All Over

That ended quickly - our small vacation is all over.  We woke up and had ourselves a nice breakfast downstairs, eating omelettes and gluten-free options out on the courtyard area there, and soon enough it was time to get packing.  We had the Christmas music playing the entire time on the television set, with the lights on and feeling festive - but now it was the 26th, almost like the day after Christmas, where everything is all over, and it was time to head home.  Mom expertly packed all our stuff, as Maddie and I lugged it down to the car.  The weather is cooler, and overcast, and we had a easy ride home.  

Our journey was pretty uneventful.  We only stopped once, in fact, back in Cherokee at the McDonald's there.  Maddie got a happy meal and we moved on.  I saw a turkey over the mountain pass in the national park, and we all saw a few elk in the traditional spot, but the big sighting was in Cherokee itself.  It was wild - traffic slowed down to a crawl up ahead, and we had no idea why.  That's when we looked up, and right there on the sheer mountainside along the road were a dozen or more massive elk, feasting on the kudzu.  Some were close enough to touch, and in such an odd location outside the park.  One bad slip, and they'd be in a slowly passing car! 

We got home safely, although that last stretch of the road is quite the motor speedway.  But we did get home, and we even had time to go to taekwondo tonight.  Maddie enjoyed that while I was busy getting a few things done for KidPak on Sunday.  She had a good night, and it's always a surprise when we start the day out in Pigeon Forge and still make time for taekwondo practice.  

Afterwards, we got home just in time to see the Opening Ceremonies of the 2024 Olympic Games.  So... it was weird.  I mean, the idea of the water parade was different.  But then the implementation didn't work.  It kind of felt like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with the occasional stops to promote some new thing on Broadway.  Like... "go see 'Wicked' in theaters!"  Or, now playing:  'Minions!'"  Which just didn't seem as "Olympic."  The flow was all over the place.

Along with Minions (now playing in theaters) there were other pre-recorded things no one else could see but those of us watching on television, like the Assassin's Creed guy/girl carrying the torch through all these pre-recorded places.  What was it like for someone waiting in that stadium at the end, just watching a big television in the rain?  Or that person along the river watching boats go by?  And then the live stuff was intercut rather harshly with the parade of athletes making their way up the river... one cut from the Louvre to the athletes from a "C" country was so harsh we were wondering if there was an editing problem.  Performers were lined up randomly on the river's edge for pretty much only the cameras, and the energy level was pretty low.  And, of course, it was pouring rain.  That didn't help.

Fortunately, the bits at the end came to the rescue, with Celine Dion on the Eiffel Tower (if that was real!), and that other operatic singer performing classic French anthems.  And the cauldron is really impressive.  However, there were plenty of awful things to see too, a sign of this shifting world.  Apparently, inclusion means avoiding common ground to go for the confrontational.  Art is subjective, but it just used to be better.  And you'd think it would be, coming from France.  But instead of beauty, we instead got a good bit of shock-art.  Which is old school.  Shock art like Duchamp's "Fountain" or anything by Serrano is what it was:  a visual statement rather than a thing of beauty.   It's choosing low-hanging fruit over something with much more flavor and nutrition.  Or ... it's like putting in a fart sound effect in a movie when you can't think of anything more creative to do for laughs.  Is art dead?  

All in all, it was just weird, and we couldn't wait for it to be all over.  How much of it did the athletes get to see, anyway?  Hopefully not much.  And hopefully we can return to an actual stadium in four years and not try this again.  

Anyway, we went to bed after reading tonight "From a Certain Point of View," another short story with an Ewok, this one being Logray.  I have all these action figures, because I'm such a geek.  I know Logray, Wicket, Teebo and Chief Chirpa.  I put on my geek pants one leg at a time.  Anyway, it's a decent story.  We didn't read that much tonight though, as we were all kind of tired.  We were struggling to get to that cauldron's lighting tonight - it was three and a half hours.  Someone noted that it didn't take Frodo as long to get to Mt. Doom.  

Sorry.  Complaining again.  The point is, we were tired at the end.  It was a long day, as you might suspect - we started out at the Inn at Christmas Place.  The day is all over, and now, it's time for prayers and a good night's rest!