth \u2014 was pretty foreign to me. We didn\u2019t ski or ice skate or launch ourselves off ice ramps. If we could get an ice cube in our tea before it melted, that was a winter sport.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s much the same today, which is maybe why the Winter Olympics is so fascinating to me. I find myself hooked, staring at the screen, marveling at these sports I\u2019ve never tried, or didn\u2019t even knew existed. There are so many mysteries. For instance: <\/p>\n
\u2022 In any sport I\u2019ve ever watched \u2014 or for that matter, anything that has ever moved \u2014 I\u2019ve rooted for a massive crash. Cars. Poker games. Anything involving pom-poms. But in winter sports, I sit in fetal position peeking through my arms screaming, \u201cPlease Lord, don\u2019t let that guy wipeout!\u201d Winter crashes are terrifying, horrid and cataclysmic. On slick ice with no friction to stop them, they could go on forever, jumping barricades and shooting through town like a cartoon catastrophe. I get spasms in parts of my body I didn\u2019t even know existed and can\u2019t look at ice cubes for weeks.
\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Why is it as much as I want to hate curling and call it a \u201cfake sport,\u201d I actually find it mesmerizing? It\u2019s like watching a lava lamp: You know there are better things to do with your day \u2014 shoot, the back part of your house could be on fire! \u2014 but you can\u2019t drag your eyes away. I sit there with my head on my hands entranced. People walk by and I say, \u201cWait \u2018a minute \u2026 come here. You have got to see this! She takes this shiny rock and slides it so slow. Why doesn\u2019t she fling it like a bowling ball? I don\u2019t know! It takes longer than it does to get a mortgage. But, watch this \u2026 finally \u2026 it \u2026 will \u2026 just \u2026 barely \u2026 nudge that other rock. Isn\u2019t it wonderful!?!\u201d My family stares at me like I should be committed. Maybe it\u2019s the calming effect it has on me. I cheer in slow motion and glide around the house in socks like I\u2019m a curler. Could be it\u2019s that I can\u2019t do anything so controlled on ice without resembling a wild turkey being electrocuted. I love it, but can\u2019t explain it. <\/p>\n
\u2022 What about this one: Ski jumpers start higher than the Statue of Liberty, travel at speeds up to 60 mph, fly the length of a football field, and then when they land \u2026 THEY DON\u2019T DIE! How is it nobody dies?!? One after another. I step off the bottom step of my stairs awkward and I\u2019m screaming for 911. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Why would anyone live anywhere long enough to actually get good at these sports? I mean, come on, people! You should really visit Tampa\u2019s cold-weather evacuation shelter in Miami. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I grew up in Tampa, Florida, where if the temperature dipped below 76 degrees, the entire city moved to an evacuation shelter in Miami. Anything performed on ice or snow \u2014 or more clothes than a loin cloth \u2014 was pretty foreign to me. We didn\u2019t ski or ice skate or launch ourselves off ice ramps. If we could get an ice cube in our tea before it melted, that was a winter sport. It\u2019s much the same today, which is maybe why the Winter Olympics is so fascinating to me. I find myself hooked, staring at the screen, marveling at these sports I\u2019ve never tried, or didn\u2019t even knew existed. There are so many mysteries. For instance: \u2022 In any sport I\u2019ve ever watched \u2014 or for that matter, anything that has ever moved \u2014 I\u2019ve rooted for a massive crash. Cars. Poker games. Anything involving pom-poms. But in winter sports, I sit in fetal position peeking through my arms screaming, \u201cPlease Lord, don\u2019t let that guy wipeout!\u201d Winter crashes are terrifying, horrid and cataclysmic. On slick ice with no friction to stop them, they could go on forever, jumping barricades and shooting through town like a cartoon catastrophe. I get spasms in parts of my body I didn\u2019t even know existed and can\u2019t look at ice cubes for weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573,558,572],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-nutshells","category-florida","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1712,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711\/revisions\/1712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}