Are they over yet?

One of the most important days of the year passed by this week with nothing but a brief deep inside my morning paper.

The reason: The freaking Winter Olympics.

Perhaps I lack a certain innate patriotism, but I just don't care. Michelle Kwan dropping out because of groin problems? Don't care. Bode Miller says something stupid? Don't care. Lindsay Jacobellis loses the gold because she's hotdogging? OK, maybe I care about that long enough to read the Times story and launch into my best mommy voice, 'This is a very painful moment for her, but I'm sure she's learned a valuable lesson, and that's really what athletic competition is all about.' People from strange countries doing strange things with strange equipment in a place that is much too cold for any sane person?

Really don't care. I am a sports fanatic, as poor Judybat will attest from the hours I spent last summer forcing her to listen to Yankee game broadcasts piped in over the Internet. (The Internet: It's not just for porn.)

So these are dark, dark days. My Tar Heels are doing suprisingly well given that they lost pretty much everyone who played in the national championship last season, but I rarely get to see them play. (You might recall that we don't have cable. Perhaps there's a reason for that.) None of the interesting golf tournaments -- Judybat will note that there are no interesting golf tournaments, but she's wrong -- start until the pros can play someplace other than California and southern Florida. The biggest sporting event of the weekend is, ugh, NASCAR. (I'm sure those nice boys work very hard, but putting on slippers and driving in a circle for four hours isn't a sport. It's just silly.)

There was one ray of hope this week, one glimmer of sunshine that suggested that spring -- and a return to the days when I actually read the sports section -- is coming. Pitchers and catchers reported Thursday, one of the best days of the year because everyone has a chance and all the old familiar faces are back on TV screen and it means real games are around the corner -- as are March Madness and the Masters and assorted other springtime yummies to take the mind off the real world.

But there was just a paragraph in the paper. Stupid Olympics.