Dear Kid,

As we all know, winter sports are important in winter.

Fearing that you education has been sorely lacking, I have decided to provide you some Important Information about Interesting Winter Sports.

Today, we discuss skiing.

Skiing was invented by Herman von Slopeski (who named it after himself). He didn’t mean to invent skiing. Here’s what happened.

Herman was out chopping wood for the fire when he slipped, landed with his feet on some of the already chopped wood, and went zooming down the mountain. Herman came to a crashing halt (literally) in front of a beer garden where several of his friends were hanging out, imbibing their beverage of choice. Being a Dude, he couldn’t admit to having made a mistake, so Herman told his buds he was inventing a new sport.

Being Dudes, they had to try this new sport immediately, and downhill racing on black diamonds was born.

The Après Ski was invented by Mrs. Herman von Slopeski who decided to sit with her friends drinking their own beverage of choice and waiting to see who would be alive in the morning. Fortunately, Herman had chopped a lot of wood before sliding down to the town, so Mrs. Herman and her friends were all set with a warm fire. And beverages of choice.

The ski lift was invented by a small band of bored Minions. The original design involved carrying the skier from the bottom of the mountain back to the top. Minions, being Minions, decided almost immediately that that plan involved Work and so they set out to improve the system. Fourteen designs later (all of which would have sent Rube Goldberg into shock), something not entirely approximating the modern ski lift was created.

The rest is all tinkering.

Spare a kind thought for Herman when you go skiing today.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Have you heard the latest kerfuffle?

Kerfuffle: noun | (informal, mainly Brit) commotion; disorder; agitation

Kerfluffle: noun | chaotic plush toys

The latest is the 3033 Olympics. Nope, wait. Typing with the lights out can be dangerous.

The latest is the 2022 Olympics. Apparently, no one, but no one, wants to host the Games.

Basically, the world is playing a game of “nose goes” and the only ones without their fingers on their schnozes are Beijing (nowhere near cool ski mountains) and Almaty (the well-known winter resort of NOT).

Why is this? As I understand it (and to be clear, I did extensive research by reading exactly one post provided by My Friend the Internet—the title caught my eye which means it must be true), Russia lost a LOT of money hosting the Sochi games and no one seems to think that losing a LOT of money is a great investment.

Then there is the true blue honest and above board (and by “true blue honest and above board” I mean totally corrupt and bribery-infested) way that the IOC operates. It seems that while everyone knows it’s a hot mess, not all that many countries want to get involved. Sur-prise.

So it may be that the 2022 Olympics will be in Kazakhstan or China. Or they may be on Mars (according to a recent survey, no one on Mars hates the IOC – at least not yet). Or perhaps they’ll be someplace like Miami. It all makes about the same amount of sense to me.

The thing is, no matter where the Olympics are held, most of us will tune in to watch. And we will focus on the athletes, not on the IOC (except for the occasional snarky blog), and we will be amazed by what humans can do. We will cheer and we will cry and we will learn the rules of curling and biathlon only to forget them for the next four years.

Because no matter how hard the IOC tries to make this about the IOC, we-the-world know that the Olympics are about everything except the IOC.

Love, Mom

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