"Super" Bowl

Not a football fan. Never have been. Okay, I liked the Jets in the '70s because Namath was ultrahot, plus they played in my "backyard" at Shea...that's about it. 

So in my world, what made that game "super" last night? 

 

Well, we had friends over. Two frat brothers who've recently relocated to our area (one brought his sons, ages 10 and 9). And another guy, a work friend of Pete's. I was initially irked about this gathering, because Pete didn't ask before he extended these invites, and I knew what an abject wreck my home was. 

Thus I spent Sunday surrounded by the dizzifying scent of cleansers. (Lest you think this resulted in a spanking clean house, fret not--it only produced three usably clean rooms [LR, kitchen, downstairs bath]. I remain true to my messiness.) I merged the cleaning whirlwind with a cooking frenzy: chili with rice, homemade guacamole, spinach-cheese bars, chocolate-chunk cookies. All my food was raved about and no leftovers!--that felt awesome. Ergo, wifely success.

However, what made the evening super was the opposite of my wifedom: camaraderie, for lack of a better word. No, in fact, I can do better: shit-shooting, hanging-out without clock-watching, beer-swilling (one non-alki, but I nursed that), pointless conversations about the rather large-looking panties that were thrown onstage for Mick (were they panties? we couldn't reach consensus) and the monster-baby-Hummer ad and whether that ball was really over the line. The me that I had forgotten about when Pete told me we were having people over. I had pictured myself wrangling 4 kids plus 2 extra while the guys hung out. In reality, 3 of the kids immersed themselves in Pokemon battles, my 2 youngest went upstairs to invent puppet shows, and my eldest drifted happily from group to group. 

 

Freed, I reinhabited the persona that two of our guests know best (and that Peter married, BTW). And the third guest fit right in--in fact, he's the one who encouraged us to flip over to Animal Planet while the game was winding down, so we could all watch Puppy Bowl II...a bunch of adorable little doggies in a "stadium" playing with chew toys and rolling around together. 

 

I paid dearly for all of Sunday's hoopla. Pete's apnea is always compounded by beer, so I truly didn't get deep sleep until 6 a.m. when he got up. I had a migraine-with-aura at work this afternoon (like looking through cut crystal, all rainbow shards and flashes and wavy distortions). And I should be in bed now, but I napped after dinner, which bought me some extra time on this end.

But it was worth it. I learned something new (which ended up being something old...) and I'm always up for that.