Erk. Olympic-sized erk.

There is not one but two three year olds running unfettered in my house right now, and I am all alone. In terms of adult company. Which means I am outnumbered. The daycare, for whatever reason, has decided that today must be their annual work day, and given my delicate gravid status I determined that The Man had to go. And then I offered a playdate to a small friend whose mother is also out at the work day (which they term a "work party" which is misnomer if ever I heard one). So here I am, preparing for negotiations between small children, and lunch to be prepared at some nebulous point in the future. I don't know this child well; I don't know what he eats.

Wish me luck.

I am also sitting here with the idle goal of finding ourselves some tickets for these here Olympic Games that I have heard are coming here to Vancouver. I'm personally not really in favour of them; in fact I voted against having them. These things are always over budget and not paid for, and I do believe that the millions of dollars that they will cost would be better spent improving schools, health care, and opportunities for the homeless, among other things. Those people who try and tell you that there will be so much more revenue due to incoming tourists are full of it. People, it's VANCOUVER. People come here ANYWAY. It's not like people are unaware of the city and will suddenly start coming here in droves. And I'm already paying enough property tax to live here; I don't need to pay any more.

And that's not even to mention how my daily life will be affected. The place where I work will be one of the venues, and thus will be overrun with people, and they've closed all the roads that take me between the daycare and my office, which incidentally are five minutes drive apart normally but during the games I will be required to drop off my kid, completely leave the area, and then come in a completely different way to my office. I anticipate that due to increased traffic and confusion, that it will take me about 30 minutes to get between the daycare and my office. And that's not even the funny part. The funny part is that although the games themselves are just over two weeks long, due to security considerations, those road closures will be in place for ... come on, guess, can you? You'd think three weeks? Four? Maybe even six? TWO FREAKING MONTHS, PEOPLE.

TWO.

MONTHS.

So I have thus determined (and told my boss) that I will be working from home for the entirety of the games, because I am not hauling my six months pregnant self up there on over crowded public transit with a four year old in tow, nor will I be spending lengthy times in my car, because the likelihood of my needing a bathroom between leaving my house and arriving (late) to my office is just too great. And I am lucky that I can do this -- that I have enough vacation time to take part day vacations and work from home and do this combination for 2.5 weeks so that I can avoid the worst of the worst of the chaos. There are a great number of people who won't be able to do so. At my work and other places. And it's going to be very, very frustrating for people who are hoping that their lives can just continue as much as possible.

But at the same time ... there's nothing I can do about them coming here, so I may as well sit back and try to make the best of it. And since I have no plans to, in future, get myself to an Olympic event, I might as well see what I can find while they are here. What the heck, right?

Alas, despite trying to access the site for the better part of half an hour, I have had absolutely zero success and I can't see any hint that it's going to get better. And since I highly suspect that my peaceful time on the couch for today is rapidly approaching its end, I figure that 30 minutes of trying is all I'm likely to get.

Ah well. There's always TV. And scalpers.