Pug-jama Sunday

Well, I had high hopes for accomplishment when I got up this morning--maybe some errands, maybe a trip to one of my favorite places, Only Ewe and Cotton Too, where they knit all Sunday afternoon, maybe ....

Nah! Football season starts today! Well, that's not quite accurate ... actually NFL season started on Thursday night but I fell asleep early into the game (Steelers 13, Titans 10). So, for me, it starts today.

I'm an odd duck here in the South, and especially in Georgia. (Hush! I don't want to hear from you about how many things make me odd--let's just talk about sports for a minute!)

Back to duckdom. I've been a pro football fan since 1979, when I realized that my new husband was going to spend every single Sunday, plus Monday night, watching pro football. (That was before the days of Sunday night football and Thursday night football and Direct TV NFL Ticket. No TIVO! Oh, my! We were terribly limited in those days but somehow we persevered.)

Anyway, I began watching with him and was immediately hooked. Pretty soon I was reading books about plays and strategies (so as not to annoy the husband by asking dumb questions). That led to helping my friend Tom plot his betting strategies for the following week. Now I'm not a betting woman but Tom, who was a realtor in the same office as me, was. (A betting man, that is, not a woman.) And every Tuesday morning he and I would pore over the point spreads for the upcoming week in The Washington Post. Then on the following Monday or Tuesday, Tom would share the glory (no money, just glory) if he won and we'd weep if he didn't.

Then I scored the use of Redskins season tickets from another realtor in the office, and we were off and running. I can't tell you how many times I pulled on foul weather gear and multiple layers of sweaters and scarves and gloves to sit in the stadium and watch my beloved Redskins over the next few years. Lots of beer and peanuts and stadium hot dogs. The 'Skins were in their glory years, so we were well rewarded--Joe Gibbs was leading my boys to victory most Sundays!

Back to today and Georgia. Husband is long gone, in more ways than one, and I'm here in Georgia with Mr. Pug. He's just as big a fan as I am and we catch as many games on TV as we can. Of course, we had an NFL player in the family for a few years and that made it even more interesting. I'm still a major Panthers fan in honor of all the terrific Panthers games I got to attend--including the Super Bowl one year.

But here in Georgia, and it seems the rest of the South too, pro football isn't the thing at all. These southerners love their college teams, which makes sense to me if you actually WENT to the college but makes NO sense if you didn't. Auburn? Alabama? Why?

Anyway, the Atlanta area is about evenly divided between University of Georgia and Georgia Tech fans. For me, interesting but not compelling ... what does any of that have to do with me? I lean toward UGA because they have cuter mascots. Bulldogs are almost as cute as pugs, but ... nah! Never mind!

And even that pales beside the passion for high school football. Again, if you don't have a kid playing on the team, who cares? Not for me. Not interested. At all. None. Zero. Zip. All high school football means to me is that on Friday night I have to plan my trip home to avoid being caught in traffic jams of those folks who do care.

So here's my game plan for today:

-- 1 pm - Falcons vs Dolphins (always root for the home team is my rule)

-- 4 pm - Redskins (Yay! Go Team!) vs. someone--can't remember. Does it matter? Oh, yeah .... it's the Giants. Big division rivalry. I actually can't stand Eli Manning, or any of the Manning boys, so even more reason to root for my beloved Burgundy and Gold.

-- 8 pm - Bears vs Packers. Okay, this is classic football. In the old days, meaning 50 years ago, the score would have been something like 7 to 6 and there would have been snow involved. Today, with Brett Favre gone and the Bears quarterback being some guy you never heard of, no great loss if I sleep through this one, but I'll give it a try. Because it's all about the game, right? It really doesn't matter who's playing!

So, Pug-Jama Sunday. There's absolutely no point in even getting dressed for this day. I'll be hanging out in my PJs and snuggling a pug or two in front of the TV all day. (Thank goodness we have a very private back yard so I won't scare the neighbors if I go outside to feed the fish!) Maybe I'll make a big pot of soup to graze on. And while I watch, I'll knit. I just need to sew up Baby Surprise and add buttons. And I've always got a couple of socks on the needles. So I've got plenty to keep me working. Maybe wind some wool? (I might even get a few loads of wash done, but that's strictly bonus round material.)

Oh, those things at the top? Yeah, they're the finished Trekking socks. What I really loved about knitting with that yarn was that they were truly oddly dyed--there were shades of brown that turned up late in the second sock, way toward the end of the ball, that had never been seen before. Normally, the dye process repeats itself every so often, so that if you're one of those people who require that your socks match, you can fiddle with things and get that matching pair. That wouldn't work with these Trekking babies.

Luckily for me, I don't care about matching socks. After all, who but me will ever know? It's like wearing underwear with holes to work--unless you have a job that's a whole lot more interesting than mine, or you end up having your clothes cut off you in the ER, no one will ever know.