indulgences

me and the boy. iowa state at wvu. 30 november 2013.

after a two-hour drive to watch two hours of football with my 3-year-old boy following a 14 1/2 hour drive to west palm beach to spend 31 hours with my family for thanksgiving, i must reiterate and re-emphasize that i have the most indulgent wife in the world.

as we headed home from my folks today, i asked if she thought i was crazy before we were married when i'd make this long trip for such a short visit. 

she replied, "yes."

but you thought i'd grow out of it after we got married, i proposed.

she again replied, "yes."

that she comes with me as i help drive my parents and now drags our small neophyte road warrior children along for the marathon road trip is a testament to her love for - and patience with - me.

i really married well. 

bumma

so the boy is swiping through my phone's photo gallery and sees this pic and asks where this is. i try to vague up my response, as i went to morgantown without him and he wasn't being punished. i brace myself for his next question.

then he sees this:

at this point, he asks, "where's the picture of you and me?" yeah ...

i think i explained that the ballgame was at night and he was asleep. in the state he was in, i thought he'd flip out, but he was understanding, albeit a little disappointed and maybe slightly hurt. he didn't make a big deal of it.

as i told my facebook buddies, he'll have plenty of opportunities later to learn heartbreak at the hands of the mountaineers.

hot chocolate day

Hot chocolate day, a photo by grumpnet on Flickr.

first snow of the season and the kids got to play outside in maybe half an inch of snow.

the boy was mostly good all day, after what's felt like a week of off-the-rails crazy -- lack of impulse control, lack of focus, random aggression to his baby sister, backtalk, and on and on.

(not sure if today was the anomaly or the behavior of the past few days. judging by his post-cocoa/pre-bedtime antics, it may well be the former. he's been howling all night so far.)

anyway -- my post for 11/12/13.

i'll take it

didn't watch or listen to one down of this ball game. i checked once at halftime while watching "toy story 2" with the kids -- we were down 17-10, which, as it wasn't a blowout score, was good enough for me -- and again after putting the kids to bed after "toy story 3." was surprised as hell that we won. in overtime, no less, and after squandering a double digit lead. again.

four games

west virginia head coach dana holgorsen reacts during a 35-12 loss
to kansas state.

y'know what's sad after being up since 2:52 am?

it's not being excited about your football team. (ok, pathetic and sad.)

with a winning season in doubt and the prospects of not winning another game not beyond the realm of possibility for my west virginia mountaineers, it's sad that the best i can surf for by way of positive team news when i can't fall back asleep is a photo gallery of the best and worst college football uniforms of the year.

i mean, i could always read stuff until i fell asleep, but i have to want to read it first. and i've already had my fill of talk of a lost season and a rebuilding year. 

(add to that the potential loss of our hotshot athletic director and things aren't looking too rosy for mountaineer nation right now.)

i suppose not being jacked up about the football team right now and staying up late to read all i can about a national or conference title race helps get me to bed earlier, but i do miss not being "in the game," as it were. 

we've got four games to play against teams in various states of disarray, so it's possible to pull out some wins. and if we do, the prospect of bowl talk could be enticing. 

but injuries and youth don't bode well even if the best comes to pass. just a set-up for another fall another time.

the perennial hopes for a better time next season are always there -- the opiate for true believers -- except it's in another year and all that entails.

dreams of gridiron glory aside, though, what i really desire at the moment is to be able to go back to sleep.