Super Bowl Sunday With The Kittens

Well, it is Super Bowl Sunday, and I'm two hours away from beginning preparations for the Fourth Annual Super Bowl Picnic with The Kittens.  Seems that before I showed up on the scene here, there wasn't much in the way of football watching going on.  Back in Super Bowl 2008, the older of the Kittens informed me that the Super Bowl was coming up, and that she wanted to watch it because she heard "there were funny commercials".  Seizing the opportunity, I proposed that she and her younger sister and I have a "Super Bowl Party", while we watched the game.  The Kittens thought this a capital idea.

Well, soon after that first Super Bowl started, the Kittens realized they weren't terribly into football, and that many of the commercials simply sailed over their heads.  Fearing disaster, I called an audible...The Puppy Bowl.

Seems that while the Super Bowl is on (and today, from 3PM until midnight), Animal Planet broadcasts this fantastic bit of TV in which squads of puppies take to a mockup football field and romp and play with each other.  The Kittens can watch this FOR HOURS, and I could probably too.  Riveting stuff with very cute puppies.

So, now we've woven The Puppy Bowl formally into the day--we watch some game, some commercials, and some puppy bowl, all while eating my famous nachos (famous here, at least), chicken wings, shrimp, bacon-wrapped scallops, crab balls and veggies. 

Slowly, but surely, the Kittens are becoming football fans. 

Green Bay over Pittsburgh   17-9

My Favorite Super-Bowl Commercial

Uh huh.

"I will carry your lip balm". Classic.

The Big Dig

One of the great past-times of mid-Atlantic living is overstating the amount of snow 1) anticipated in any predicted storm and 2) covering the ground wherever one lives in the region. Maybe its a sense of inferiority to our New England brethren, who knows.

But the storm that hit yesterday and Friday lived up to every bit of its hype. We here in in little Easton on the Eastern Shore of Maryland got--no joke--somewhere around 18 inches of snow. Just up the road in Baldymore they got nearly 30! There are some righteous drifts out here on the farm that are going to make superb snow forts.

To paraphrase Robert Frost--snowplows make good neighbors--and one of ours came up big in this storm. He plowed the entire farm lane and our circular drive. Digging cars out today was tough, but made much more pleasant by the knowledge that once liberated, the ride out the the main road would be a smooth one.

A near catastrophe was averted a bit earlier by surface heating; our Direct TV antenna had gotten encased in snow and ice, and there was little hope for Super Bowl viewing (I checked this morning and there was no reception). So I grabbed a ladder, determined to climb out on the garage roof and solve this problem--when to my pleasant surprise, the antenna stood there, defiantly naked without any snow or ice. A quick trip back in the house confirmed my good fortune, and we're on for our little annual Super Bowl party.

In a house full of women, none of whom are particularly rabid football fans, our annual family Super Bowl viewing experience has been supplemented by periodic and lengthy excursions to Animal Planet to watch The Puppy Bowl--a bunch of romping shelter puppies playing atop a football field-like table, with lots of football talk and this year--rabbit cheerleaders! Harry Kalas used to do the play by play, and his death will leave a big hole in the Puppy Bowl broadcast.

Colts:38, Saints:17

...and the Saints won't make it 17 until late in the fourth quarter. Yes, I'm still harbouring bitter feelings since the Vikings' self-inflicted loss in the NFC Championship; but even still, the Colts are the better team.