On Saturday, a whole slew of us went down to USBank Stadium to watch the Prep Bowl, our State Football Championship, to cheer for St. Thomas Academy and Vince Hubbell. We had great seats, since the wheel chair accessible box is located atop the second tier at the 50 yd line. There were so many of us that we didn’t all fit in the box so the overspill used the row of seats immediately in front of it. We were quite a cheering section!
We have several classes of high school football here in Minnesota, so the Championship games were played, one after another, all day long. Our game was at 4:00. We showed up at the stadium about a half hour before the game and it took at least that long just to get inside. They had only one gate open: everyone had to clear security there and then were shunted off to the side allotted for the fans of each team. I couldn’t help but wonder why so many people think it should be easier for non citizens to get into our country than it is for citizens to get into a highschool football game.
I had Xena and Babalouie with me, so I didn’t mind sitting below the box; they needed their own chairs. They also needed popcorn, soda and lots of Mike ‘n Ikes.
We all knew that the opponent, Owatonna, had a star running back who has already signed with the Gophers for next year, so it would be a tough game. But it’s a championship! It supposed to be tough!
STA did very well through the first half, scoring the only points with a field goal. The scary running back was not a problem. Then, in the second half, he demonstrated why he’s scary. He scored twice on long runs in which he shook off every man in STA’s defensive line like he was covered in grease. I swear, at one point there were fourguys on him and he wouldn’t go down!
Oh well. The Mike ‘n Ikes were good.
Joe’s boys are 0-2 in the Prep Bowl. It’s extremely cool that two of his boys played in State Championships.
But winning is cooler.
When Gus Hubbell and his Edina Hornets won the State title in Cross Country, he told us that during the race, a team mate had said “we gotta start passing people!” Gus said “Not yet. This pace is fast, all these guys are gonna die.” Sure enough, when they got into the woods, when the adrenaline of the crowd was gone and all you can hear is feet hitting the ground and guys gasping for air, the others started dying and the hornets made their move; passed a hundred runners.
As my poetic brother Joe, put it “when you get into the woods and the adrenaline of the crowd is gone, you can hear the dreams of the pretenders die.”
Joe hasn’t texted any poetry about the Prep Bowl.
On the way home from the game, we picked up barbecue and then the kids and I watched Christmas movies. All in all, a terrific day!
Sunday, Josie and Katie came over and we got the tree up. Josie lit it for me. She did a wonderful job! I like a lot of lights on my tree; 1200-1300 lights on a six foot tree. They have to wrap each branch all the way to the trunk to give the tree depth. That’s what makes the job back breaking but Josie does it right. Then the three of us watched Bridget Jones’ Diary, a great Christmas movie!
This week went by so fast that I spent most of Thursday thinking it was Wednesday.
Wednesday, I had lunch with my Dad. Mom was playing bridge with friends in their place, so Woody, Andy and I joined Dad on the porch off the café. It was a delightful spot for lunch and for watching the light snowfall that began halfway through.
I don’t know when it happened but everyone in Minneapolis has forgotten how to drive in snow. It took me twenty minutes to go the four miles from Mom and Dad’s place to mine. Jay had to get downtown that evening and it took him nearly 50 minutes! Traffic was horrific all over the metro and we got a whopping 2” of snow in ten hours. I don’t remember a light dusting of snow bringing traffic to a standstill in the past but things are different now. Now, we have four times as many cars as the highways were built to hold and city planners who are hellbent on shunting us all onto light rail. The powers that be have a vested interest in making traffic awful. The powers that be have a vested interest in making everything awful but that’s a different post.
Thursday was overcast with a very low sky. It looked like it was going to start snowing again but it never quite did. Jay and I walked around the lake. We had just started when a bald eagle dropped out of the clouds right into a tree in front of us. It looked as big as an airplane when it came in, wings spread, to land lightly in the top branches of the tree! We stood and stared up at it, forty feet above us, for a few minutes, hoping to see it take off again. It didn’t. It just perched there, looking around like a king surveying his domain.
About a month ago, while walking around Lake Calhoun, we saw another eagle. It was circling low over the east side of the lake, near the cemetery. At one point, when it was right over us, a hawk came swooping out of the nearby woods and attacked it! We watched as the hawk, which couldn’t have been more than 1/5ththe size of the eagle, dive-bombed the bigger bird. The eagle rolled in midflight and batted the hawk away with its huge talons.
Birds are very territorial and I’ve seen smaller birds chase hawks all the time but I’ve never seen a hawk made to look completely insignificant by an eagle before.
The hawk was all “get lost! This is hawk territory!”
And the eagle was all “piss off, junior; I’m an eagle.”
I love nature.
Jay reminded me that it was actually Thursday night and not Wednesday, so I remembered to get up and go to painting class in the morning. We did Christmas ornaments again! So much fun!
This weekend, I hope to get some ornaments on my tree. I also have to put up the two table top trees, decorate the mantle and hang the stockings with care.
They’re needlepoint stockings that cost even me a few hundred a piece and about six months so you bet I handle them with care! It’s still a cheaper hobby than golf and you get original works of art to keep! Plus, it’s extremely therapeutic work. I highly recommend it to everyone.