Super Sunday

Sometimes you end up continuing a tradition long after its original purpose has been lost. This is the case with the Super Bowl and me. Although I grew up paying attention to college football (how could I not, living in Arkansas?), I was never a huge pro football fan, so it was actually Lisa who started me watching the Super Bowl. She was fascinated by the ads, and by the time the game aired, she'd compiled a list of the ones she was waiting to see. (I think she would have been delighted by the announcements last night that repeatedly directed viewers to a MySpace site if they wanted to see all the new ads without having to bother with the game.)

The first time we watched the game together, she wanted to channel surf during the game, and come back for the ads, and for the first time in our relationship, I caught myself saying words like "heresy" and "abomination." Cut away during the game? The gods of football will punish you for that - and even after she pointed out that neither one of us cared who won, the mere idea made me twitchy. So we compromised, and I ended up watching the game (and getting emotionally involved, always) while Lisa read a book and looked up whenever the ads came on.

I'm not sure that the appearance of the Super Sunday Yarn Sale made anything better. Oh, it made me happy, deliriously so, but Lisa grumbed that there ought to be something equivalent for gardeners. (An All-Star Plant Sale?) And even when I made her come along to pick out yarn for herself, she made her decisions in under half an hour and had to stand around while I fondled skeins and made arcane calculations and generally had a wonderful time.

I went to the Super Sunday Yarn Sale yesterday, arriving 3 minutes after the doors opened (and, no, I wasn't the first person there), and spent about an hour and a half picking out some lovely yarn. (From which I intend to make 2 pairs of socks, and two different jackets from the new Knitted Kimonos, a book I really adore.) And yesterday evening, I settled down in front of the TV to watch The Game and The Ads. And, you know what? It wasn't as much fun without the arguments over whether or not we could catch a few minutes of Mythbusters during the second quarter, and without knowing what the big ads were going to be.

Of course, if the Patriots had won, I might feel differently.