Illness, Christmas, and Football ...Better Together?
Last week the wife reeled in a stinging-bad sore throat, headache, cough, sneezing, lose-your-voice type of thing. Next, the baby got a bit of it, coughing for a few days, but we successfully sequestered her from my wife's busy-body germs. Crisis averted.Somehow I managed to walk through the haze of germs unscarred. But if life has taught me anything, it's taught that eventually, I'll get mine. No matter how good my life gets, a stomach punch can't be too far off.
So I was not surprised when I started having a few symptoms as last weekend approached. I thought for sure I would be sick all weekend, getting better just in time to enter my sensory deprivation cubicle at work on Monday morning. But, surprisingly, I got better.
Then, Sunday night I started feeling sick again. Would I be sick all week, getting better just in time for Christmas? I actually would have preferred this. Like a mini-vacation before my mini-vacation. It would be hassle as far as work was concerned, but a nice break overall. But no, I woke up Monday morning feeling fine as a lemming, ...and off to work I went.
Today. 1-ish. Here comes the soreness in my throat. Here comes the disorientation in my head. Here comes the shivers, the desire to cough up phlem.
Just in time for Christmas!
I'm supposed to tip some pints with the lads on Thursday night, but that may be in jeopardy if my immune system continues to defend like a Slowik defense. Hopefully the virus is of the Harrington strain and not the McNabb strain.
Which brings me to my homelife. The wife has decided to learn about football.
They don't really have much football in Japan. They do have a league, and I guess some high schools and colleges play the sport, but it's less understood than soccer or pit toilets here in the states.
I never really realized how tricky the game is. Try explaining scoring to someone who gives you a blank look when you say things like: endzone, sideline, pylon, goalposts, "go for two", etc.
The first thing she tried to understand about the game was the downs.
She only understood the word "down" as a directional word. It made no sense when I said, for example: "There are four downs. You have to go 10 yards within those four downs or you have to kick. Actually, you have to kick on fourth down, so you only have 3 downs. If you go ten yards, then you get another first down."
This was really hard for her to grasp. I think once she stripped the word "down" of any meaning, she did ok. The hard part was understanding that you go back to 1st down if you get the 10 yards. She thought you should go to 2nd down, since it's your second series of downs.
The other hard part to understand was the scoring. She kept confusing field goals with extra points, ...and then when she saw someone go for two, she was really confused. But she's got that part down now. Watching last night's game she saw that Miami was down by 11 when New England scored their last TD.
I told her we should go to bed because the game is over.
"But there are five minutes left!"
"Yeah, but it's over."
"But they just need a touchdown, a 2-point, and a field goal. Two scores."
"It ain't gonna happen because Miami sucks, but we can watch."
And watch we did as Miami promptly scored, missed the 2-point conversion, got the ball back on an INT, and completed a 4th down fade into the endzone with 1:20 left on the clock.
"Now the other team just needs to get close enough for a field goal. They have time," she said. Yep. That's my girl.
She's now trying to understand possession, when a call can be challenged, penalties, and ball control strategy. These are more difficult to explain. But it's worth it to have this conversation.
Her: Are you going to watch tv now?
Me: Uh, no. I got some more studying to do.
Her: There's a game on tonight, right?
Me: Um, yeah.
Her: Ok, I'll be in the living room watching the game.
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