Football Saturday: Payback

Gainesville (aka "Title Town USA")

Seems like it's football 24/7 here. Much strutting and prancing around in the long (very long) aftermath-- Gator stuff galore. Something of a relief to get back to big boy football.

I must confess much of my mental energy has been been soaked up by reading about what is being called the Foobocolypse -- "Foob" meaning "For Better or For Worse," a strip that has clearly jumped the shark-- the only question remains, when?? (Well, not the only question.) I have spent 5-6 hours in the past two days reading comments about it on the Comics Curmudgeon blog, participating in what could only be called a wake for the death of a once great comic strip. I've been hoping to post to this thread, but I can't catch up! One dare not post without having read everything up until then. Still, the fact that I keep trying, and occasionally crying, signals how much I care about a bloody COMIC STRIP! And it helps to know I'm not alone. This latest plot is just wrong, and is a crime against the characters we've known and loved for so long, and those we've come to respect recently. We wouldn't feel so cheated, except that Johnston seems to have backed off so suddenly from such a long running drama involving characters with individuality, sympathy, and continuity.

When I could tear myself away from the Fooberdammerung, I made a menu plan, shopped, cooked, and watched football.

As to the former, snapper with an artichoke and mushroom sauce (shoulda been better, partly pilot error) and an Every Day Cooking # 38 recipe of a green bean and fennel salad that was rather nice, if I do say so myself.

As to the latter: First game, was glad to see Peyton's team won, even though Peyton himself didn't contribute much. Bout time they payed him back, and helped him break his playoff jinx. As former Baltimoron, I was sympathetic to the Ravens' desire to blast the deserters, but that seems like long ago now.

Second game, after such a struggle of offensive futility in the first game (7 field goals and no TD's!), I started out rooting for "the offense" of either team. They both came seriously through. By the fourth quarter, though, much as I like Jeff Garcia, I had to go with the Saints, and they did come marching in. N.O. deserves some payback from the Fates.

Did I mention what a good job Scooba did on the kitchen floor Thursday? Took a lot of moving/cleaning of stuff on the floor to make it happen, and will take a few more runs, but it's a great start. And I got the house Blessed except for dusting. Not counting the ground floor attic, of course. We'll get there eventually. Many loads of laundry were accomplished-- the hanging stuff.

Lot of this is in form of notes to self. It's still very warm here, for January. Mosquitoes and stuff. Azaleas all confused starting to bloom. They'll be okay as long as we don't have a sudden hard freeze. But this particular year, who knows.