Crampons and Tea Ladies

by eatatjoesblog on February 20, 2014

I resisted posting new items because none of them are likely to contain hooch or chocolate, which is apparently the key to getting blog readers to comment.

I actually thought it would be the puppies that would do the trick. At The Times, David Barstow (three Pulitzers) could spend a year uncovering how WalMart bribed Mexican officials so they could build a store near the Mayan ruins. That story would make the top of the most emailed list of stories for a few days. But write about puppies, and that story would sit atop the Times’s most-emailed list for weeks.

I thought the puppies would get even Tracy to comment.

ARCHIE, THE SLIPPERY TOAD?

This little gem is Archie Tse trying to scale the side of the halfpipe without crampons. How happy am I that this isn’t me? And you will notice that none of us really jumped to his rescue. We couldn’t, we were laughing too hard and Bedel was busy taking the pictures that were used in this animated gif.

Archie is one of us, meaning part of the graphics crew. In fact, he is the deputy graphics director, so you would think we would have more respect.

He will be at his favorite event tonight — the women’s figure skating. Archie and his sister were once on the U.S. national figure skating team in pairs. It was in the 80s, you should see the costumes and hairdo.

And don’t get him started on ice dancing. “All that smiling and mascara! It’s not a sport! It’s Dancing With the Stars. It doesn’t belong in the Olympics!” He does have a point, it says clearly in the rules that basically you can’t do anything athletic. And they don’t.

THE TEA LADIES OF THE MEDIA CENTER

The remedy for hooch in the afternoon is chai (tea) served free by the very nice Russian ladies who have set up house in the lobby of the Gorki Media Center. They come in full costume and full of smiles (maybe not so much from the woman to my right). And with your tea you get a plate of cookies. They always ask if i want sugar cubes in my tea. When I say yes, they hold up two fingers. Then I hold up three, and after a wry smile and a shake of the head they give me three. I’m not quite sure if they are being motherly and monitoring my sugar intake, or if any more than two sugar cubes is somehow sacrilege.

Maybe like putting sauerkraut AND tomato gravy on your dumplings. (Inside Czech joke for the Ward/Fornusek households.)

BOWLING FOR RUBLES

I mentioned the mall across from my hotel has been slowly opening. First there was the tear-worthy grocery store. Now we have a Cinnabon and a bowling alley, called Lucky Strike. We particularly liked the neon and blue light effect. Made my bowling shoes glow (in the photo gallery). It was pretty late when we got there and were joined in the next lanes by the boys from Yahoo Sports. For the record, they were much louder and more profane. We may return on Saturday night, when the sports editor Jason demanded we all meet for drinks. I think i could get rid of the rest of the moonshine that night.

WINTRY MIX ON THE HALFPIPE

I know I am not going to get any sympathy from most of you back in the States who have been dealing with storm after nasty storm. The Facebook entries from all the teachers in the audience have gone from “ANOTHER SNOW DAY!” to “i am so over this winter thing.”

But there was a fair amount of winter nastiness on the pipe the other night, ranging from downpours to fog to giant snowflakes and sometimes all three at once. I was pretty drenched by night’s end, but the worst part was that i needed to get up at 6 the next morning to go to Ligety’s GS race. Luckily, one of my room gifts was a hairdryer because everything i needed to wear to the ski race was still dripping. I managed to get everything to a comfortable state of damp before it was time to leave. And then it all froze nicely on the slopes until the sun came up.

And to update my nightly room gifts: I have received a swifter-like mop, a cutting board, a sewing kit and a room-number plate on my door instead of the pealing sticker.