Super Bowl Weekend

I love sports. Anyone who knows even a little bit about me can probably tell you this. There are a few sporting events that fire me up, no matter which teams are involved: the MAC men's basketball tournament, the NCAA men's basketball tournament, college bowl season, and the Super Bowl. I love them all, and look forward to them dearly. This past weekend was Super Bowl weekend, and as such, it's been marked in my calendar for quite some time.

So I knew going in what would cap off the weekend. What I didn't know was what would happen in the meantime. I knew Brandi and I had a viewing to attend in her hometown; I also had been invited out by an old friend and by a co-worker. Brandi had also been invited out by her co-workers. Being the selfish type, as well as the optimistic type, I had hopes of doing it all, but I knew it wasn't likely that all of it would happen. Unfortunately, Friday nights only last so long.

The top item on the agenda was the viewing, which was for Brandi's friend's mom. We left for that shortly after I got home from work on Friday. On the way there, Brandi told me that her dad and stepmom had invited us to come for dinner afterwards. That sounded good to me. I like Brandi's family, and her stepmom is a really good cook.

The viewing was pretty low-key. It was not an unexpected death, so the mood, while somber, wasn't as low as it could have been. Brandi got to see her stepsister and some other old friends, so it was good in that regard. We commented afterwards that we're at the point now when "everyone only gets together when someone dies." Sad, but true (as I've had occasion to note myself, almost a year ago). I felt a little out of place there, as I knew very few people and those only vaguely, but I was glad to be there with Brandi. For some reason, I kept looking around, feeling like I was going to see someone that I knew. I don't know who that would have been, but whoever it was, they never showed up.

Afterwards we went to Brandi's parents' place for dinner. Her stepmom made some form of seafood for everyone else, and a nice slice of beef for me. I feel bad about that, but what can I do? I'm not a seafood lover by any means, but her family eats little else, at least so far as I can tell. At any rate, the food was great, and it was a good time. After dinner Brandi and I printed out some hard copies of digital photographs for her stepmom, and then we headed back to Bowling Green.

Brandi had to teach a class early on Saturday afternoon, and when we got home she said she just wanted to go to bed, but that she didn't mind if I wanted to go out. I wanted to see my friend Jamie while she was in town from Chicago, so I called her in hopes that the going-away party for her mom was still going on. She didn't answer her phone, though, but I decided to head out anyway in hopes of meeting up with my co-worker Walt. Walt had told me at work on Friday that he was going to be at a bar in Bowling Green that night, watching a band. It wasn't yet midnight when I left, so I figured the band would still be going strong and Walt would be easy to find.

I was right. I went to the bar where he said he'd be, and there he was. He got my first drink and introduced me to his friends, and then we sat down to check out the band. Walt knew the drummer and was talking him (and the band) up, and they didn't disappoint. The band was called Glass Candy, and they had a really interesting sound, which was a combination of several rock and hip-hop styles. The show was awesome, and it was fun to just sit around and have a few drinks. Walt and his friends were pretty cool--I only know Walt from work, and I haven't really been there long enough to know him all that well, but he's a lot of fun.

When the band was done, I paid my tab and headed back to my car. On my way through the parking lot, I spotted Jamie's car, so I knew she had to be out somewhere. The bars were closing, so I knew there was no hope of meeting up with her, but I called her again anyway. This time she answered her phone, and we chatted for a few minutes and made plans to get together for lunch on Saturday. Then I headed home, where I went almost immediately to bed.

I got up with Brandi around 11:00 on Saturday. I had a pretty vicious headache, despite the fact that I only had three drinks the night before and wasn't drunk or buzzed. I took a couple of Excedrin and hopped in the shower after Brandi left, and the headache slowly faded away. By the time I got out of the shower, it was just after noon, and I hadn't yet heard from Jamie. She had been pretty drunk when I talked to her on Friday night, so I wasn't entirely sure she would remember that we were supposed to have lunch together. I called her but got no answer, so I started playing The Sims.

Jamie called a few minutes later, however, and invited me over to her mom's apartment to have "breakfast" with the two of them. I went over and hung out with them, and Jamie's mom (Teri) made eggs, potatoes, and toast for all of us. I hadn't seen Jamie since October, the last time she was in town, and I've barely talked to her in that time, so it was good. They were telling me about the party I had missed the night before. I hung out there until about 2:30, when Jamie was starting to get ready to head back to Chicago.

Brandi wasn't home when I got back to our apartment, so I started washing some dishes until my mom called. I talked to her for a little bit, during which time Brandi got home--she had gone to the store to get a few things--and then I went back to washing the dishes. After that, we just hung out and watched TV for a while.

As afternoon faded into evening and we both began to grow hungry, we decided to go have dinner at Max and Erma's. There's a fairly new one just up the road in Perrysburg, and both of us thought that some of their fried cheese cubes sounded awesome. It was fairly busy when we got there, so we sat at the bar and had a glass of wine while we waited for a table. They told us the wait would be around fifty minutes, but it couldn't have been more than half an hour. We sat down and had a nice dinner before heading home again.

When we got home, Brandi could no longer stand the wait, so she decided to give me one of my Valentine's Day presents. She gave me an autographed photo of Edwin McCain, placed in a frame with a 45 record of his hit song "I'll Be." It's really cool, and we busted out a hammer and some nails so we could immediately hang it up in our living room.

After that, it was time to hit the town. We went out to B-Dubs to have a few drinks and hang out. We were there for a little bit, then headed to Downtown. We had a drink there, but it was pretty crowded and the bartender we know wasn't there that night, so we decided to make it an early night. I think it was around 12:30 when we came home. It was a good time, though.

Brandi was still a little tipsy after we got home, and in the course of our conversations she accidentally let slip that my second Valentine's gift was an iPod. I've wanted one since I gave her one for Christmas and saw how cool it was. Since she had told me what it was, she went ahead and gave it to me. I was pretty excited. I opened it up and played with it a little bit while she got a call from her friend Cricket, who lives in Texas and was pretty drunk.

Sunday, to start with, was a day for errands. We got up and went to do laundry. From there we went to Wal-Mart; from there to the library; from there to the car wash; then to the gas station; and then finally back home. This took us a fair way into the afternoon. It was still a while until game time, so we just hung out here on the couch--Brandi watched What Women Want on TV while I did some stuff online. Then it was time for the game.

We ordered some pizza and wings for the game and just watched it here at home. The food arrived a little bit before kickoff, so we were ready. The game itself was something of a disappointment. Neither team played particularly well, and the Eagles were slightly worse than the Patriots. It was a close game, so at least it was interesting until the very end, but both Brandi and I were cheering for the Eagles, so we were disappointed in the outcome. The commercials weren't that great, either.

Now I'm getting ready to head off to work and start another week. Hopefully this week will go by quickly, and it should--our catalog deadline is this Thursday, so there should be plenty of work to do. Next weekend Brandi and I are heading over to our old stomping grounds near Akron, where she used to live and work. We're going to stay there for the weekend and so some fun things--that's my Valentine's gift to her. I'm really looking forward to it, and I think she is as well.