This Is The End

There's only one football game left.  The sports channels (and there are many of them, in case you live a blissful life and are unaware of the nonsense television provides) have been playing old Super Bowls and biographies of current and past players on the 49ers and the Chiefs. They are analyzing why Dak Prescott (Dallas QB) is this that and the other, even though he led his team to a loss in the run up to the big game. 

Thankfully, no one is that concerned about Taylor Swift. They seem to be leaving that outrage to Fox News, which has decided that that she is a Democratic plant, designed to sway people to love the Chiefs and vote for Biden.  

I, too, am missing the connections there, but that's the MAGA crowd for you - seeking controversy where there is none.  I guess a fairy tale love story is more than their listeners can handle.  Personally, I am enchanted by the young Prince scholars who are cheering for Tay-Tay's boyfriend's team, even if they don't know his name, or the team's name, and some of them have to pause before they remember the sport.

I am a fan of Brock Purdy, Mr. Irrelevant.  That's the moniker given to the last man chosen in the NFL Draft.  As San Francisco's quarterbacks fell, the third stringer, hoping only to be on the practise squad, has become a Super Bowl starting quarterback.  He's grateful to God for his talents and opportunities, but I am grateful to the GM who decided to add him to the roster.

I've been able to read many books since the 49ers advanced to the Super Bowl.  TBG is happy to rewatch the NFC Championship Game.... and rewatch... and rewatch... which lets me snuggle on the end of the couch, close enough for rubs, my hearing aids on the table, my book illuminated by the light my boy bought for me.

Abraham Verghese's The Covenant of Water, all 736 pages of it, was much better company than grown men throwing a ball and crashing into one another at alarming speeds.  It's a wonderful story, folding back on itself and surprisingly predictable, in hindsight.  There are no loose ends, just hopeful possibilities, when the book ends.  

The Spy Coast read more like a television script than a novel, not surprising since Tess Gerritson's Rizzoli and Isles novels made there way onto the little screen years ago (and they haven't been the same since).  

I caught up on my Substack threads (subscribe to Sherman Alexie if you do nothing else today), enjoying Joyce Vance and Heather Richardson taking the time to do the work so that I don't have to immerse myself in the drama.  

Soon televised football will be a thing of the past, and I'll get my tv and my husband back.  For now, I'm enjoying the solitude, with a little bit of company on the side.