Filed under: Sports | Tags: coliseum, football, Giants, gladiators, humor, NFL, Redskins
I love football. I was at the Giants/Redskins game on Monday night, and I loved every minute of it—and not just because I’m a Redskins fan (but how awesome was that? RG3 is being hailed as the Second Coming).
I love watching men grunt and throw each other to the ground. I love the superior athleticism on display as they launch themselves into the air, or chase the quarterback to the ground like lions after a wildebeest. I love the rhythm of the game, as the fan noise swells and crests, only to fall again as a play disintegrates. I even love the referees’ shrieking whistles and drunken bellows from the crowd. I’ve learned a lot of new insults over the years, especially sitting in the cheap seats.
But most of all, I love the visceral, instinctive reaction within myself that makes my stomach clench and my fist pump in the air as I scream at my flat screen. As much as I’m ashamed to admit it, I can’t turn away when a player gets hurt—the worse the better. Inside, I feel terrible that this man’s career is probably over, and his wife and family will have to help him find a new career, or even spend months in rehab with him, but I still watch the replays and cringe when a leg or arm snaps like a twig.
Watching football is probably about as close as today’s polite society will ever come to feeling like a Roman citizen watching the Gladiators battle to the death in the Coliseum.
The similarities to our Roman ancestors are interesting (and a little disturbing):
• The players are giants among men, trained and fed for one purpose: to defeat their opponents in violent contact while fans watch;
• Players have sponsors and backers, although their rewards are money and adulation, not just favors to make their meager lives as prisoners and slaves more bearable;
• Fans can be roused from sitting quietly with beers cradled in their hands to raging heart-attacks-waiting-to-happen with spittle flying from their lips within a matter of seconds;
• 80,000 fans chant the names of their favorite players, much like the fans of old chanted the name of their Ceasar. Did anyone hear the fans cheering for RG3? There is something eerie about hearing so much humanity calling one name—it gets into your blood until you find yourself chanting right along with them, even though you know it’s only a game, and the guy isn’t saving the world, just your playoff hopes.
• Calls for blood still ring out from the stands;
• Even our stadiums still resemble the old Coliseum—tiered seats, the arrival of the combatants from beneath the stadium, and beer and food hawked from the stands, and the elite still watch from a polite distance in their box seats; the peasants peer at the show form the nosebleed seats;
• But most disturbing of all is that we haven’t changed. We still love a good fight—UFC, boxing, football, even tennis (have you heard the constipated grunting? What is that?). We love a good fight.
None of this changes my Sunday routine—church (how hypocritical is that?), snacks and football until my eyes bleed. Maybe it’s a good thing, this blood-letting may even absorb some primal energy we have, preventing some violence further down the road. Why yell at your kids when you can safely yell at your tv?
Tomorrow night is Thursday, the new Sunday in the NFL—Are you ready for some football???
Filed under: Exercise, Parenting, Sports | Tags: cheering, family, humor, kids, love, mom, parenting, soccer, sports
It’s the end of soccer season, at least the outdoor variety. Thanksgiving is over, and with it our three-day respite from two-hour practices, smelly cleats and hairbands strewn about the house. So, to honor the occasion, I wrote this poem to let Daughters #1 & 2 know that I GET IT. I just can’t help being their biggest (and loudest) cheerleader. If they’ve learned nothing from living with me all these years, it’s that I do everything with enthusiasm (just look at the circle of food around my plate when we go to a nice restaurant—waiters LOVE me).
A Soccer Player’s Prayer
I huddle in the corner, away from other players.
Please, don’t cheer for me, I think, please answer a soccer prayer.
I’m not afraid of getting hurt when the ball is kicked my way.
I’d love to score the winning goal and brag I saved the day.
But there’s one thing I can’t stand—it has me quaking in my cleats.
I shake inside my shin guards, the laces tremble on my feet.
What was that? Did someone call my name?
I’d know that voice on any field. Oh no! My mom is here—she came!
I break into a clammy sweat whenever she looks my way.
Please don’t pass it to me, she’ll just yell while I’m trying to play.
The ball whizzes past me as she plunks down her chair.
Someone trips on my frozen toes while I can only stop and stare.
How will I live it down? Oh, the Horror, oh the shame!
How can I prevent her from screaming out my name?
I hate it when she does that–it’s obnoxious, rude and loud.
It’s humiliating and debilitating, and it bugs the soccer crowd.
But how do I tell her? It will only make her sad.
After all, she loves to watch me, though her screaming makes me mad.
So I slouch here on the sideline, desperate to disappear.
Maybe someday she’ll stop her shouting, and like a normal mom, just cheer.
Someday, girls, your mom might just make it through “Silent Saturday….”
Filed under: Middle Age, Sports | Tags: bourbon, election, family, Food, horse racing, humor, Ireland, Montpelier, south, southern, subourbonmom, swing state, tailgate, Virginia
Last weekend I was doing what God has ordained all good Virginians do in the fall: Tailgate.
But not at a football game—watching horses race around a mile-long course at James Madison’s home, Montpelier plantation. They were jumping bushes and fences no horse in its right mind would ever do if there wasn’t an annoying tiny-man on its back hitting it with a stick.
For any southern tailgate, the men don their uniforms of khaki pants, button down shirt with bowtie, and navy blue jacket. The women dress up in silly hats, colorful scarves and ridiculous boots no self-respecting horseman would ever wear anywhere near a barn. They spread their southern delicacies (i.e. ham biscuits, devilled eggs and pecan pie—not everybody can bring chips and salsa!) on fold-up tables covered with their best tablecloths and silver chafing dishes. The centerpiece is an opus of fall foliage around silver candelabra or a horse statue. And lets not forget the most important feature: the drink table. Bourbon, wine, rum, vodka, champagne, and Bloody Mary mix are all ready to be tumbled into Jefferson cups or, in our case, red solo cups (nothing but the best for my friends!).
It was a beautiful day, free of cell phones, election flyers, and pimple-faced doorbell ringers. Not a tramp stamp in sight.
Until, THE INTERVIEW, that is.
That’s right, folks, an Irish reporter from a television station had a camera man in tow, circulating among the drunks, asking what it is like to live in a swing state. And guess what? He interviewed me. Yep, the least political person who’d already had about three bourbon and gingers.
That went well.
It’s a little vague, but I’m pretty sure I offered him a drink about every other sentence. In my golden-hazed mind, I managed to string together this thought: Irish-guy-must-want-to-drink-so-be-a-good-hostess-and-offer. He politely declined each time.
He asked me what it is like to live in a swing state. Thankfully I choked back a comment about all the rumors of swinging couples in the area where I live. Or at least I hope I did. In my head, I planned to give an intelligent rant about how we all are huddled in our living rooms, cowering from the ringing phones and massive recycle pile of election mail, and that the electoral college is unnecessary in this electronic age.
I’m pretty sure what came out was something like “It sucks.”
Yep, I’m a voter. Mr. Kluge, my Government high school teacher would have been so proud.
I’m pretty sure you’ll never see that interview on the news in the U.S., except maybe on YouTube as one of those Dumb American posts, but I have done my part to ensure that the international world’s view of Americans is still intact.
The news guy never did take a drink. Maybe if I’d had some Guinness…
Subourbon Mom 