Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Arizona, birthday, Christmas, dinner, family, food, friends, in-laws, Pasadena, Rose Bowl, stress, travel, wine
Why do I do this every year? This Christmas season brought a tremendous amount of stress…..the season always does but this year was a bit more than I should have taken on and I’ll be paying for it for years to come.
In a nutshell this is what we did in chronological order, beginning at the first of the month:
* Attend the Oregon Civil War Game
* Attend MFH company Christmas party
* Had our friends 30th birthday party at our home
* Hosted the junior youth group progressive dinner (the main course of course)
AND ALL OF THIS WAS JUST THE FIRST WEEKEND! Then:
* Flew down to Arizona for a 4 day weekend to visit the in-laws
* Starved and fasted to win the Biggest Loser contest (which I did)
* Hosted the office Christmas party at our home
* Sold a home & took 3 new listings
* Took an entire day to bake treats with my daughter
* Attended 3 Christmas Eve open houses
* Hosted Christmas dinner for my family including out-of-town overnight guests
AND IN THE WEEK TO COME:
* Driving down to Pasadena to attend the Rose Bowl!
All of a sudden I have a raging headache just thinking about it. But the real question is why? Why must I do this every year? And it’s only getting worse; I keep taking on more every year. In all honesty there were a few days when I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown but fortunately I’m way to stubborn to let that happen, so I pressed on…..and had drink or two to get me through.
So, here are some fun highlights of this past month:
* The progressive dinner took place with 16 unruly “youth” in my home and 5 adult drivers. These were all people from my church and the dinner was the day after the 30th birthday party, which had a Las Vegas theme and was too much fun for MFH who spent the entire next day in bed. The host was still in the process of cleaning up the house and the birthday girl was asleep in my daughter’s bed….don’t ask me why but she was. When one adult wanted a tour of my home another person/friend gave her the tour but told her not to go into my daughter’s room because there was someone in there sleeping off a hangover…..she was horrified……it got better when MFH decided to come out of his cave, walked right into the kitchen wearing his PJ’s and looking pretty ripe; the adults were eating and I was mortified. I did A LOT of explaining and some of it was fictitious.
* Every time MFH and I fly anywhere it’s always a nightmare. He gets really uptight and bossy…..which is my job. The highlight of our arrival into the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport was our departure from the airplane. As we exited he walked about 10 feet faster than I could catch up to him and I wanted my roller suitcase so that I didn’t have to carry my shoulder bag……so I asked him to stop, politely. Then I asked again (thinking he didn’t hear me the first time). Still he continued walking. Then I got a little more stern and a bit louder with “Dammit, stop!”. Almost everyone ahead of me stopped…..including him 
I got my bag but not without a fight. MFH marched off ahead of me again and this time I let him have it…..something like “What the hell is your hurry, calm the f*** down!” I’m not sure what he said next but I flipped him off. I’m pretty sure we looked like a couple in love.
* This past Father’s Day we hosted our dad’s and their wives for a very nice dinner. Everything was wonderful, food was great, company was very pleasant, there was just one small mishap. My father-in-law can’t keep up with my father when it comes to wine consumption. Don’t get me wrong, he made a great effort……one that made him very sick for a few days. I mention this because this Christmas my mother-in-law attended our dinner and she similarly also got sick….in my kitchen sink. To be clear it was not from alcohol consumption…..which doesn’t say a whole lot for my cooking.
So now there’s just one more hurdle before normalcy can resume, getting down to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. Considering all that we’ve done this month I’m actually looking forward to a road trip…..it will force me to sit down. Once we get there however, that should be another story
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: beavers, civil war, college, ducks, family, fans, football, mascots, Oregon, Rose Bowl, uniersity
I’m a duck. Not the kind that quacks. OK, I’m more like a duck fan…..I was born in the place where The Ducks rule the town. If you’re not familiar with Oregon then you probably think I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t, I just find it hilarious that I live in a state where the two largest universities have mascots that are either a duck or a beaver. Those are not very imposing figures when it comes to sports teams!
The Bears, the Devils, the Lions…..those are mascots that are a whole lot more imposing than a duck. Yet living in Oregon, in the Fall during football season and attending the UofO football games, the mascot just makes sense! After all, there is very wet weather here and it’s perfect, if you’re a duck.
This Saturday, November 30th marks the 114th annual “Civil War” football game between the UofO Ducks (sometimes called The Fighting Ducks) and the OSU Beavers (a.k.a. The Beavs). This is one of the oldest rivalries in college football. It also happens to be a bit of a rivalry in my family and my neighborhood!
My brother graduated from OSU a few years ago and I believe that he was the first member of our family to have attended the school. My dad and grandfather both attended UofO. Brother Ryan’s smack talk about his Beavs has created a bit of animosity with me but my dad and MFH are less sensitive than I am and they’re having fun. There is also a very clear line of delineation in my neighborhood and I think that it’s a sad fact that more of my neighbors fly college flags than the American flag!!
Tomorrow’s game should prove to be a great match up, these two teams are very strong. A Beaver win could send them to the Rose Bowl for the first time in 40 years. In a way it would be nice to see to them win for that reason only. Then I remember that about 8 years ago the Ducks had the chance to go to the Rose Bowl and the deciding game was the Civil War……which the Ducks lost, smashing their Rose Bowl hopes. Can you say revenge??
So tomorrow we will don our green and yellow shirts, obnoxious pom-poms and our even more obnoxious duck bill quacker noise makers and cheer on the Mighty Fighting Ducks (because we need as many imposing adjectives as we can get)!! Let the game begin!
