How are you today? I'm superfantastic.

Yes, Hank Williams Jr., I am.

I am ready to have my Saturdays and Sundays full again.

I am ready to curl up on the couch with one game and wake up with another.

I am ready to continue what has been my years-long quest to become well-informed on college football.

I am ready to shout at the television.

I am ready for large, strapping men in tight pants.

I am ready for coaches who look ready to burst a neck vein on national television.

I am ready for third and long.

I am ready for schadenfreude, where certain teams are concerned.

I am ready for Kirk Herbstreit.

I am ready for end zone dances and the Lambeau leap.

I am ready to line up behind Aaron Rogers. Yes, I am a fan of Brett Favre, but I am always and ever, above all else, a fan of the Green Bay Packers.

I am ready for some Packers.

I am ready for some Badgers.

I am ready for some football.

The End of an Era

It's going to be strange next year, watching the Packers play without  Brett Favre.  It's not something I have ever experienced as an adult, nor do I especially care to.  But it was a whole lot of fun while it lasted, wasn't it?

Thanks for the memories, Brett.

*And thanks to all of you for your kind comments and emails on that last post.  I wasn't at all sure how that one was going to go over.  I appreciate that you're supportive, but also that you can disagree with me respectfully.  Golly, Internet, you're the best.

Close...

...but no Superbowl.  The game was a real nail-biter and the stress may have taken a few weeks off my life.  Unfortunately, it was all for naught.

It's very sad, of course, as is this horrifically cold weather we're having.  And now the seven inches of snow that we're supposed to get in the next two days while still maintaining the horrific cold.  I tell you what, this winter has been like a bitchslap from Mother Nature.  How do you like me now, she asks.  Answer: I don't.

So let us think of less upsetting things. 

I do believe that, come spring, I will be chopping off my hair. 

For the moment, I need the extra length for keeping my neck warm.  I do still like my current cut, but I've had it for a while now.

It doesn't look like Stacy and Clinton are going to be showing up anytime soon to whisk me off to New York and put me in the capable hands of Nick Arrojo, so it is up to you and me, Internet, to figure something out.

My only idea so far is this very cute bob that I saw on Amy Poehler in the episode of SNL that Brian Williams hosted.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a photo from that show, but I did find this photo of what must be a similar cut, only worn curly.  Which I suppose could be a possibility for me if the layers are short enough and there is just the right amount of humidity in the air, but generally it would have to be straight.

What do we think?  Yes?  No?  Alternate suggestions?

Making it to the NFC Championship Game is even more fun

when this is your quarterback

starting a snowball fight on the sidelines. 

Football doesn't get any better than Saturday's game at Lambeau.  Giant snowflakes?  Check.  Six touchdowns in six possessions?  Hell, yes.  One of football's all-time greats still in it to win AND have a good time?  See above.

It's a fine time to be a cheesehead.

Go Pack, Go.

I can't believe I was worried about getting a job, what with these totally realistic opportunities available to me.

A couple of funny stories from last week:

I wrote once before about my friend Vicki, who is also a non-catching person and how we invented a game called Try to Catch.  This way we could work on our catching skills without getting too discouraged.  If you play Catch, you can easily fail.  With Try to Catch, you succeed as long as you make an attempt.

I bring that up because it makes the dream that she recently had all the more hilarious.  She dreamed that she was watching football and she saw my name listed (I played for a New York team, which she thinks was the Jets, but it's hard to say) with a record for...wait for it...most receptions without a dropped pass.  Ha!  A person would have to be either legally blind or completely lacking hands in order to be less likely than me to get this record.  I'm pretty sure the NFL doesn't yet have a position called Try to Receiver.

Not to worry though, if things don't work out for me in the NFL, there's always my budding movie career.  See, my boss from this summer was one of the organizers of a conference this weekend on dyslexia and reading disorders.  She brought in some of the nation's foremost experts on dyslexia, one of whom mentioned that she was hoping or planning or something to make a movie with Robert Redford.  This expert thought this was something that my boss could be a part of.  She (my boss) is very, how do I put this...excitable.  For that reason, I didn't get too many details, but she definitely thinks I need to be in it, what with my photogenic face and all.  Enormous leaps in logic and reality were taken which ended with me starring in an upcoming movie with Robert Redford.  Can my time as Hollywood's it girl be far behind?  And if so, do you think I'm too old for the whole drugs/alcohol/driving without a license/rehab routine?

On a more immediate note, I'm going to have to make room for Robert Redford on my list of five.  You know, just in case.  (Currently: George Clooney, Joaquin Phoenix, Brett Favre, Dermot Mulroney, Goran Visnjic.)  George Clooney was recently in a motorcycle accident, so until further notice, I'm going to have to put him on Injured Reserve.

All set.  I'm ready for my close up, Mr. Redford.

Oh, Packers.

It was a weekend of football.  It didn't end so well.

It started out nicely though.  I missed Wisconsin's defeat at the hands of Illinois (a state that was no friend to Wisconsin teams this weekend) because I was back at my alma mater, watching the UW-Whitewater Warhawks rout UW-River Falls 38-12.  The only disappointment was the weather.  Mid-80s?  For football?  In October?  Fortunately, Perkins Stadium is outfitted with some natural shade in the form of those pine trees over there behind the visitor stands.

Which is where we sat to watch the second half of the game.  If you have the lounge-in-the-grass-under-a-tree seating option available to you at your local stadium, I highly recommend it.  Particularly if you are prone to sunburn, not wild about crowds, and attempting to resist the siren song of those Peanut M&Ms you saw at the concession stand.

Of course, there was more college football to watch on Saturday (USC losing!  To Stanford!) and NFL football to watch on Sunday, all leading up to the Sunday night game, Packers vs. Bears.  I was no where near as confident as all of the commentators were about a Packers win.  These commentators have clearly not been lifelong Packers fans.  I find that the only way to get through the season with a reasonable amount of sanity intact is to never, ever assume that the Packers are going to win.  Because they'll break your heart every time.

They started out so well.  It was looking like an easy win.  The Packers even appeared to have a running game, which came as quite a shock after the first four games of all passing all the time.  That was until half-time, at which point I may have accidentally fallen asleep on my couch.  And then I woke up and it was the fourth quarter and the score was tied at 20.  The Bears scored, leaving the Packers with two minutes and one time out remaining to get a touchdown, and folks, Brett Favre is good, but he's no superhero.  (That last statement approaches blasphemy in this state.)

So, flatlanders, you win this round.  Still, this leaves the Badgers at 5-1 and the Packers at 4-1 with a Bears/Packers rematch to come in December.  Not that I'm making any predictions about the outcome of the game or even the season.  I will, however, go so far as to predict no more napping during Packers games on my part.  You know, just in case it was my fault.  One can never be too careful in these situations.

Super(waffle)bowl 2007

I bet your Superbowl party didn't have wafflebowl football cupcakes.  I'm just saying.

These were made by Amy, of course.  We hosted a small gathering here with cupcakes, queso, and homemade pizza rolls.  And alcohol.  And if you think, just because this was an all girl party, that there wasn't screaming and cursing at the TV, think again:

I was a little torn about which team to cheer for.  See, as a Packer fan, I have an instinctual desire to see the Bears lose.  And yet, I always root for the NFC team in the Superbowl.  Also, the Packers beat the Bears, and wouldn't it have been impressive for them to have beaten the World Champions?  In the end, I guess I wound up yelling for the Bears, mostly because Melissa was the person most into the game and was screaming for the Colts.  Our party was nothing if not Fair and Balanced. 

I am not ashamed to admit that I was pretty excited about Prince performing at half-time.  (Am I the only one who has noticed a trend in halftime performers ever since the Janet Jackson incident?  Namely that none of them have breasts?)  And when he started performing Purple Rain in the rain I had a scary thought.  Maybe Prince controls the weather.  It's just a theory. 

I would like to thank Prince for performing both Purple Rain and Let's Go Crazy.  I don't know what that business in the middle was, but it certainly did not involve a little red corvette, raspberry beret, OR doves of any sort.  And, for me, the show was worse for it.

In the end, of course, the Colts triumphed.  I found it a little surprising, considering that they were playing out in the elements, which doesn't tend to be easy for nancyboys who play in domes.  But well done, Colts.  And too bad, Bears.

And too bad for all of us, because now there's no football for a solid six months.  What's a girl to do with her Sundays?  And Monday nights?  And pent up fist-shaking fury?

And most importantly: would you like a cupcake?  We've got leftovers.

Can hopscotch be far behind?

After roughly six straight hours of football viewing tonight, I decided to take a break and have a go at the new workout plan that Amy and I had decided to try.

Yes, I pulled my car out of the garage and jumped rope.  See, our friend Fancy Doug had been explaining that jumping rope is a very efficient way to burn calories.  We thought this sounded good, so on one of my almost-daily trips to Target, I went ahead and picked up some jump ropes for us.  And back when the Colts-Patriots games was looking boring and one-sided (who knew the second half would get so good?) I thought I'd give it a whirl.

For the first minute or two, I had a little trouble.  Is it possible that I have forgotten how to jump rope, I wondered.  Then it came back to me and I felt just like a kid again.  I could almost see my young self out in the driveway with my pink plastic jump rope that through much use had turned black in the middle, courtesy of our blacktop driveway.  This lasted a few minutes.  Then I felt very much not like a kid again.  I felt every bit of my age and out-of-shapeness.  I discovered an alarming truth:

Jumping rope kicks my ass.

I'm not kidding you.  It is tiring.  I had to force myself to slow down so as not to have to quit only a few minutes in.  Which is just sad.  This was so easy as a kid.  I cannot remember ever getting winded from jumping rope.  Of course, I have not attempted to do so in probably fifteen to twenty years now.  Yikes, that sentence makes me sound old.

But remember when we did stuff like this purely for fun?  As a kid, I'd just go and jump rope because it sounded like a good idea and I'd keep going at will until something more fun came along or it was dinner time or my brother came up with some ill-advised scheme that involved risking my personal safety for his amusement.  I don't remember ever having to quit because I was tired.

So this is my plan: I will jump rope as a workout until it becomes easy enough to be a fun leisure-time activity.  This will probably be never.  If you need me, I'll be in the garage.

Also, I feel the need to smugly point out that when my dad asked me at the beginning of the season who was going to make it to the Superbowl, I picked the Bears and Colts.  He calmly explained to me why I was wrong.  So now I am taking this opportunity to say "ha!"  Please notice how I have refrained from using the phrase "I told you so".  Thank you.

My First Love (a very long post)

I got started thinking about how it was that I came to love football.  Here are some ideas.

Football was important in our house growing up.  My dad had played high school football and been offered a scholarship which he declined since he was disinclined to live in El Paso.  ("A desert on one side and a foreign country on the other," he will tell you, should the subject come up.)  He was, in my childhood, a fan of the Houston Oilers, although football is not his favorite sport to watch.  Baseball and the Astros take top billing, but this does not stop him from knowing the complete stats of every player and team in the NFL.

My mom's love of and devotion to the Green Bay Packers comes from my grandpa, who though far too small and gentleman-like to have ever played the sport, was a devoted fan.  Except for the World War II years in Sicily and the final years down near my parents, he lived his entire life less than an hour from Green Bay.  My mom thus grew up in the frozen tundra and her love of football is pretty well confined to the Packers.  She will not hear them criticized, which happens often thanks to my dad, keeping things interesting on game day.  One year she found out after the season that my dad had made a running bet in which a co-worker took the Packers all season and my dad their opponents.  Not only was she glad that he lost money, she called him Traitor for months.  She continues to refer to Ray Nitschke as "my buddy" after she met him at the 4-H fair once where he was signing autographs and they had a nice conversation.  One year my dad bought her diamond earrings for Christmas.  Another year he got her an autographed photo of Brett Favre.  Guess which one she liked better.

So this is how I grew up.  We'd go to church (with, I swear, shorter sermons when there was a noon game), drive through Taco Bell so as not to waste precious game-watching time with sandwich prep, and gather around the TV, my dad pointing out everything that the Packers did wrong and my mom telling him repeatedly to shut up.  Every year we'd get the Packers yearbook which listed every NFL game of the season in the back.  My dad would read them out and we'd all pick a winner in every single game.  I used to use team colors and cuteness of mascot (I tended to pick the Dolphins and Broncos a lot) to make my picks back in the day.  I'm pretty sure I was never the "most correct picks" winner of the family.

When I got to high school, my first job was selling shoes at the Finish Line.  We had TVs in the store and back then we got to watch whatever we wanted on them (by my college years they started putting out hated corporate videos that had to run continuously.)  So on Sundays the only people in the store would be men who had been dragged to the mall.  They'd congregate in front of the TVs and we, having no buying customers, got paid to stand around and watch the games.  High school also began my eight-year run in marching band, which meant that I was at every Parker High School or UW-Whitewater home game during those years.    Not only did I watch a lot of football that way, but the game became tied to good memories of the fun and camaraderie of the band and the adrenaline of performance.  It was also through the Whitewater band that I got to attend my first two Packer games.  We marched half-time and post-game and got to sit on the hallowed sod of Lambeau Field, by then my Mecca.

You may assume that my interest in football came out of a desire to attract men.  I must say I was pretty well in the middle of it by the time this even occurred to me as a possible benefit.  It has very much not worked out that way.  My one romantic relationship that was affected by football was not the better for it.  The guy I was seeing told me that he turned off the Superbowl in which the Packers were playing to watch the X-Files.  Granted, the Packers were losing due to the fact that the Packers were playing terribly and it was a horribly depressing game for Packer fans, but still.  STILL.  I won't say that's why I stopped seeing him, but it certainly was the beginning of the end.

Strangely, football has bonded me with at least as many women as men, including one past and two present roommates.  When Vicki came to work with me back in 2000, we bonded over our mutual love of books and the NFL and hatred of the Saturns we then drove.  In the two years that we lived together, we watched a lot of football, napped through a lot of football, and went to two pro games (Redskins/Chiefs and Bills/Titans.)  Now I have two roommates who share my love of the game, although they're far more interested in college ball.  So it's been a learning experience for all of us.  We thought the fact that our home-office is also a sports room, featuring much Packers, Texas Tech, and Spurs memorabilia including autographs, would be impressive to men.  So far the only big reaction was from a married guy who wondered out loud how such cool chicks into sports could still be single.  We did a collective shrug.

Not to say that I haven't bonded with any guys over football.  Just friendboys instead of boyfriends.  Cory and I could shout profanity at the TV in perfect unison.  Carl and I had to stop watching games together when we discovered that we were jinxing the team with our combined presence.  It turned out that the Pack were able to win as long as Jesse or Jake were with us.  Whew.  And when I taught at a two-year college in New York, putting my email address which ends in @gbpackersfan.com on the board earned me instant points with a lot of my male students.  One, Frankie, had played in high school and, at least according to him, was likely to get a scholarship until he blew out his knee in practice.  He used to come up front after he'd finished his work to draw plays on the board and educate me on such topics as which is the strong side.  And my dad and I have a lot more to talk about during football season.

See, football for me is so much more than sport.  It's memories and family.  It's community.  It's history, tying me to fans through the ages, including my little grandpa who went to the luxury box in the sky where he now watches with Coach Lombardi and my mom's buddy Ray, joined this season by the Minister of Defense Reggie White.  It's about watching the people who are best at something do that thing.  And yes, it's a little bit about attractive men in tight pants.  And it's going to be a long spring and summer.

The BCS and other things I don't get

It's early January, which can only mean one thing: the Bowl Championship Series.  The BCS makes roughly as much sense to me as how fax machines work, why white people get cornrows, and the re-election of George W. Bush.  Which is to say, I am equally flummoxed by all of the above.

Last night I watched many hours of the Orange Bowl.  Florida State, we need to talk.  It's about the song.  See, when the game started, I was slightly in favor of Penn State since they're a Big 10 team and while I attended a Division 3 school, I do hail from a state whose primary college team is Big 10.  So no real commitment at the beginning and yet I stayed up through the third overtime to make good and damn sure that you lost.  Because of the song which you insist on playing incessantly in an apparent effort to irritate the other team into forfeiting with its horrific brain-melting repetitiveness.  We get it, you're Seminoles.  And yet, I didn't need the Penn State fans to roar before, during, and after every play to remind me that they're Nittany Lions.  They had me at "we play our fight song after a score like any normal college band."  Kathryn thinks that even the FSU fans must get sick of the song after a while but I'm guessing that they think it's awesome each and every time.*  Which, I might add, included the entirety of all three overtimes.  It never stopped.  The song which I now hate with an undying hatred which, allow me to reiterate, WILL NOT DIE!

A side note to ABC: why is it that we must be confronted with the queasy-fying mug of John Madden between every Monday night play and yet only get two or three glimpses of Kirk Herbstreit and That Other Guy Who Was Also There in the course of an eleven hour game?

On the off chance that you missed it, the storied Capitol One Bowl ended with 21st-ranked Wisconsin defeating 7th-ranked Auburn.  Go Badgers!

*'Nole fans, please weigh in!  Bearing in mind that comments in death-threat form will be deleted!

Working Title: Turbo Coolest Movie in the World

Dear Hollywood Studio Executives,

We, Lori and Holly, have cooked up perhaps the greatest movie concept of all time.  Briefly, our story revolves around a group of actors getting ready to star in a football movie.  Before filming can start, our stars must undergo intensive training in the game, to be provided by actual pros.  We follow them as they struggle, fail, fight, bond, and overcome adversity together.  Our strongly suggested casting is as follows:

Actors: Matthew McConaughey, Dermot Mulroney, Michael Vartan, Goran Visnjic

Football Players: Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Tony Gonzalez, Darren Sharper

Commentators: Kirk Herbstreit, Howie Long

The female leads are to be played by the co-writers.  This point is NOT negotiable.  In the course of the movie, we see a ragtag group of actors transformed into believable athletes.  It's a buddy film with tension, action, and of course romance as our actors, football players, and commentators vie for the attention and ultimately love of the female leads (again, and we cannot stress this strongly enough, to be portrayed by us and only us.)  Who will ultimately triumph?  We're not sure, but Mulroney and Herbstreit are early frontrunners.

Men will love the football.  Women will love the eye candy.  And who can't relate to a story of overcoming stereotypes, setting aside ego, and becoming best friends with your former rivals all for the love of the game?  And two blonde women, of course.  Critical acclaim, Oscar nominations, and huge box office returns are surely in store for this heartwarming action bonanza.

We look forward to hearing from you.  Let the bidding war begin!

Fakey air kisses,

Holly and Lori

No Xs or Os for you!

Dear Terrell Owens,

T.O., you big whiny baby.  Right when I was finally on a 2 game winning streak, you have to go and get yourself suspended.  With your big mouth and your poor me.  And now, when I had finally climbed out of last in the league and was hoping with this game to get out of the basement of my division, you're benched.

Rat bastard.

Sincerely,

Lori

XOXO

Dear Brett Favre,

Thank you for winning me a fantasy game by getting the ball to Donald Driver, particularly that one time in the end zone.   Now, at 1-3, I have a better record than you do and I'm sorry about that.  I would trade you Terrell Owens if I could.  Then again, you need a whole offensive line too, and I don't even have one of those.  I know that you're at the bottom of your division and so am I, although I'm not there alone.  I'm tied with a team called the Slutrags and I think I'd rather be all alone than considered on par with a Slutrag.  Because that is not a pretty mental picture.

I hope the rest of your team rises to the occasion at some point.  I hope your family is able to rebuild their homes and lives after the hurricane and that your wife's cancer ordeal really is over.  I hope that you'll pass along my contact info to any single teammates who can read above a fourth grade level.  And most of all, I hope that Driver becomes your go-to guy and scores LOTS of touchdowns. 

Please don't leave me alone with the Slutrags!  It's just not sanitary.

your #1 fan,

Lori

Weekend in Review

Sunday night already.  Where does the time go?  Mostly to football, apparently.

Friday I did the do-gooder thing and was a Red Cross volunteer at Kelly USA, one of the hurricane shelters here in town.  I worked in the "store" where everything is free and donated.  You would not believe what crap some people donate!  Seriously people, it's called compassion and compassion does not foist acid-wash shorts circa 1982 with a hole in the crotch on some poor unsuspecting hurricane survivor.  They've been through enough.  Surely you have something presentable that you could give away.

Saturday was devoted mostly to football and to realizing that I am a wuss and eight hours of actual moving-around-type work causes me to be in substantial pain.  But first I went to Starbucks for my weekly writing appointment with fellow aspiring novelist Debbie.  Where I saw Eva Longoria.  Just wearing some purple pants and getting some coffee.  I wasn't totally convinced that it could really be her until Melissa informed me that Eva had bought a house in that neighborhood.  Yes, a Desperate Housewife in my very own Starbucks.

The rest of the day was pretty much sitting on the couch watching college football and sitting in Champs drinking beer and watching college football, both with my college-football-lovin' roommate Holly.  Together we appreciated the games and the fineness that is Kirk Herbstreit.  Also, I went to Borders, my happy place, and bought two books.  Because my library branch is closed and yes, I know there is another one right by my office, but I haven't bought any shoes in a very long time and so I deserve two new non-pre-read books!  Dammit!

Then today I went to the Saints/Bills game, where being a female football fan finally paid off!  They had separate lines for women and men to be frisked when entering and the girls' line was much shorter, allowing us to more quickly get out of the unbelievable heat.  It was one skillion degrees outside--not acceptable football weather!  San Antonio does not observe fall. 

But fortunately the game was in a dome, where it was of course chilly, because wow do San Antonians love them some AC.  The Saints won in a relatively low-scoring, but still entertaining game.  I paid four easy installments of just $29.95 for a hotdog (with complimentary mustard packet) which was, of course, delightful.

We were baffled by the number of people wearing jerseys that were in no way affiliated with the Bills or Saints.  Did these people get lost on their way to the Browns, Packers, Vikings, Cowboys, and Patriots games?  Were they confused about what was going to be happening in the Alamodome?  Then again, I shout helpful suggestions such as Run! and Get out of bounds, dumbass! to the TV so who am I to judge?

Tonight my roommates and I began to plan our theme-bash for next Saturday which you will all hear more about later.  Dun, dun, dun!!! 

I just checked in on my fantasy game and she's all tied up!  We each have 76 points and one player in tomorrow night's game.  I have Green Bay receiver Donald Driver while the other team has the Panthers' kicker whose name I don't remember.

Go Pack Go!

And if you must lose, at least give a girl a break and pass the ball to Driver!!!! 

It's a nail-biter, kids!  Please don't let me go 0-4...

"Fantasy" is not the correct word.

My fantasy team is currently tied at 0-3 with the Green Bay Packers.  We both suck in equal proportion.  I guess this is my penance for trying not to get any Packers on my team.  It is hardly my fault that the Packers suck this year.  I continue to be a fan, but I’m realistic about what a miserable season it’s going to be.  I did wind up with one Packer, Donald Driver, who I thought may do alright for me since the Packers have no other decent receivers.  So far, no good.

The Packers though have highly-paid football minds invested in selecting their team.  I took about two minutes to rank players on the list and never actually considered how my rankings might play out.  Or come back to bite me as the case may be.  Perhaps if I had a longer attention span I might have been bothered to invest a little more time and thought.  Plus it’s not like there’s money on the line or anything, just pride.  Money would have been a much stronger motivator. 

My star running back, Jamal Lewis has turned out to be, just after Peyton Manning, the biggest disappointment of this season so far.  I watched my tight end Tony Gonzalez last night as he was double- and triple-teamed, keeping him to low yardage and no touchdowns.  Foiled again.

So I suppose this doesn’t bode well for my career in the actual NFL.  It’s not like I was hoping for a GM position.  I just want to know how I can get a job holding the down marker.  Or working the dial-a-down thing.  I could totally do that.  Anything that throws me in the path of lots of large, strapping, well-paid men who can get me season tickets.

It’s really not just about the men in tight pants for me.  I genuinely enjoy and appreciate the sport.  Thanks to Big Daddy Lomas, I’m going to the Saints game on Sunday.  I’ll cheer for the Saints since they’re sort of our hometeam, but my stress level will be considerably lower than when I have attended Packer games in the past.  I can just sit back and enjoy the good plays, something that was rare in the Redskins games I attended.  Well, the Chiefs and Falcons made plenty of good plays against them.  Meanwhile the Redskins got less first downs than we had beers.  And barring a low-interest loan, we couldn’t afford that many beers.

So while I’m so glad it’s football season again and so glad to once again have the opportunity to watch games and nap through games and talk on and on about football, it might be a bit of a sore subject this year.  And I’m pretty sure my fantasy season is already shot to hell.  Poor Lori. 

Go Saints.