Jinxed Ma Babe

I’m so sad! Part of my Eurosport obsession has made me an avid follower of biathalons. Today I watched a riveting race in which the German women were like krystalnacht all over again (if that’s even how you spell it). There was ONE Russian woman and ONE French woman in the top 8, and I swear all the others were German. The camera was set at the finish, which is just past the last climb/turn of the race, and I swear these girls just kept turning the corner and sliding and attacking the finish, poles and skis like Deutsche-Terminator or something. You’d have to see it. It was intimidating and frightening in that kind of thrilling way (like when you used to see all the Soviet gymnasts rock ALL their routines without sweating or smiling).

In the men’s race, though, I totally jinxed my lover. Now, since I’ve already BOTH asserted my saintly celibacy and repeatedly made reference to my romantic designs on one NYC Pookie, I should qualify this by saying that by “lover” I mean “hot athlete who I have seen a few times on TV and who, now that Pookie is frolicking with some Muscovite snow dancer somewhere in Novisibirsk, I am adopting as my fantasy man.” Let the fantasy begin…

His name is Ricco. Hey is SERIOUSLY Ricco. Ricco Gross – kind of an Italian-turned-German thing.

The fantasy background that I’ve made up for us is that we met one year ago when I was in Zurich. We were in the same shop looking at Freitag (Friday) Swiss recycled-truck bags (found at the Bloomie’s in SoHo for you NYCers) and he was so impressed with my pronunciation of “Freitag” when he overheard me asking the salesperson a question about the bag that that he approached me and said (in German, which I don’t speak but I of course understand): “You sound German when you speak, but have the face of a Eurasian angel and the body of a devil.”

I blushed and pretended to be offended by his forwardness (in English): “Actually I’m from Monaco” (like I’d tell him the truth in our first meeting? Egypt has taught me better…) “and I appreciate the compliments, but I’d be more impressed with someone who noticed my mind than my body.”

HE then said in flawless French: “Before becoming an Olympic biathlete, I was a PhD Candidate in Heidelberg in continental philosophy.”

At this, I picked up the bag I was looking at, opened the flap, grabbed a pen off the counter, and wrote my number ON the inside of the bag (the salesperson was totally shocked) closed the bag, handed it to him, said “buy it and call me,” and walked away.

I took the trolly to the river, where I sat by some non-hissing swans (Swiss swans are SUPER well-behaved!), and thought about how I wished I lived in Switzerland and not Egypt. Deep in reverie, I barely noticed Ricco approach me – barely noticed, that is, until he held me at gunpoint. Don’t be scared (even though I was): he jokingly had his beebie rifle pressed against my neck and said in my right ear: “One move and I’m throwing the bag in the river.”

I grinned: “I wouldn’t recommend that. It will just be such a hassle for you when I push you into the river and make you retrieve it for me.”

He sat down next to me and we properly introduced ourselves. As it turns out, Switzerland is his favourite country, too, and it was by total coincidence that he’d come to the same spot by the swans, where he said he’s also spent many a contemplative moment.

I was leaving for NYC the next day, and he had to go to some world championships of biathlon or something, but since that day he has called me religiously at least once a week, and we have often met in a cabin of his on Lake Geneva. I’m really popular with his biathlon buddies, mostly because they see how much happier (and faster on the snow) Ricco is, now that I’m in his life.

Just so you know a bit more about him, here are some photos. I took these photos of him training during the summer in Afghanistan (can you believe the sweetheart followed me there just to make sure I was safe!?), and I particularly love the one of him doing the standing shoot (no giggles!). The one of him on the ski rollerblades going up the paved hill might surprise you, because there aren’t very many paved roads in Afghanistan, but the big humanitarian sweetheart that he is PAVED A ROAD that he not only used as a practice track, but was also used by wheelchair-bound widows to get from mosque to market. So thoughtful, he is.

I have a cute photo of him on the podium from last March in Norway, and I know you are all wondering “did he dedicate the victory to you?” The answer is no, he did not – he actually dedicated it to Madame Wong (they really hit it off, because he has crazy taste in furniture, too), and promised to dedicate his immanent gold medal at this year’s Torino Olympics to me.

The last photo I have to share with you is of him looking over the rifle with chilling intensity at a race I was at in northern Greece last winter. I was having a bit of a stalking problem when the Shooto fighter known as “Shaolin,” pictured in my blog, below, got wind of my blogging about him, fell madly in love, and wouldn’t leave me alone. Poor Ricco had to always carry extra bullets in his riffle whenever we were together, just in case Shaolin appeared out of nowhere, and in this race he had a sixth sense intuition that Shaolin was nearby. We’re SO connected in that way.

I know you are all wondering – is he as intense off the shooting range as he is on the shooting range? The answer is: HE SURE IS! Let’s just say I’ve seen that look more than once ;)

Sadly, though, I totally jinxed him in today’s race (that was the whole point of this ridiculous story, actually) – he was in the lead going into the final shoot, had cleared the last set of targets in record time (less than 25 seconds), and then he missed TWO of the five targets on the last shoot. He is trying to peak for the Olympics, so today’s tournament wasn’t SO important, but the poor babe gets SO upset when he doesn’t perform to the highest level, it took about two hours of cuddling him and BOTH Legally Blonde DVDs to calm him down. I’m flying back to Cairo, tonight, and won’t see him again until Italy, but win or lose we’re spending a few days together on Lake Como after Torino, and I am really looking forward to being together again.

(on a serious note: he is a real hottie and did TOTALLY blow it on today’s final shoot; I seem to be jinxing ALL my favourite athletes: Hingis lost in Sydney, Federer lost today, although to another hot German who I like, and Kwan is injured and has to PETITION to be on the US Olympic Team!)

I may have said this on my blog, before, or maybe I just said it privately to Curie, but I think I would be an EXCELLENT biathlete. I’m good at accuracy/practice/precision things like shooting, and I think that I’m built a lot like the biathletes (I can just tell it would be a motion that my body would feel good doing – especially the climbs and that double-polled lunging that they do more in sprints), BUT – and this is why Curie and I concluded that I couldn’t really do any form of cross-country skiing, I can’t turn my feet out (Ricco doesn’t consider my pigeon toedness to be a deformity, but alas it limits my biathlon abilities) and almost ALL of the skiing positions require a bow-legged turned-out position…people like me would just trip over their crossed skis.

VC