The Little Things

So many little things happened out at the Olympics that I needed a blog post to to cover them all. Plus its a nice smattering of randomness.

It was no surprise that there were leaders from many countries visiting the games to watch. Many would not be seen by most visitors and unless you read the papers or watched the news you would not even know they were there. Canada's own Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in attendance. See the picture. Just to the left of the umbrella. Just sitting and conversing with other regular spectators. Pretty cool to see actually. He did however have a contingent of black coated gentleman watching over him, discretely but still there! Think what you will of our Prime Minister, but that was a pretty cool thing to do.

 There were some very nice days to be had at the games through the central weeks. So warm in fact that dressing for a day of patrolling was very difficult. Walking up the path you needed to be in not much else than the shell but standing you definitely wanted a base layer and fleece on. The bright days called for the sun glasses! Speaking of climbing the path, they finally played some music over the speakers leading up to the venue. The crew of cheerleaders who were encouraging the crowds up the path was lead by Francene. She was a lot of fun. Her voice though! Imagine the sexiest most soothing voice you have ever heard, that was her! Then she would switch to french, how cool! Ryan convinced her that she should give a shot out to the med crew on the trail. Awesome! Except he told her to refer to me as Carebear Kallum, which she did of course. Why do I have this sinking feeling that one is going to stick when I get back to Louise.

One of the days that had no event I was working to cover any workforce that may have gotten injured. As luck would have it someone on the course crew did come in with a nasty cut above his eye. Apparently he took a shovel to the face while sculpting the course. At first the doctor was going to glue the laceration shut but it was too wide so stitches it was! We did the procedure right there which was cool, but we also had to ask him if his tetanus was up to date. It was. I of course couldn't remember the last time I had mine done and in a moment of complete stupidity mentioned this fact to Judy our nurse. WRONG! She jumped on my case immediately about not having it, and as anyone who has been reading this blog knows, we had a very well stocked medical trailer. Yes it even came with tetanus vaccine. So here I was getting vaccinated when I didn't even get cut! I really should have it since I was working in a medical position though. Anyone who knows me also knows I have a slight phobia when it comes to needles, but I was all brave. That and Judy wasn't taking no for an answer. The shot didn't hurt at all, however the next day my arm was amazingly sore! Look at me being all growed up!

I did manage to have a room all to myself for the entire stay which was so incredible. I was able to host a couple of people from the crew for a night or two when they didn't want to head back to Squamish; an hour ride by bus, most times standing room only! The absolute best thing about having the room to myself was the fire. At night I would turn off all of the lights and turn on the fireplace. Something about firelight doesn't keep me awake like daylight or electric lights. I drifted off to sleep while the flickering orange light danced on the walls. Something about that was so restful and soothing, it's hard to describe.

I think I'll end here for the evening. Now I want to go sit near a warm fire for a bit!