The dog days of August are upon us and my summer is slowly coming to an end. It's been a pretty good summer for me. I went camping, totally ignored my garden (I guess I'll be visiting the Farmer's Market in September to buy my fruit and vegetables for canning and freezing), took my girls to doctor's appointments and dentist appointments (that is if I could get them out of bed), took the dogs to the river like every day (they're really starting to smell and I'll be bathing them at least twice a week come fall), watched movies, downloaded season 8 volume 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on my Kobo (it's not the same as holding the comic in my hand so I'll have to visit Chapters), and, of course, I watched the Olympics. Is it just me or did anyone else really, really hope that Harry Potter would suddenly appear on his Firebolt, point his wand and yell, "Incendio!" to light the cauldron. I think that would have been awesome. Our Canadian athletes didn't live up to their potential according to the experts but I don't think our experts ever live up to theirs so I guess they're even. Was I disappointed that Alexander Despatie crashed in the pool? No, I was amazed he even went back on the diving board after hitting his head and winding up in the hospital. I can't even look over the edge of the diving board let alone jump and twist and turn and land in water without making a splash. Besides, he's won so many medals for Canada before, he's got nothing to be ashamed of. I guess I could get all angry about our 4x100 relay team being disqualified but that's the rule. If we came fourth and the third place team got disqualifed for the same reason and we were given the bronze by default, we'd be so happy. Whatever, we came third and stepped on the line. It'll be okay. Our soccer team got some iffy calls but, hey, we won a bronze medal. We weren't even close to that before. I enjoyed watching Rosie Maclennan win her gold medal and wondered why our only gold medal athlete didn't get to carry the flag in the closing ceremony. I know we have this hockey minded mentality when it comes to sports and the women's soccer team ignited that but, come on, we only had one gold medal. Oh well. I think what I'll remember the most about the London Olympics is the 400m semi-finals in which double amputee Oscar Pistorius came last and evental gold medal winner Kirani James won. James took quick congratulations from the other athletes as he made his way over to Oscar. You could see the admiration in his face as he asked the South African athlete to trade name tags with him. You could see that, even though he was the world's best at 400 meters, Oscar was the world's best at never giving up and that is what the Olympics should be teaching us.