Three Football Stories That Aren't About Football...

Story 1

Hubby and I intended to leave home around 6:30 this morning to go to the football game. Kickoff was at noon, and we wanted to get a good parking spot for the RV. What we consider a good parking spot is one that is A) easy to get out of, since we are among the minority of tailgaters in the RV who don't spend the night; and B) good for satellite reception.

I woke up at 4:50 or something like that, and I knew it was too early to get up. The next time I looked at the clock, it was 6:27. So much for leaving home at 6:30. Hubby got up a few minutes later, and we left not long thereafter.

Usually I spend a lot of time getting ready to go to a football game. Hair, make-up, clothes, shoes, food, drinks, paraphernalia for Gus, electronic devices, crocheting (sometimes, depending on the time of the game), maybe something to read.

I didn't have that option this morning. I hurriedly packed a bag with clothes to wear for the game, I poured us each a cup of coffee in a travel mug, we grabbed the dog, and we left around 7:00 or 7:15.

Oh, the beauty of having an RV. I left home this morning wearing yoga pants, a t-shirt, and my house shoes. I had on no bra and NO UNDERWEAR! I didn't even have time to brush my teeth. I took my hairdryer and make-up and did those primping things after we got there. Thank goodness I have toiletries that live in the RV, along with extra clothing (if needed) and underwear (whew!).

Story 2

This is tongue-in-cheek. I understand how ticket scalping works.

Something still looks funny enough that I want to stop and take a picture of it (it'll have to be next year, since today was our last home game, and it might get me shot anyway).

On our way to the stadium, we invariably pass several sets of scalpers. One will hold up a sign that says, "I need tickets," and the other holds up a handful of tickets, yelling, "Who needs tickets?" On the way to one game, the guy yelled about needing tickets, and I pointed to the guy about 10 yards from him and said, "He's got some."

He said to me, "What?" and we kept walking. I don't know if he really didn't hear me or if he was ticked off that I was questioning their methods. Or whatever I was questioning.

Today we passed a guy who was apparently either working alone, or his buddy had taken a bathroom break. He had a sign in one hand saying he needed tickets, and in the other hand he clutched ... you guessed it ... tickets.

Again, I realize how the system works. They buy extra tickets from folks who don't need them AND they sell tickets to folks who don't have them.

It still looks funny.

Story 3

Most fans are fairly well-behaved, at least in our section of the stadium. Unfortunately, our seats are very near some seats that are always occupied by fans from the opposing teams. (Maybe when I grow up I'll be eligible for seats that are only UGA fans.) It's not usually a problem. Good-natured ribbing takes place between fans from the two teams, and it's all in good fun.

Apparently not for some people.

One section over from us today, we saw folks standing up trying to get a better look at some kind of commotion. It's usually pretty easy to predict what's going to happen even before you spot the perpetrator(s). One (usually drunk) fan from the home team starts jawing and arguing with some other (usually drunk) fan from the other team, and pretty soon the verbal altercation turns physical and one or both parties is escorted from the stadium, sometimes handcuffed and sometimes not.

That actually wasn't the case today. It was ONE fan from the opposing team who was being belligerent to the UGA fans in her section, repeatedly dropping the f-bomb and generally being obnoxious and disruptive. Yes, I said "her." I don't think the security folks handcuffed her, at least not while I could see her, but they did wrestle her into the aisle and marched her out, to the cheers and jeers of fans in three sections. She was accompanied by a young man, maybe around 12 or 13 years old, and I felt terrible for him.

It was only the first quarter, and I suspect he didn't get to see the rest of the game. At least not in person.

Busy Day With No Photos.....

It was a busy day for Sweet Girl and me, and I had lots of opportunities to take photographs. Even going back to yesterday, when we were PREPARING for today (a day of football and RVing and tailgating), including completing some tasks I hadn't heretofore (I love that word) done on my own.

• Going to the gas company to get propane put in the RV, arriving promptly at 8:00 just like Hubby said before the trucks left on their regular routes, only to sit there and twiddle my thumbs for half an hour because they actually don't open until 8:30. 
• Emptying the waste water tanks on the RV. I have heretofore allowed that to remain a male-defined and male-centered task. I can be sexist when it is convenient.
• Parking 5 cars in our front yard (it really isn't that big) so I could get the RV out. Hubby took my SUV to Mississippi, and the guys who rode with him left their cars here. And Sweet Girl's car is here. And Hubby has TWO vehicles all by himself. It looks a little like a used car lot at our house.
• Parking in our usual RV tailgating lot, but NOT in our usual spot where we know exactly how to set up the satellite, because Maurice thought he blocked off our usual spot, but an RV slipped in sometime during the night and took our spot. 
• Getting frustrated because I couldn't get the satellite set up. I didn't want to watch television that badly, but I desperately wanted to be able to accomplish the feat.
• Stewing about the satellite for a while, then moving it to the front of the RV and picking up a signal almost immediately. 
• Leaping over the curb in jubilation because I was able to set up the satellite.
• Setting up the television outside, which is what I've wanted to do every. single. week. since we started tailgating, but Hubby always puts it inside and then sits inside with the air conditioner on and we may as well be at home watching television.
• Taking a picture of television sitting outside the RV and texting it to Hubby, not only to let him know I was successful at setting up the satellite all by myself, but also to let him know that when he isn't here, I will basically do whatever the hell I want to.
• Despairing when our team quickly fell behind 10-0 to a team that hasn't beat us since Jimmy Carter was President, then proceeding to win by a final score of 37-10. We were afraid the whole team was asleep at the beginning of the game.
• Cheering loudly when the sun finally, mercifully dipped below the line of trees.
• Choosing (inadvertently) to return to the RV lot by the darkest, scariest, spookiest route possible. Hubby and I don't even go that way when he's with me. What a dork.

Yes, any or all of those would have been photo-worthy. No wonder I can't call myself a photographer.

And I'm almost embarrassed to say my camera was clipped to my belt loop.

Dear Coach Mark Richt.....

Dear Mark Richt (and the rest of the Georgia football team):

You're welcome.

I am positively 100% sure that the victory this evening over the much-hated Florida Gators is attributable mostly to my own tried-and-true superstitions.

These are the shoes I wore to the grocery store this morning.

With these socks. I'm sure there's such a thing as "overkill". Stay tuned.

These are the shoes I wore before my feet got cold. Literally, cold feet.

My pajama pants. I was tempted to wear them to the grocery store, but I do have SOME standards. Okay, one. Standard.

I know we were supposed to wear red today, and if I had been in the stadium, I would have. I figured since I was at home, the black one would suffice, as long as it had the "G" on it. Laundry is not my favorite thing to do.

My bracelet. Not a very good example of proper depth-of-field.

Earrings

CAUTION: THE FOLLOWING PICTURE IS RATED PG AT BEST. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.
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This may be the least comfortable bra in my dresser. But I was afraid to take it off until the game was over!

As the Bud Light commercial says about sports superstitions, "It's only weird if it doesn't work."

How 'bout them Dawgs.

Love,

Bragger

Let's Hope It Wasn't a UGA Student.....

I will apologize in advance for the fact that some of you will not find this post as hilarious as I do. I myself would find it much funnier if we had actually WON THE DAMN GAME today. And that's all I'm going to say about that. It would also be funnier if you knew my brother and how quick he is.

My thanks go out to Katydid for recording the (losing) game and offering visual support for this blog post. It proves the adage that "you can't make this stuff up."

If you don't follow college football, you may not be aware that when we cheer for our Georgia Bulldogs, we don't say "Go Bulldogs." It is "Go Dawgs." Always has been, always will be.

(Personally, I struggle a bit with the grammatically incorrect "How 'bout them Dawgs," but I can usually overcome it.)

If you say, "Go Bulldogs," you immediately label yourself an imposter. Or an idiot. When someone yelled "Go Bulldogs" at Bubba Watson at some golf tournament last year, he should have walked over and plonked him or her with a nine iron. I'm just sayin'.

Early in the game today, the television scanned the crowd very briefly, and a fan in the stands was holding up this poster:

It was so brief that Hubby didn't see it, and I think he thought I was making it up when I said to him, "Seriously? Go Dwags?" (Double thank you, Katydid, since I was able to prove it to him.)

My brother, however, saw the sign too, because he texted me, "GO DWAGS"????? I was so happy someone besides me had seen it.

Then when UGA's Tavarres King scored on an 80-yard pass play, brother texted me, "TOUCHDWON!!!" 

I told him he gave me a warm feeling all over, because I had just peed on myself. Then he replied, "SRROY." I was gasping for air when I handed Hubby my cell phone so he could read the message.

Seriously?
Don't you kind of pencil the words in before you paint them? (Okay, okay, maybe not this particular sign.)

Don't you kind of stand back and admire your handiwork?

Don't you show your friends and family what you're going to hold up for the television cameras during the game?

DID NO ONE NOTICE THE MISSPELLING?????


It's fans like the one holding this sign that give us Georgians a bad name. It's not enough that we mispronounce our mascot on purpose, but some of us (one of us?) can't even SPELL it!

Football season for UGA is officially over, and we have nine months to lick our wounds from this one. In the meantime...

BRING ON GYMNASTICS SEASON IN 4 DAYS!!!

Red Wednesday......

If Friday the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday, then I guess if you get dragged to the freakin' MALL the day BEFORE Thanksgiving so you can pre-shop for Black Friday, it might as well be called Red Wednesday. (Sweet Girl suggested White Wednesday, but it sounded too racist.) Red works just as well, since my checking account was in danger of being that color, thus precluding any need to go Black Friday shopping in the first place, if we didn't get the heck out of the mall.

I don't have any real need to go shopping on Black Friday, since the only person I have to buy for this year is Sweet Girl, and her gifts are already bought and almost wrapped. "Almost" meaning I have the boxes and the wrapping paper and may even be able to put my hands on some tape. This way I will save the expense of shipping them to Florida. She can take them home with her, taped up in a bigger box, and open them on Christmas Day. She won't peek either; she was never a kid to sniff out her Christmas gifts. I don't think.

We only went to the mall today (supposedly) to see the Muppets movie. It won't win an Oscar, but it was entertaining. And I didn't go to sleep. I didn't even text during the movie.

The best thing about Red Wednesday/Pre-Black Friday shopping is that since it's not technically Christmas shopping, it's okay to buy things for myself.

I bought the one vital garment missing from my UGA-themed clothing to wear to the SEC Championship game, only to arrive home and get an email that I don't have the trillion points necessary to earn the privilege of buying tickets to the game. BUT I guess I can wear the newly acquired vital garment at home while we watch the game on television, saving, in Hubby's words, "AT LEAST $500" by NOT going to the game in person.

Dang it. I really wanted to go. Every time UGA has played in that game and I've attended in person..... they've won.

If Mark Richt hears that, he may send me tickets himself.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Eerie Timing......

I recorded this video at the last home UGA game of the year last Saturday, mainly for Katydid. I apologize for the less-than-optimal quality of the video. It's hard to film and watch at the same time, and I forgot a couple of times what I was attempting to do.

It's a UGA tradition, playing the "Battle Hymn of the Bulldog Nation" during the pregame activities of a home game. A lone trumpet plays the opening notes from the southwest corner of the stadium. (I think perhaps this particular soloist succumbed to nerves at the idea of playing in front of 92,746 people.) Then the videoboard shows clips from games in the distant past as well as the current season while the entire Redcoat Marching Band plays the rest of the Battle Hymn.

I recorded this because the video is narrated by the legendary voice of the Georgia Bulldogs for 42 years, Larry Munson, from 1966 until 2008 when he retired.

If you're not a Dawg fan, there isn't enough blog space in the world for me to explain the Hobnail Boot call, "Run Lindsay!" (when Munson broke his chair in his excitement), or "My God Almighty, he just ran right through two men...My God, a freshman!" There are examples all over the internet if you're curious enough to go listen. I look them up myself from time to time just to hear that gravelly voice again. I think Larry Munson was among the first radio announcers who threw the rulebook out the window when it came to remaining unbiased while calling a football game. He was Georgia Bulldog through and through, and he didn't mind letting it be known even while he was calling a game.

And yesterday that gravelly voice was silenced forever. Larry died yesterday at his home in Athens at the age of 89. The Bulldog Nation mourns his passing, but we are appreciative of what he brought to our team, our school, our city, and our state during his tenure as the voice of the Bulldogs.

If I had suspected he might not survive the week, I might have tried a little harder on my videography.

Tailgating Season Comes to an End.....

Today was our last home UGA football game. There is the game next Saturday at Georgia Tech (probably won't go to that one), the SEC Championship game the following game in Atlanta (have applied for tickets to that one, but so far down on the points totem pole that it's doubtful we will get them), and then whatever bowl game UGA gets invited to play in.

It's hard to believe the home season is over, and the regular season is almost over. Didn't we just start playing? Where did the time go?

Our tailgating experience this year was a positive one. This is the first time we've had season tickets, and it's the first time we've had the RV to take to ballgames. Even for games like today's, when we didn't intend to spend the night, it was nice to have A) our own bathroom; B) a television; and C) somewhere to hang out. Even room to take a nap, if we had been so inclined.

It was only about a mile walk from our RV lot to the stadium. The only teeny tiny negative I can think of is that for the two games that ended after dark, it was a little bit spooky walking back along a poorly lit path in a ... questionable ... part of town.

Gus did beautifully as a tailgating dog. He wore his little UGA t-shirt, and he didn't bark obnoxiously. Much. He wasn't crazy about being left in the RV for the duration of a football game, but he got used to it.

I didn't expect to get sunburned on the 19th of November, but I did today. I wore a turtleneck and fleece vest along with my UGA jacket, which turned out to be totally unnecessary. It stayed under my seat the entire game.

We won today's game, but it almost felt like a loss. We were expected to win by more than four touchdowns, but the score was 19-10. I hope that means we were saving up for the two big, big games we have left, and not that our team's swagger was just all a bunch of hot air.

Enough about football for tonight. We're all pretty tuckered out.

Not How a Cold is Supposed to Act......

This has been the strangest cold I've had in recent memory.

Wait... It's been the ONLY cold I've had in recent memory. So I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

Typically when I get a cold, it starts in my sinuses then settles in my chest. Sometimes (but thankfully rarely) it becomes bronchitis.

This time the tightness started in my chest, THEN progressed to coughing, THEN the sniffles and sneezing started yesterday. I felt the worst yesterday morning, and if it had been a school day, I probably wouldn't have gone. It was a FOOTBALL SATURDAY, though, so of course I went to the game.

We had already made plans to spend the night, since the game was over after dark, and some of those RV tailgaters just set their chairs and stuff up right in the middle of the driving lanes, oblivious of the fact that SOME PEOPLE might not want to make an ENTIRE WEEKEND of the event.

It was a miserable night, though. The noise of the generator, which usually doesn't bother me, almost drove me insane. I couldn't breathe because of my cold, and I almost woke Hubby up to tell him let's just go home. It must have been around 11:00. When I woke up again I was convinced it MUST be time to get up, and I stumbled to the living room part of the RV to look at my cell phone. It was 2:17.

Good. Lord.

We did manage to doze back off, thankfully, and it was just breaking daylight when we woke up the next time. I was never so glad in my life to come home. I love the RV and usually I'm just as happy sleeping in it as I am my own bed at home, but I guess because I felt rotten anyway, I wanted to be in my real bedroom.

I was unable to blog last night due to crappy internet service. I didn't even bother taking the laptop, since it hasn't worked where we tailgate, and while I could get TO my blog on my iPhone, I couldn't get to the part where it said "New Post."

I apologize that I made you wait a whole day for me to regale you with tales of mucus, sniffling, sneezing, wheezing, and whining.

You're welcome.

On a happy note, the ballgame was a thriller. Not a thriller in that it was competitive, but it was a huge win, and I'll take a lopsided victory over a heart-stopping one almost any day. The win means that if we can manage a win next week over lowly not very competitive SEC opponent Kentucky, we will go back to Atlanta for the SEC Championship game on December 3rd.

I can just hear you now. "Oh yay. More football talk. Goody."

But cheer up. It's only 47 more days until I start babbling incoherently about college gymnastics.

Favorite Things Friday - UGA Sweater.....

Welcome to the first installment of Favorite Things Friday. It may be the only installment because -- who knows? -- by next Friday I may have forgotten completely that I wanted to start a new tradition.

Today's Favorite Thing is my UGA sweater.

This sweater is one of my favorite articles of clothing in the whole world. Now before you go saying, "Well of COURSE it is, it has UGA all over it...." that's not the reason it's one of my favorites. I have approximately a million different articles of clothing proclaiming my love for my alma mater, but this is one is my favorite for a number of reasons.

I've had this sweater since 2002, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. That was the first year UGA had any prayer of going to the SEC Championship game in Atlanta, and early in the season I told Hubby that if UGA made it, that was ALL I wanted for Christmas, was to go to that game.

As it turned out, Hubby WON tickets to the game through work, and I guess he felt guilty that the ONLY thing I wanted for Christmas was something he didn't even have to pay for. He may have also felt a little bit sorry for me because on the Saturday morning of the game, I had to go to school. And work. On the yearbook. On a freakin' Saturday.

Hubby decided while I was working he would run to Athens and buy me the sweater I had mentioned seeing at the UGA bookstore. That was his first mistake. He took Sweet Girl with him so he could make sure of the sizing. That was his second mistake. (Because it cost him a sweatshirt for her too.)

He surprised me with the sweater when I got home from school, and I was thrilled to be able to wear it to the championship game. He still looked a little shell-shocked from the price tag, but when we won the game, he considered it worth the sacrifice to do his part.

You can see it's a little rough around the edges, but for me that's part of the charm. I don't wear it to school as a rule; only big football games. I did, however, wear it today, and I plan to wear it to tomorrow's HUGE game. (Tomorrow could determine whether or not we return to the SEC Championship game.) In the picture above, you can barely see at the bottom of the sleeve where the stitching has come apart a little bit.

In this picture, the felt of the megaphone has attracted some fuzz from other parts of the sweater.

Mom had to help me replace one of the buttons once, and you can see the thread above where this one wants to come off too. Or again. Oh who am I kidding, Mom did it all by herself while I watched a different ballgame on television.

Sure, it's a little ostentatious.

Make that a LOT ostentatious.

The "G" in the picture above is on the BACK of the sweater. I guess they ran out of room after they put all the crap on the front.

I've never seen another sweater like this one, so I try to take care of it. I only have it professionally dry cleaned, and I always wear something under it like a tank top or a turtleneck. I wore what I THOUGHT was a black turtleneck under it today, only to discover after I got to school that the turtleneck was actually navy blue. If we don't win tomorrow, it will be all my fault because I mixed navy in with the red and black. (No, I'm not superstitious. Or psycho. Or a freak.) The first thing I did upon arriving home this afternoon was to make sure I knew where my BLACK turtleneck was for tomorrow.

"Between the Hedges" Takes on a Whole New Meaning.......

If you're not familiar with Georgia football, the expression "between the hedges" might mean nothing to you. The football field at UGA has meticulously trimmed hedges on either side, so the phrase has taken on a life of its own over the years. The hedges are so sacred that when they had to be removed in preparation for soccer to be played there as part of the 1996 Olympic Games, there was an entirely new protocol written. Sprigs of the treasured hedges were sent to about four different TOP SECRET locations so that when they were replaced, they would be part of the original hedges.

See, it isn't just me. The whole Bulldog Nation is full of freaks.

One of UGA's battle cries has become, "It's time to tee it up between the hedges!"

During last Saturday's rout of the New Mexico State Aggies (give us a break, you're SUPPOSED to win 63-16 on Homecoming), the phrase took on a whole new meaning, at least for one Georgia player.
Something bothered me (you knew it would) about this announcer AND the female one on ESPN I heard give a description of the same incident. They both called them "bushes." Everyone in college football knows they're "hedges." If you are A) an announcer calling a football game IN THAT STADIUM; or B) a reporter who covers college football AS YOUR PROFESSION, you should know that, at least in Georgia, those English privets are called "hedges," not "bushes."

Besides, if we followed their examples, the rallying cry would be: "It's time to tee it up between the bushes."

And that, my friends, would take on a whole new meaning.

Some Pictures from the Weekend....

A few random shots from the weekend spent with my Sweet Girl and going to the Georgia-Florida football game. (Did I mention UGA won? For only the 4th time in 22 tries? First time in 4 years? Did I mention I was there for that win too? No? I must be slipping.)

The Metro Diner in Jacksonville. Katydid, Frogger Blogger and I ate there when we were in Jax, so I now consider it a tradition. It's a little hole-in-the-wall joint, but the food is excellent. The weather was nice, so we didn't mind waiting outside. We only had to wait 25 minutes, and a parking place magically opened up in their postage-stamp-sized parking lot just as we drove up. It was meant to be!

The order of these pictures is sort of random, but not on purpose. This is the scene leaving the stadium. Oddly enough, when the final seconds ticked off the scoreboard, the UGA fans didn't want to leave. The players were still on the field, the band was still playing... For some strange reason, though, the Florida side of the stadium was empty.

I would love to tell you what was going on at the very moment of this picture, but I'm just not that good.

This shot was from the ramp going up to our seats. Up. And up. And up.

These folks were waiting for the UGA football players to arrive. After the team entered the stadium, they stuck around waiting for a different celebrity to arrive...

A view of the river in the background, with some of the gazillion tailgaters. People arrive as early as a week in advance of this game. And then they wonder why they don't remember the game.

This is the vehicle carrying the OTHER celebrity. Folks stood around forever waiting for Russ to appear. Russ is the interim mascot, pressed into service when Uga VIII died. If you click on the picture, you will see the vanity plate on the SUV says "UGA VIII." The same family has raised the English bulldog mascots for UGA since the 1950's. We haven't heard yet when Uga IX will make his appearance.

Please don't tell anyone we were actually in our seats this early.

This party bus is well known at all UGA football games. It belongs to a friend of Hubby's, though he has basically turned it over to the younger generation and has a DIFFERENT RV that he stays in. There is a constant stream of people up and down that ladder all day long, and most of them don't even know to whom the bus belongs. Hubby and I went to one home game on the party bus. Hubby's buddy would tell people to be at his house at 8:07 to leave for the game, and if you got there at 8:08, he would be gone.

Bad hair day. I took a little trial-size hairspray with me, but it wouldn't work. I'm not sure it would have been up to the task anyway. You can't tell it, but my shirt, my other shirt, my earrings, my sunglasses, my socks, and my shoes all had the UGA logo on them. I wore face tattoos to one game, but then I realized there were no other 50-year-old women sporting face tattoos (only college girls, and they also wear cowboy boots with dresses), so I haven't worn them since.

The view of some bridge whose name I can never remember.

There were two Florida fans in our section, and this one felt comfortable enough in his fandom to wear that head thingie with that other thingie draped around his neck. They were nowhere to be seen as the final seconds ticked off the clock. Did I mention UGA won the game?

Hey Gators.....

Hey Gators...

Chomp THIS.

Nuff said.

The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.....

I am in Jacksonville, visiting Sweet Girl for the first time in .... oh ... forever. Tomorrow we will go to the annual Georgia-Florida football game, which has been played in Jacksonville since right after Adam and Eve got thrown out of Eden. It is supposed to be a "neutral" site, but every year some Georgia fans raise sand, asking how it can be neutral when it's always in Florida. Every now and then the topic of alternating the game between Georgia and Florida comes up, and different fans (or the same ones, who knows?) raise sand because they LIKE the weekend four-day week-long event the game has become. It is unique in that the stadium is divided exactly in half, all orange and blue on one side (yuck) and red and black on the other.

I haven't been to the Ga-Fla game all that many times. I only went once in college. It was Herschel Walker's freshman year, and the game became known as the Buck Belue to Lindsay Scott game, a miraculous last-minute win by Georgia on a 92-yard pass and run play. Georgia went undefeated that year and went on to take the national championship in January.

It's hard to describe the culture of this event. It isn't just another football game. It's like the Army-Navy game without the discipline. The Ohio State-Michigan game without the cold. The UCLA-USC game only with real football players. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Sadly, it seems that someone dies every year. Not necessarily at the stadium, but in some way connected to the game. One year Hubby and I went to the game, only to read the next morning that a guy had died from a fall down the stairs at a bar just a little while after we were there. We were only there because it A) was near the stadium; and B) sold beer in cute little football-shaped mugs. For about ten bucks a pop. Good thing I gave up beer, since Hubby isn't here this year to bankroll it.

Some people say that the business people of Jacksonville really prefer for Georgia to win, because then we spend money celebrating. And we're here for the duration of the weekend. If Florida wins (as they have like 18 out of the last 21 years or something equally ridiculous, damn them), they just go on back home.

We are sincerely hoping to give the city of Jacksonville a huge economic boost tomorrow night.

Go Dawgs!!!

Excuse My Tardiness.....

Forgive me for being tardy with my blog post tonight. Or if you're one of those who read it the next day, you probably didn't even NOTICE I was late.

I had good intentions of posting during halftime of the UGA game, but I flipped over to another game, and I forgot. And I was sort of crocheting between plays, and I didn't think I could triple-task. Yay for UGA - they beat Tennessee 20-12. What a relief.

I sort of dozed off during the Georgia Tech game earlier today. [All tuckered out from a 20-mile bike ride? That doesn't bode well for the 60-mile ride tomorrow IN THE FREAKIN' WIND.] When I woke up there was an ambulance on the field. The game was delayed about ten minutes while they tended to a Maryland player. They said it was a leg injury, which sounded better than a neck injury, but they said it was so gruesome that they would NOT replay it. What? They broke Joe Theismann's leg over and over and over and over and over again on television. And for some reason I've never seen it.

I've done better in my College Pickem games this week. I have 41 points out of a possible 55, with three games still to be decided. The person who is currently in first place is a 12-year-old. In this contest, there are ten college football games every week. You have to pick the winner of each game and then assign "confidence points" to each game, with 10 points assigned to the game you feel the most certain you have picked right. One of the games still to be determined tonight is my 9-pointer, and they are currently losing. But I am an eternal optimist, and I fully expect them to come back with over ten minutes left in the game.

Up way past my bedtime, and a bike ride tomorrow. I'd better turn in. Gus has been trying to get me to go to bed for the past two hours.

If there's anything I hate, it's being bossed around by a dog.

A Note from My Mother.....

Dear Readers:

This is Bragger's mother, also known as the Barracuda, writing a note excusing her absence from blogging last night. (By the way, I'm also known by a few choice other terms, but this is the cleanest one I can put in print.)

Bragger had excellent intentions for posting last night from inside the Georgia Dome. She thought she would do a "live" blog post as the football game progressed, a la Aunt Joyce and his reporting of skating or gymnastics events. (Don't bother looking for his... he's a little over-the-top.) She had this cool idea that she would update her post as events at the game progressed, and you could follow the game vicariously through her blog. Whether you wanted to or not.

What Bragger didn't anticipate is that being inside the Dome would preclude any electronic form of communication whatsoever from the outside world. She could receive texts but not send them; her ESPN app on her iPhone did NOT update her with the bazillion teams she has entered as "favorites" so she could follow their progress too.

She also did not anticipate that her view of the field would be blocked by an obnoxious Georgia fan in front of her who insisted upon standing for the entire game, beginning with the pre-game ceremonies, continuing with the entrance of Herschel Walker (BTW, someone needs to tell Herschel that we don't "raise the roof" in sports anymore), and lasting throughout the entire game. When she gently tapped the "gentleman" on the shoulder and asked couldn't she be allowed to see just a little bit of the game, his bitchy wife turned around and said, "He can stand up if he wants to!" (Yes indeed, he can if he wants to, or he could be a decent human being and allow like-minded fans who also paid $55 for a ticket to the game to actually see it, but clearly the choice is his and we know what his choice tells us about him. And his bitchy wife. Who then proceeded to stand up HERSELF, just to prove her point.) We are just eternally grateful that neither Bragger nor her Hubby had to be granted a single phone call from the confines of an Atlanta jail. Shudder.

To make this long-winded note to the teacher as short as possible, suffice it to say that our team lost the game, Bragger lost her voice, and when she returned to the RV at 11:45 PM, she just couldn't bring herself to write a coherent blog post. Or a blog post of her usual characteristics either.

Please excuse her absence. We hope she will be back to abnormal tomorrow. We will make better plans for next weekend's game, which has a 4:30 PM kickoff instead of 8:00 PM.

Bragger's Mother,

Barracuda

Busy Weekend in the ATL.......

I'm guessing there are always a bunch of activities going on in Atlanta on any given weekend. This weekend's itinerary of events looks insane, though. That may be because I happen to be involved with one of them, so I'm paying more attention than usual.

Last night - MLB baseball, pro football, and college football (Georgia Tech)

Tonight - MLB baseball and college football (Georgia State)

Tomorrow - MLB baseball and college football (UGA)

Sunday - MLB baseball and a NASCAR race

To all of the above you can add the additional wild cards of two weekend-long events, Dragoncon and Black Gay Pride.

I wasn't familiar with Dragoncon (I don't get out much), but it's a convention of sorts where participants dress up in various science fiction costumes. That's the extent of my knowledge, and even that may be wrong. One of my students told me she wouldn't be at school today because she was attending Dragoncon. She spends most of every day in my class sleeping, right after she does me the favor of collecting lunch orders from all the teachers and delivering them to the cafeteria. Poor thing....I guess she's just tuckered out from that. Perhaps I'm wrong and Dragoncon is actually a convention at which they hand out high school diplomas. For her sake I hope that is the case.

Hubby and I are leaving at 10:00 tomorrow morning for a one-hour drive in the RV to attend a game that kicks off at 8:00 PM tomorrow night. It's the way I roll. And for some reason Hubby is going along with it. Since our usual Gus-sitter is out of commission, Katydid is going with us. I felt like a louse, inviting her to go to a football game and tell her she can't actually go to the football game. But she will tailgate and party with us, and we'll have the television and satellite hooked up so she can watch the game. I hope she doesn't look for us on t.v. though; I don't think the cameras reach up that high.

Seriously, this is the Chick-Fil-A kickoff game, and it's in the Georgia Dome. We were there for a Chick-Fil-A football event one time when they dropped little beanie cows with parachutes (like in the commercials) down into the seats. The only way we could have gotten one of the toy cows was if they defied gravity, because the place from where they dropped them was BELOW us. If any of you DO decide to look for us on t.v., we'll be the ones wearing red.

I Guess Technically We Did Better......

In the last gazillion years, Florida has repeatedly thrashed our beloved Georgia Bulldogs. They have beaten us soundly and with embarrassingly lopsided scores.

The only exception was in 2007, when Katydid and I went to Jacksonville for the game (also known as the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, but officials from both schools have tried to quash that moniker). Georgia handed out its own thrashing that year, and it was so so so so so so so satisfying.

We have come to expect Florida to beat us. Maybe not the TEAM, but certainly many of the fans. Every year we say, "This is the year," but we only half believe it.

This year I really believed it. Florida has sucked almost as badly as our team has this year, so I thought this was our chance.

When the game started out with our quarterback being intercepted ON THE FIRST FREAKIN' PLAY OF THE GAME, I thought, "Oh no, here we go again."

When it was 21-7 in Florida's favor at halftime, I thought, "Oh no, here we go again." I thought another blowout was coming.

But then when we tied it up, I really thought we had a chance. When it went into overtime, I thought we had an edge, because Florida's kicker is injured and the punter is having to do the place-kicking. Our kicker, on the other hand, is kick-ass. Seriously good. When we won the toss to start on offense in overtime, I thought, "We got this."

But no.

Another loss to Florida. In overtime.

Their sucky kicker wasn't sucky enough when it came down to winning the game.

It wasn't a blowout, but it still goes in the "L" column.

I've examined this situation closely to see if I can come up with the bright side, and the only thing I've found is......
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I used the words "quash" and "moniker" in the same blog post.

Season's End.....

After a disappointing season, to finish with a huge upset win over Georgia Tech and a bowl win over Texas A & M takes some of the sting away. I have a few questions as the UGA football season comes to a happy end.

Who will be our quarterback next year? One of the two freshman phenoms, or Logan Gray? If he doesn't quarterback, will Logan Gray ONLY perform fair catches? I could play that position.

Who will be our defensive coordinator, and whom will he bring with him?

Will we ever, ever try another blackout game? After the Bama debacle last year, we sort of tried a half-assed effort with black pants and helmets against Florida this year. That didn't work either. Gimmicks will never substitute for good play.

At what point will they dump the Gatorade on Mark Richt? Will Mark get as pissed as he did at the end of the Georgia Tech game? (It wasn't because they soaked him. It was because, as he said, "Double zeros. You don't celebrate until the scoreboard shows double zeros.")

When will Uga VIII be named? And how much does Russ get paid for standing in for him these two months?

Will any announcers ever learn how to pronounce Washaun Ealey's name? First or last? I can understand struggling with the first name, but Ealey? It's got no "R" in it, people, it isn't pronounced like the opposite of "late".

Will Ealey switch jerseys and wear #3 next year, as he wants to?

Will A.J. Green ever duplicate this catch that he made in high school?

It Didn't Work...... And I'm Not Really Surprised.....

I'm not sure God cares about housework OR football, but I wasn't going to take any chances.

So this morning, I tried to bargain with Him/Her.

In exchange for a win over the hated Florida Gators, I:

• swept
• mopped
• vacuumed
• did laundry
• washed dishes
• accompanied Hubby on errands for the motorhome (I'll have to go back without him so I can actually buy stuff)
• crocheted a Christmas ornament
• crocheted another hexagon for my next afghan
• was nice to the little bastards trick-or-treaters who showed up just as UGA scored a touchdown

Once again, my horoscope has lied. In today's newspaper, it said:

"Even with all the negative thinkers in the world [ahem, Hubby, I think they're talking about YOU], a positive outlook will help realize a big hope of yours. Don't let the contrarians keep you from your appointed destiny."

I thought my appointed destiny was for UGA to win today.

On a positive note, I could have paid $500 and driven 6 hours to watch the debacle. I'm feeling better already.

This One Wasn't in the Plans....

I wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago about how obsessively I plan things. I was working on an afghan for Hubby at the time, and I already had planned the next 3 afghans I would make.

I finished Hubby's and started one for me. I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to keep that one or auction it off at the Nash Bash next year. I've got time to decide.

Then Sweet Girl called and asked if I could whip up a baby afghan for a friend of hers who is having a boy. I didn't think I could make one very quickly, but it took me just a week.

I never made a round afghan before this. It was a very easy pattern. Those "bumps" you see are cluster stitches. I couldn't understand the directions for those at all, but I did something that apparently worked, so I'm not sure why I even feel the need to explain that.

Now I've decided to make another baby afghan for a former student, a very special girl, who is also having a boy. I'll get back to mine sooner or later; I don't have any deadlines.

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The long-awaited motorhome is actually sitting in our driveway. Yay! Pictures of that tomorrow or Monday.

My team lost today, and the world did NOT stop turning. What's up with that?