95 years is a looong time to wait...

so today . . . the ducks played in the rose bowl. and won :) and that is all.

(of course that is not all! you have to know there is a story here...)

i don't watch sports very much anymore. i don't actually watch tv that much... mostly i listen to it and glance at it as i am doing other things. but when you are watching a football game or a basketball game, you kind of have to keep your eyes on the tv, which sort of puts my multi-tasking out of commission. this is not true with baseball. sometimes you can "watch" a whole baseball game without ever looking at the tv, and not miss a thing...

i have found that i enjoy watching sports a whole lot more when i am watching with other people. when we lived in southern oregon, we watched every trailblazer game that was on. mostly we watched with our friends, ron and joanne--sometimes at our house and sometimes at theirs. and pizza was usually involved... but then we moved to southern california, and finding fans who share my love of oregon teams is somewhat difficult. not to mention, finding televised games of oregon teams is not all that easy either, when you don't have cable...

but today, the stars aligned, and this morning rollie asked me, "do you want to watch the ducks game with me?" it stopped me in my tracks. rollie never asks me to watch a game with him--mostly because he chooses to cheer for the evil lakers, and he is smart enough to know that we might not be able to live in the same house any more if we ever lose our minds long enough to try watching a laker game together... but he was talking about the ducks. and unless the ducks are playing usc, we can both cheer for them.

however... even though i don't usually watch sports with rollie, i can hear him watching them. you may wonder how i can hear him watching something?? it's easy. whenever there is a really terrible call or a really spectacular play, he makes noise. let's just say he gets somewhat emotionally involved with his sports teams...

but i really, really wanted to watch the ducks today. it's the rose bowl, for goodness sake! and i really, really didn't want to watch it by myself. but i also really, really didn't want to watch it if the ducks were going to lose, and make rollie feel cranky! (i get cranky when i don't get my carbs, and rollie gets cranky when his teams lose. don't judge.) so when he asked me if i wanted to watch the game, i said yes, but only if he could promise me he wouldn't get too personally involved. he looked at me like he had no clue what i was talking about! "you know," i said, "i want to have fun watching the game, and it won't be fun if you get cranky." "i won't get cranky," he said. "the game is scheduled to start at 2:00, so i will tivo it and then we can start watching about 3:00." he said this with a big smile on his face, like it was the greatest idea ever. "oh," i said, "then no, i don't want to watch with you..."

ok, now before you all start sending rollie letters of sympathy because he is married to me, let me explain. rollie NEVER watches his sports live. he ALWAYS tivos them. and then, when he watches them, he zips through the commercials, half time, and any slow parts of the game--like replays! he watches a lot of sports, and this method allows him to keep up with all his teams and still have a life. but this is not how i like to watch a game. so i said, "i can't watch that way. my brain needs time to process. i need to talk about what is happening. i might need to go get a snack... or two, depending on how long the game is!" he looked at me like he thought i might be from another planet, (i am! men are from mars, women are from venus... duh!) but for some reason, he agreed to my unreasonable demands--and if you need proof that he loves me, there it is!

but i love him too, so while i was on my way to 7-11 to get my personal supply of diet lemon cokesi for the game, i decided i could probably live with zipping through the commercials and half time, if we could just let the rest of the game play. (see? i am not totally unreasonable! i can compromise... unless you want me to watch a laker game--i do have standards, you know.) so at 3:00, we settled in with our leftover orange chicken and sodas to watch the game.

as the game started, the camera panned across the field. "i've been there, you know," i said. i say this every time i get the chance. "yes," he said, "i know. you've been there. you have a picture of the grass." "i don't just have a picture of the grass--i actually STOOD on the grass. right in the middle of that field. and then i took a picture." it is necessary for me to remind him of this, because when we were in college, rollie traveled all over europe with a singing group. and when we are watching movies that are set in italy or spain or portugal (to name a just a few of the countries he has been in,) he always says, "i've been there!" this is interesting information the first 20 times you hear it, but after being married more than 30 years... well, you know, i am sorry to say sometimes my eyes roll--all on their own, of course. until a few years ago, my only opportunity to utter those same words was when watching field of dreams, which is set in iowa, i think. because i've been there. to iowa... and to the rose bowl :) did i mention that i stood in the middle of the field :))

it was a good game! i mean, i can say that now, since it is over and we won. my idea of a good game is when my team gets way ahead early, and then stays ahead. this was not that kind of game. touchdown after touchdown was scored! penalties were called. players were hurt. rose bowl records were shattered! and i talked. and talked. and cheered. and talked.

rollie was oddly silent. i finally said, "you are never going to ask me to watch a game with you again, are you?" he just looked at me and smiled. "i am being calm," he said, "i'm not getting too involved." "ok," i said, "that's good, but i need to talk about the game and what is happening and how i feel about it. i need some communication and interaction here!" and so the game went on. and we got a little emotionally involved...

but thankfully we were cheering for the same team to win. and thankfully the team we were cheering for did win--for the first time since 1917! it was pretty awesome. (and i'm pretty sure it only happened because i finally found my duck tshirt and put it on!)
so now i am thinking we should watch more sports together. i can cheer for the angels :) if we ever get a professional football team in la, i can cheer for them. i can probably even cheer for usc, unless they are playing the ducks. or the beavers. (rollie is probably reading this and thinking OH NNOOOOO! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?) i see lots of afternoons and evenings in our future, eating snacks and sodas, watching sports together, talking, and cheering our team on...

... as long as it isn't basketball...

ah, flying...

so today . . . we are headed home from our christmas trip to oregon. usually this means packing all our stuff the day before we leave, getting up before dark (but not really waking up,) dragging our sleeping bodies into the car, and then sleeping for several hours while rollie drives.

but this year we flew :) and we didn't have to leave for the airport until the middle of the afternoon. so we slept in, leisurely packed our stuff, and then ate lunch. rollie watched football, and i watched some HGTV (i don't have HGTV at home, so i'm sort of obsessed when i am anywhere that has it. i mean really, have you watched "house hunters?!?!")

packing to go back home on an airplane, after christmas presents and post-christmas shopping proved to be a little challenging. especially since diandra was also wedding shopping... she bought mosaic glass candles and purple christmas beads and heart-shaped ornaments and big round sparkly placemats for centerpieces. she kept coming into my room and saying, "mom, do you think you have room for this?" and mostly i did. but then a couple of times i had to say, "rollie, do you think you have room for this?" and thankfully, he did.

and then there was my wedding dress...

i think my wedding dress is one of the most beautiful dresses i have ever seen. timeless. classic. and a little bit sparkly (of course!) several years ago, my mom took it and had it all cleaned and preserved and packed in a pretty box. but the box is pretty big, and we have never had enough extra room to bring it home with us.

until we flew.

which is odd, i know, because you would think it would be easier to find room to take it home when we drive the suv. but when we drive the suv, we pack like we have unlimited room--even though we don't. when we fly, we know all our stuff has to fit into our suitcase (no extra bags of stuff can be stashed around our feet) so we pack lighter. and we flew on southwest, which let each one of us check two bags. for free! and since we only each brought ONE bag, we could check the dress.

this seemed like a great idea! until we got to the airport and tried to get our 3 suitcases, 2 carry-on bags and 1 dress box inside... (thankfully we didn't have a partridge in a pear tree.)

we schlumped all our stuff to the ticket counter. i admit that there was some rearranging, some tripping, and a close call with a revolving door, but we got there. we started checking our bags in. rollie's suitcase. my suitcase. diandra's suitcase. and then the box.

"what's in this box," the check-in person asked. we told her it was a wedding dress. "oh," she said, " it would be better if you could carry it on." that might be true, but the box was too big to carry on--why would she even suggest it?!? was she trying to get me into more trouble with the tsa?!?!

and then she said, "has this dress already been worn in the wedding?" it sounded innocent enough on the surface, but what it said to me was, "how terrible will it be if somehow the box gets crushed and pops open, and the dress gets caught on something and comes down the luggage shute in shreds?" now i was worried. she slapped a couple of orange "fragile" stickers on it, made me sign a waiver that said they were liable for loss, but not for damage, and sent it out to the plane...

i almost started hoping they would lose it...

on the way to the gate, i kept seeing oregon duck stuff. (in case you somehow didn't know, the ducks are playing for the national championship on january 10th. you should watch. they will win.) diandra had already acquired a duck sweatshirt, but i still didn't have one. we saw them all over the mall when we were shopping, but i had my eye on other things... now, though, we were in the airport headed home. and i was pretty sure if i didn't get a duck shirt before i got on the plane, i was going to be watching the championship game in the one green sweater i own. and it doesn't have a big yellow "O" on it! i was suddenly worried the ducks might lose if i didn't get a shirt. they might think i had no faith in them, or worse yet, didn't even care. so i walked back down the concourse, compared the different designs, and finally chose this one.now i was ready to go home. (and if by some fluke, the ducks lose, it is on them--i've done my part...)

as we were sitting on the plane, waiting for our flight (which had already been delayed for an hour,) diandra saw them loading the luggage. they were not all that careful with our suitcases. our suitcases were flipping and flopping and smacking onto the luggage conveyor belt. but they respected the fragile stickers on the dress box, carefully laid it on the conveyor belt, and it arrived at lax in good shape. which is good, because we have plans for that dress!

i've decided i love to fly! i don't love wrestling my bags through the airport. i don't love going through security. i don't love delayed flights. i don't love peanuts (oh, for the days when you got a real snack!) but i do love to fly. i love being in the airport. i love checking out the food options. i love getting on the plane and having someone bring me a drink. i love getting to my destination in just a few hours. i love not having to worry about car trouble, roads closed due to snow, and sleeping in the pretzel position.

in fact, i think we may have started a new tradition this year :)