Hey, did everyone enjoy that Superb Owl? I was riveted for, oh, I would say three-quarters of that game, which for me is unheard of. I care not for the American version of rugby. I amused the hell out of my co-workers today when I attempted to describe the game to my parents who are in Israel and therefore were not privy to the goings-on of the NFL. It sounded like this:
Well, it was the Baltimore Ravens, so called because Poe and Baltimore and all that, and the San Francisco 49ers… who are called that for reasons I don’t know. I was rooting for the Ravens because I adore giant crows. Remember those times at the Tower of London when I had a long conversation with those big ole birds? Yeah, so I was rooting for them because you gotta root for somebody. I got to Nya’s house at about five because I wanted to stake out a killer spot on the couch so I could work on my embroidery during the boring bits*. Nessa met me there and our butts became fused to the sofa. I don’t think we got up for two hours, and then we got up in turns so as not to lose our dope couch positions. Anyway, I had an embarrassing moment at the very beginning when the Newtown Chorus and Jennifer Hudson sang “America the Beautiful” and I yelled out, “Hey, I thought Alicia Keyes was gonna sing out national anthem!” Nessa had to point out to me that, ummm, “America the Beautiful” is not our national anthem, never has been. My excuse was someone was singing a sweeping patriotic song and I just defaulted. Not a proud moment in my life. Then Alicia Keyes sang the real national anthem which I decided to honor by getting wings because gosh darnit, I like Alicia Keyes as a person but I do not care for her yell-y singing style. She also sang it as slow as physically possible. Glaciers moved three inches while she belted it out.
Then there was some coin-tossing and some running and hitting and I vaguely paid attention while Ravens annihilated the 49ers. The score was like 26 to 7 or something. I was actually really impressed with the quarterback for the 49ers. He has a name similar to that NSync member, Chris Kirkpatrick, something like that. Anyway, he’s really tall, like 6′ 5″ and he’s slim which is unusual for a quarterback. He was running like crazy, throwing the ball, doing all kinds of stuff. CBS did a whole little special on him, turns out he’s adopted. He had a 4.0 GPA. He’s devoted to his religion. But wait, it gets better. I found out he was also on the Cubs (baseball) and I think he also played basketball really well. HOW super-bummed are his birthparents for giving him up? I mean he’s a magical sporty forest creature beamed down from Mount Olympus, for crying out loud! And he seems very sweet as a person.
So after the first half ended (score a billion to two in favor of Baltimore) Beyonce came out! And sang! And danced! And looked amazing! I must say I am totally content to live in the United States of Beyonce, as it has become since the Inauguration / Super Bowl. I am happy to be a serf in her fiefdom. She performed approximately 3.14 lines of each of her big hits, she wore a black lace doily on her butt, it was wonderful. Then the second half started aaaaaand the lights went out in the stadium. Like, out out. It was dark. Since the game was happening in N’Awlins, Nessa took this opportunity to play the unfortunate clip of Wolf Blitzer saying poorly chosen words. The athletes seemed pretty chill about the whole lights-out thing, they just did stretches and jumpy exercises to keep their limbs… limber. It took fifteen minutes for the lights to get bright enough again, so CBS had a few thousand commercial breaks. Did I mention there was a Doritos commercial with a screaming goat? And a cars.com commercial with a bebbeh wolf? Combine that with the Clydedales in the Budweiser ads and it was a good year for me. The lights came back on, and then the craziest thing happened. A player, from the Ravens I think, got the ball in one endzone and RAN ALL THE WAY TO THE OTHER ENDZONE. No one tripped him, no one thought to trip him, it was very odd. Then the 49ers woke up and came to and got a bunch of touchdowns and the game got pretty close near the end. Finally it ended and the Ravens won and one of the players made a snow angel in the confetti on the field. I got three-quarters of a leaf embroidered and ate a pile of seven-layer dip, so I was happy. It was a good game all around.
*Photographic proof.
