when the game is over

Oops, looks like most of another week has gotten away from me. I blogged a little each day, just not enough to publish. Let's see if I can pull it all together into something semi-coherent.

Sunday was, well, sad. I watched the Big Game (between Cal and Stanford) on TV and, of course, we lost, breaking a five year winning streak. I shouldn't be surprised. Every single year I attended Cal we lost, after all. The one time I actually showed up to watch the Game in person, in fact, has gone down in history as one of our more notable defeats. It was 1990 and we were winning, that is until Stanford scored 9 points in the last 12 seconds of the game. They started with a touchdown, now trailing us by one point, but failed to make the 2 point conversion. In premature joy, Cal fans (not me, though I recognized at least one face in the crowd) rushed the field, embracing victory and causing our team to incur a sizable penalty. The loss of field position, combined with Stanford's recovery of the onside kick, resulted in a Stanford field goal. Perhaps I should do my team a favor and stay away?

Anyway, after the game, though I honestly wasn't in the mood to drink (I know, weird, eh?) I found myself singing my old college drinking song (the official version is here though this one has the final verse as I learned it...) particularly the part that goes, "when the game is over we will buy a keg of booze, we will drink to California till we wobble in our shoes..." I like how it can be interpreted two ways - either we drink to celebrate or we drink to commiserate. Mostly I am impressed / embarrassed to admit that the drinking song is the one thing I have truly retained since my college days.

Even though I wasn't drinking, I managed to miss the sunset. Instead I found myself running around my front yard trying to catch a chicken. I wasn't entirely surprised to see a chicken in my yard (I know I have a neighbor that keeps them) and I was even less surprised she successfully eluded us. The hen disappeared into some thick brush and soon even the cats gave up tracking her. I haven't seen her since but she'd been out two nights already so I'd like to think she is having the time of her life. I'd also like to think that OC has the good sense not to try to eat her as I imagine she can inflict some serious damage...

I was in the mood to drink by Monday morning, however. Kitty Wake Up Hour (also known as dawn) began early that day, around 3 am. I tried to ignore the intermittent kitty noises (skirmishes mainly, cleverly timed to coincide with each time I fell back asleep) but by 5 am I knew resistance was futile. Cursing my kitties, rolling over for one more chance at escape, I cut myself in the chin with my thumbnail. Bleeding, I decided it was time to get up. Later I punished by Monkey (the chief instigator) by driving him a whole mile to the nearest vet clinic to verify his microchip was working (it was) and afterwards I did the drinking I didn't feel like doing Sunday. My afternoon nap cured most of my ill will (after all, napping overcomes wrath), but I could not summon the inspiration to take an evening walk.

Tuesday I was prepared for Kitty Wake Up Hour, having gone to bed quite early Monday, and I even woke up feeling industrious. I did some chores before Erik got home (fed hummingbirds, cleaned house) which made me grumpy, apparently. Erik asked me, laughing, if I was angry and if I needed some oatmeal. I did. It turned out I needed even more than oatmeal. Apparently I needed to bake cookies (a double batch, cuz what's the point of making all that mess and noise for less?) and later I even made Tuna Noodle. I love Tuna Noodle. Where Twix is the candy of love, Tuna Noodle is the food of love. The irony is my mom first came up with the recipe in an attempt to punish my dad. Turns out he loved it and it became a family favorite. I haven't made it in what seems like ages. I don't like eating tuna (I don't believe any of it is truly dolphin safe) but I had some on hand to help increase the liquid in OC's diet. By the way, I only ever buy white albacore cuz the one thing I have retained from my 10th grade social studies teacher, Mr. Lalicata (who once worked in a tuna factory), is that anything less is just not worth eating. He didn't give us any details, but the look on his face told us we didn't want to know. The only other thing I recall from Mr. Lalicata's class was that he once stayed home sick and we were assigned a scary substitute teacher, Mr. Mubarak, who talked to us incessantly throughout our test. None of us were surprised to see Mr. Mubarak on the news a few days later. Apparently he (allegedly) stole his kids and fled to the middle east.

Anyway, Tuesday I tried to take my evening walk but I found the beach flooded by an extremely high tide. You might think I would've consulted a tide book, but no. Instead I kept driving to different beaches thinking somehow they might be experiencing a different tide? Frustrated, I walked a frontage road for a while, but not really long enough.

So today I ate cookies and leftovers and I caught up on some Christmas tasks. I have also killed all too much time on the internets, finding this cool pumpkin and this one, too. I was amused to learn that Erik's been killing time at work playing this game. As for Wednesday's walk, well, it hasn't happened yet. But the sunset's looking spectacular so I am off to savor it.