Super Bowl recap

What has Wisconsin done to me? Here I am posting again about football. FOOTBALL! Next thing you know, I'll be posting regularly about cheese or beer.

Yesterday morning at the gym everyone was both cheerful from the win and sluggish from the junk food.

Monday morning I attend a strength training class with a group of tough, classy born and bred Wisconsinite women who are 20-30 years older than me (and 20-30 times fitter than me). Thanks to the ladies at the gym, here is a general recap of the game:

1st Quarter--Jumping up from couch and eating in celebration

2nd and 3rd Quarters--Hiding behind couch and stress eating

4th Quarter--Kneeling in prayer in front of couch and feeling too sick to eat

Then, full circle--Back to jumping and eating in celebration

Also, it was decided:

Cristina--Booooo!

Half-time--Two thumbs down.

And the best commercial was decreed to be the Doritos house sitting one. (Also one of my personal favorites. But how could I not love the VW Darth Vader ad most of all??)

So there you have it. The Super Bowl according to the ladies at the gym.

P.S. I know we're too new and uneducated to be real Packers fans. But it's been SO MUCH FUN to see the Packers go all the way! We sure picked a great year to move here.

From yellow pants to calculus

Hi. Guess what I'm doing.

You betcha--watching the battle of the yellow pants. The Super Bowl seems like an excellent time to multi-task, especially in between the commercials. At first I thought about sending out some Lego Club emails. But then I thought better of it when I imagined what those people would think of me when they noticed when I sent the emails. I figure I don't need to alienate my neighbors any more. I still drive around a car with Texas plates. So here I am blogging. And thinking about football, which logically leads me to think about calculus. Don't you think about A.P. Calculus when watching pro football? (No...?)

Here we are, as a family, watching the Super Bowl, and I can't help but wonder if our time in Wisconsin during such formative years for our children will lead them to have some kind of vague lifelong loyalty to the Packers. Our children are creating memories and forming impressions that will stay with them forever. FOREVER. What is going to be a part of this FOREVER? The Packers? What else??

Football always reminds me of elementary school. One year before the Super Bowl our P.E. teacher taped up a tall piece of butcher paper, divided it down the middle, and wrote the competing teams at the top: Bears and Patriots. All of the children in the school wrote their names under the team they wanted to win. Well, that was easy. The Bears, naturally. This was during the tenure of "The Refrigerator," after all. Every single child wrote his or her name on the Bears side. Except one brave soul. (Who I now admire for his courage in the face of intense peer pressure, but who at the time I thought was an idiot. I mean, who likes the Patriots??) As a result, my entire life I have thought, "Bears, good. Patriots, bad." I also truly believed no body (except one random reject kid) liked the Patriots. So it was a shock to the system when, twenty years later, the Patriots dominated football...and it seemed like they had fans. People liked the Patriots??? I could not shake the impression from elementary school.

Likewise, because of that very same experience in elementary gym class, I had a hard time shaking the feeling two weeks ago that I should have been cheering for Chicago. (Bears, good. Bears, good. Bears, good.) Wow, elementary school is some powerful stuff. So I wonder, will there be a voice deep inside David that will forever urge him to cheer on the Packers? What else will those voices from elementary school whisper to him?

Because of elementary school, professional football always leads me to think of math. That's because of my second grade math teacher. As we struggled to memorize our times tables, she taught us all kinds of nifty tricks. I learned quickly that I desperately needed those nifty tricks. I could not memorize numbers. I couldn't hold them in my head. I had to have some kind of trick to remember my times tables. (I'm speaking in the past tense here, but all of that still holds true today.) To help us remember 7x7, my teacher simply told us to think about football. That was easy. You see, I lived in Denver at the time, and anyone in the entire state of Colorado who ever saw the number 7 immediately thought of John Elway. My little second grade self included. And what is the answer to 7x7? No, it's not the Broncos. But it was the second best thing. 49! I happened to be elementary school during a time when the 49ers were dominating football. The NFL saved me! I never would have remembered 7x7=49 without it!

And just when you thought we were well on our way to the connection to calculus, I have to let you in on the news that the next stop in my mind is a story about a Cabbage Patch Kid named Mary Ellen.

But, now that the kids are in bed, I might give a little undivided attention to the game. (Or maybe it's really the chance to cuddle with my husband that I'm looking forward to.) Either way, we'll broach the ever exciting topic of Mary Ellen...and calculus...another day.

P.S. We can see the highway from our house. There is nary a car. It is very, very quiet out there today.

P.P.S. I love that both teams in the Super Bowl are old school teams, with the names to go with it. What history! (When I was little, whenever I heard "Packers," I always thought of the UPS man because he delivers packages. I didn't make the connection to "meat packer." Why would I? I was a vegetarian. One day when I saw their green and yellow uniforms, I was genuinely surprised: I think I had honestly expected them to be brown like a UPS truck. Also, I thought the Steelers were "the stealers." Anyway, despite my lack of a decent football education, I have some appreciation for these teams and the history behind them. Because, really, without tradition, what is the point?)

Not an invitation

Tomorrow is the open house at Mary's school.

I really like her school.

I would really like people I know to see a Montessori classroom.

I should be inviting people to the open house.

But I am not.

First of all, like many Mormons, many of my friends are Mormon. And many of my Mormon friends attend church from 11 am-2pm. The open house is from 11am-1pm. I'm not inviting them to miss church. We're Mormon, people!

Second of all, most of my friends who are not Mormon are native Wisconsinites. I am NOT making myself look like an idiot by inviting them to a Montessori school open house tomorrow.

TOMORROW!

I'm on thin ice with these people anyway, especially since I admitted that I'd thought the Packers had gone to Florida years ago and had their name changed to the Manta Rays.

What is wrong with the people at Mary's school??? They seriously scheduled a non-football event on Super Bowl Sunday. When the PACKERS are in the Super Bowl. It's like having a school event scheduled for Thanksgiving Day.

You don't believe me? Businesses are closing their doors tomorrow afternoon so employees can celebrate with their loved ones. Sounds like a holiday to me. And last night at Culver's, the lady at the table next to us was telling her family, who were head to toe green and gold, that Sunday she is going to make an apple pie, a wild berry pie, and, oh yes, a TURKEY. Told you: It's like Thanksgiving.

Actually, I take that back. It's way, way bigger than Thanksgiving!

So, no, I am not inviting you to Mary's Montessori open house. Besides, I won't be there. I'll be at church: I'm Mormon, remember. And then I'm going home to, yes, watch the Super Bowl:

I live in Wisconsin.

P.S. Poor David. Of his two best friends, one is a Packers fan and the other a Steelers fan. David told me he hopes it's a tie.

P.P.S. We drove by the capitol tonight. It's lit up all yellow and green in honor of you know who! I didn't have my camera. So I refer you to Miz Booshay, a fellow Madison resident of PW fame, who posted a nice photo--though not one of her own--on her blog. It's actually pretty cool, up close and in person. I'm glad we took the long way home to see the capitol all festive like that.

P.P.P.S. We are duly connected to this Super Bowl, via Wisconsin and Dallas. The Packers are staying in the hotel across from my dad's office building. And we have friends who've spied on the team's practices. And I've even been to the stadium.