and now for the mass skinning of the seals

Did I ever tell you about the time I was in the olympics?

Actually, I have been in the olympics twice now. A two time olympian participant. One more time and I will be thrice as olympified as a majority of my peers. Not that I'm bragging or anything.*

So Olympic experience #1 involves:
a) group choreography
b) Donny Osmond
c) MoTab
So there we were. My awesome college choir was invited to sing in the opening ceremonies at the salt lake olympics 2002! We sang the star spangled banner to open up the festivities, then (dressed in white coats and hats borrowed from MoTab) we sang back up for Donny Osmond. I forget the song. I forget the choreography. All I remember was afterwards, I saw him driving away on a little golf cart and I yelled after him.








me: Donny!
D: stops and looks back.
me: great job out there tonight
D: flashes a winning crest smile, and winks with what appears to be a mascara-ed eye. Thanks, you too.
Followed up by what would've been bliss had i been a 13 year old girl from 1976.
Did I mention it was the paralympics? Way to go, D.O.

Olympic experience #2
Sitting around on a friday night, shuffling back and forth, looking in the local "goings-on" paper, we stumble upon a little nugget of delight:
The World Eskimo-Indian Olympics (WEIO).
For a mere 10 dollar entry fee we can experience everything eskimo. This includes many things:









the two foot high kick, where the olympian jumps off both feet, kicks both feet up as high as 7 feet to hit a ball, and lands on two feet.

Other sporting events like seal skinning (shudder), the ear pull, and the knuckle hop.

An "ice cream treat" that consists of 1/15th fruit, 3/15ths sugar and 11/15ths crisco. Along with this treat, one can purchase a piece of eskimo fry bread for an additional dollar and dip the fried treat into the fruit lard. One bite will send you into cardiac arrest. Or diabetic shock. You may as well pull out a gun and shoot yourself. But I digress.

The highlight of WEIO for me was when they called "big, strong able bodies" from the audience to assist in the nalukatak, or blanket toss.
My friends and I volunteered to grab hold of the large caribou hide and pop up an eskimo into the sky, watching him flip, spin, and generally soar through the night air. Except for the eskimo man next to me who kept telling me I was holding the blanket wrong, it was an overall successful Friday night.


Thanks be to the Greeks who started the friendly competition of sporting events, ANY sporting event, betwixt friends and cohorts.






*except that I am