Our Olympic Games - Hear that, Felix?

So we're fixin' to watch the Olympics tonight (over take-out Chinese food).

We just love watching the Olympics around here. One of our very favorite things about the Olympics is our own silly game that we invented back in 1992 when the Winter Olympics were in Lillehammer.

We thought Lillehammer was such a funny city name, that every time someone said it on TV, D. or I would say, "Beg your pardon?" It only took a few times of calling out the phrase before we turned it into a competition to see who could remember to say it first.

And then we have done it every single Olympics ever since! Only we change the phrase for each Olympics. For the most part, we try to keep it in the vein of "Beg you pardon?" So, for instance, Atlanta was "Huh?" And Kyoto, when I was pregnant with Monk was "Hear that, Baby?"

Oh, and Athens was "It's Greek to me." (Of course.)

And so this year, we're looping back to Kyoto's phrase, only modified a bit. (No worries!!!) Whenever they say Beijing, we'll call out: "Hear that, Felix?" [Felix is our cat.] Poor Felix! Because we get to shouting the phrase when it really gets going!

But, in addition to calling out the phrase for Beijing, whenever the announcers say any of the city's names, going back to 1992 when the game started, we also have to call out the old phrases. So, Athens' "It's Greek to me," will still be very much in play this year.

The Torino Olympics, two years ago, were Monk's first entry into our Olympic Games. And he so totally rocked it! D. and I didn't know what had hit us! So I think this year we're really hoping to at least have a respectable showing! We've all been in training for weeks now, during all the Olympics trials.

Hey, if you decide to try the game out youselves, let me know here. [Make up your own phrase that works for you.] We get such a hoot out of doing it ourselves, we'd love to know if it catches on with anyone else.

PS If anyone visits our house during the Olympics, we rope them into the game, too.