Some People Just Don't Get It

Her: So what are you up to?

Me: Watching the Cal-Washington State Game

Her: Wait, didn't Cal JUST play a football game... like a week ago or something?

Me: Um, yes. Exactly a week ago... every Saturday... it's called football season.

Her: Really? EVERY week? Oh that's exhausting. I don't know how you keep up.

*sigh*

No Fair Weather Fans In This Bunch

It was cold, and wet, and we lost. But oh my goodness, did we have fun cheering our hearts out in the pouring rain. College football is so good.


My girls.


Punt to DeSean, you chickens!!!


Losing sucks

I'll Be Taking That Back Now, Thanks

Well it's about time. Quite literally. I've been missing that extra hour since I sprang forward sometime last April. I needed that hour. That hour was crucial! So late last night, just before I crawled into bed, I couldn't help but do a little happy dance when Kyle reminded me about the clocks changing. (Cal had a football game that went till after 10:30, so it was close to midnight by the time Kyle and I got home, and we're old now, so midnight is Late!) And you know what? I don't even care that it'll be dark when I leave work. That hour rightfully belonged to me and darn it, I've been wanting it back! Hooray for getting my hour back!!!!

In other news, Cal finally won a football game (we were in quite a tail spin there for a few weeks, but hopefully we've recovered now and can manage to salvage the rest of the season) and the weekend with the Grandparents went swimmingly. Turns out I might be cut out for this whole hostess thing after all. Who knew?

Fun While It Lasted

Well, for a soild 30-40 minutes we had a shot at being NUMBER ONE in the nation. In the NATION!!!! And then we threw it all away because our quarterback forgot to throw the ball. I kind of really don't like him right now. Ugh.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

We're Number Two!

I'm not sure how to feel about the whole thing. I mean I'm all for a good upset. Who doesn't love rooting for the underdog? Especially when the... upperdog?... overdog?... is the arrogant, spolied, our band only knows ONE FREAKIN SONG, USC Trojans. Barf.

But Stanfurd? REALLY??? Come on football gods, work with me here. The only team I dislike more than SC is the annoying, no mascot having, can't even fill their football stadium when they GIVE tickets away because their fans are so apathetic, Stanfurd Cardinal. Double Barf.

On the up side, Saturday's craziness left Cal in the #2 position!!! Woo-Hooo!!!! On the down side, it feels a bit precarious here at the top... please please PLEASE don't let the Bears blow it.

Let The Games Begin

IT'S HERE!!!!! The most wonderful time of the year... college football season.


Sacrifices must be made


Preparing for the ritual shotgunning of beers


Kyle, representing in front of the enemy

Cal kicked some serious Tennessee butt in the opening game of the season, held in Cal's memorial stadium. It was Awesome! GO BEARS! Props to the Tennessee fans for showing up at the game in full (bright orange!) force, a whopping 2,300 miles from home! You gotta respect that. I think this may be the best opening game I've ever been to at Cal.

(Note: There shall be no mention of the Michigan game against mighty Appalachian State.)

Dump

Just because I haven’t been posting blogs doesn’t mean I haven’t been blogging in my head. Here’s a dump of all that’s been going on in my world.

We’ve Got The Axe

My best friend, Sara, was in town this weekend for Big Game (Cal vs. Stanfurd a.k.a. all that is good in the world vs. all that is evil). It was beyond amazing to have her here… to share girl talk into the wee hours, to have a getting ready buddy (Which looks better, these jeans? Or these jeans? One more time, these jeans? Or these jeans?), to have my partner in crime by my side as we took on S.F., to have someone around 24-7 who knows me better than I know myself. It was just so good! Before she got here I had moments of panic – what if the weekend’s been too built up, what if it’s not fun, what if we try to squeeze too much in and just end up tired? Turns out we did try to squeeze too much in and we did end up tired… and it was perfect. We didn’t get to bed before 3 either Friday or Saturday night. And we got up early both Saturday and Sunday morning. But we had a blast! The game was great – Cal didn’t play their best, but we still beat the evil Cardinal. (Ahhh sweet victory, the coveted axe is ours!!) After the game we hit all our old watering holes and stomped on all our old stomping grounds. And, bonus!, we got to see UCLA pull off a win against the also evil USC. It was a great day all around! We had so much fun and saw SOOO many old friends – it was like we were in college all over again – but with MUCH better IDs and a football team that didn’t suck.


Me, Sara, and the Stephanies

(More pics can be seen here!)

To The Ladies

I just need to say that my friend, Cameron? Yeah, he rules. One of the few decent things to ever come out of Stanfurd (don’t worry, he’s just a grad student there – no real loyalty, thank goodness) is Cameron. He’s truly fan-freakin-tastic. And such a sweet-talker. I heart him, and I think everyone should know it. And, Bay Area ladies... he's single! No pressure. I'm just throwin it out there. :)


Me and Cameron

Hostess-A-Phobic

I have a fear of having people over at my house. And apparently I’m alone on this one, because several minutes (ok, fine, seconds) of Googling provided no viable search results for a name for this irrational fear. (How can I admit that I have a problem if I don’t even know what it’s called!?) Anyway, yes, I, Courtney, am hostess-a-phobic. Which proves to be a challenge when it’s my turn to host book club at my house. Eek. 15 women were supposed to show up at 7pm at my house on Tuesday. I actually blew off work on Sunday so I could get a Christmas tree, so my house would look festive, so I wouldn’t die in the corner while hyperventilating as people came over and thought, hmmmm nice place, but it could use a Christmas tree. I’m telling you – it’s a real problem for me! So Tuesday evening – after breathing deeply into a brown paper bag for several minutes, I frantically started cooking for my guests. And at 7:00 sharp – ding dong! But it was ok, I was nearly done cooking and the house looked great, and I even remembered to light all sorts of house-cozifiying candles. Hooray. And one guest came, and then another, and then 2 more, and then… then… no one else!!!!! I had dinner prepared for 15 people! (Well, actually, I grew up surrounded by Jewish mothers, and they definitely rubbed off on me, so I naturally had dinner for at least 25.) Again, only FOUR people came!!! Luckily, it was four of my favorite people and we ended having a lovely evening (even if NONE of us actually read the book – oops.) I had to call a few friends and neighbors to come over and help eat the feast I prepared, but it was ok. In fact, it was even sorta nice. Yes, I said it. People in my house was sorta nice. (Deep soothing breath!) This might be one irrational fear I can actually get over. (Which is good, because I’m still afraid of grilled onions and TWO irrational fears just makes me feel so high maintenance.)

Speaking Of Houses

Yes, speaking of houses… we sold mine today. MY house. THE house. THAT house. We decided to put it on the market a few weeks ago – just to see. Not really expecting to sell it right away, what with the holidays and all. And we priced it (in my opinion) too high. Really, it was just to see what would happen. To see if ANYONE in their right mind would want to take on a project as gigantic as that house. And someone did. They came in almost right at our asking price. 10 day contingency. 30 day escrow. Piece-o-cake deal. Wham Bam, thank you Ma’am. Done. Sigh… done. It’s official, this will be my last Christmas there. The new owners (ick, that leaves a bad taste in my mouth) will no doubt level the place and build some fab new place… maybe even two fab new places… and the house will be gone. It’s appropriate, I suppose. That house and my father were like kindred spirits. Intertwined on so many levels. My dad poured his soul into that house, and now that he’s gone, the place feels empty. Disserted. Perhaps ready to be torn down… dust to dust, I guess.

Whew. That was a lot to get off my chest!

Evil Triumphs Over Good

Cal and Michigan lost.
:(
Enter heartbreak.

Breakfast Beer, And Underdogs, And Wedding Dresses… Oh My!

Tomorrow is going to be a very long day…

6:45am: wake up – shower – prepare self for long day (a.k.a spend extra 15 minutes blow-drying hair to get it juuuust right)

8am: arrive at bar – cold and tired, but with lovely hair. (If it’s foggy out, someone dies)

9am: bar opens – yes, we are arriving ONE HOUR prior to the bar opening to ensure entrance into the bar. (It’s called dedication, people)

9:05am: order beer. (Pleeeeeeeeeeeease let my stomach be feeling better by then – as a side note, I can now eat cream of chicken soup, plain bagels, and bananas without wanting to hurl. Hooray!)

12:30pm: Michigan vs. Ohio State game begins. Go Blue!!!

12:31pm: Michigan does something stupid like running the ball up the middle (AGAIN) for 0 yards. (Why!? Why do they insist on breaking my heart with that play over and over and over again?)

2:45pm: crawl over 80 zillion Ohio State and Michigan fans to leave bar. Deal with incredulous looks of “WHAT?! YOU’RE LEAVING NOW!? But the game is only half over!!!!! GAH! What is wrong with you!?”

3pm: meet one of my best girlfriends, a.k.a. the bride to be, for WEDDING DRESS SHOPPING!! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

3:01pm: commence picture taking

4:30pm: finish wedding dress shopping (apparently an hour and a half or so is about all anyone can handle in one sitting – there’s a lot of white and puffy going on in there, and the brain can only take so much)

4:45pm: return to bar… pray we can get back in.

5:00pm: Cal vs. USC game begins!!! GO BEARS!!!!

8:30pm: tears… of joy (we won!!)… or sorrow (we lost) … or confusion (I’ve been drinking for eleven and a half hours and have no doubt lost something… but I can’t figure out what it is yet)

Eek! What a day! I’m tired just thinking about it. But it should be fun. If I can put an end to this pesky war taking place in my insides, and Michigan and Cal can pull off some fabulous upsets (neither are favored to win, by the way) and I can manage to not drool *too* much over the wedding dresses (p.s. I waaaaaaaaaaaaaant one), it'll be awesome.

Yay for Saturday!!

Sticking To Girly Push-Ups From Now On

While riding on BART from San Francisco to Berkeley yesterday, clutching the two overhead handrails, I, being an idiot, attempted to do a pull-up. Not only did I fail (mis.er.a.bly) but I think I pulled something in my shoulder. :( In fact, my whole upper body hurts today. I am embarrassingly weak. (Trust me on this one, I once lost in arm wrestling to 90 lb Asian woman.)

On the upside, Cal stomped on UCLA and I got to watch it (we scored FREE last minute tickets!!) from the student section of my alma mater’s stadium with enough beer, sausage, and adrenaline in my system to not notice the pain. So that part was good.

I Just Couldn't Decide

Just uploaded some pics from the Cal-Oregon game (Cal's Homecoming) a few weekends ago. (Yes, I actually used to have weekends.)

As I was going through them, I came across this one:



Hee hee! I must have been having one of those days.

For the record, I think I proceeded to spill beer all over myself shortly after this picture was taken. I would not reccommend drinking beers in parallel.

For The Truly Girly

I got an email from my BFF in New York today. She wrote to tell me all about this fab new blog called The Female Fan – created to help women learn more about football.

Neat!

In the email, she explains all about the blog… how it will teach the novice female fan all the must-know football terms (so that she can get into the game) and how it will give her all sorts of pertinent football trivia knowledge, so that she can impress her football loving friends.

Neat!

And then my darling BFF, who I love dearly, goes on to say that in addition to normal football stuff the blog will also provide the reader with “fun stuff” like the dish on football/celebrity couples and polls to vote for the hottest player.

Blink. Blink.

Football/celebrity couples? Really???

That’s not “fun stuff”. That’s girly fluff!! Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some sexy Tom Brady. But for me, football is about the game, the competition, the history, the stats, the home team pride, and the crushing of one’s opponent – and maybe even breaking his leg in the process. Football is gritty, dirty, (and for the fans) drunken fun. It’s about yelling so loud you lose your voice. It’s about waking up at the crack of dawn to paint your face and shotgun a beer. It’s about tailgating and BBQing and sports bars and fattening food. It’s about high five-ing a total stranger when your team scores and yelling obscenities at the ref for bogus calls. It’s about strategic field position and knowing when to go for it on a 4th down. It’s about hating Notre Dame. And the BCS. It’s exhilarating and way more exciting than worrying about who’s dating who and who’s butt looks the nicest in football pants.

Sheesh!

But. Having said all that – the blog in question actually is actually sort of fun… if you can get past all the Who’s Hot, Who’s Not polls. So enjoy: http://femalefan.ivillage.com/