a99kitten's Musings

It’s been interesting reading all of the intense hate for the Gators and Tim Tebow. I’m actually pretty much disgusted by people. I totally get and understand team loyalty, crazy school rivalries, etc. Good-natured razzing is fine. I yell for the Gators. I yell for the Niners. I yell for all of my fantasy football players. You know what I don’t do? Call the opposing teams fags. Call them suck-ass pieces of crap. Laugh and call them babies when they get knocked down and get concussions. And these are some of the nicer things I’ve read by the trash talkers…

But I’ve never been a fan of mean smack talk as it generally spirals downward quickly and really, at the end of the day, it will come back and bite you in the butt anyway. Your favorite team and favorite player will make a bad play or lose a big game eventually too…

But man – reading the bitter anti-Tebow rants has been eye-opening. Made me realize that some people have really never graduated emotionally from high school. Or maybe kindergarten? The insults I’ve read are not something I’d write here. But apparently because he’s not out impregnating half the cheer squad, his manhood is immediately questioned. Oh, and because he is religious – he’s a tool. And because he has not gotten into a tabloid-headline trouble, he’s a jerk (much, much worse was actually written than what I’ve said here.)

Really people? Would it be better if he was arrested for DUI? Or suspended for eye-gouging another player? Or kicking a downed player in the head? Or splashed all over the tabloids because he is partying in Vegas with Paris Hilton and impregnating a girl from his school at the same time? The NFL is full of hoodlum/immature players who were hoodlums and immature in college too. We don’t actually need more of those.

I just don’t get why people are making fun of him because he is, seemingly, a nice guy. Oh – is it because you are such a loser that you can’t imagine someone actually being a good person, not getting into boatloads of trouble, actually liking their parents, playing a game they love while going to school? Isn’t that what everyone wants for their kids when they send them to college? Is the problem here that you didn’t have those things so you are jealous? Or bitter because you never got to date the cool kid in school? Or is it just that your life right now is so sad that the only joy you get is from ripping on others?

Oh and making fun of him because he cried while the Gators lost to Alabama and calling him a p***y? Really? Have you watched any NFL play-off game or Superbowl on TV? The losing team is on the bench and the media always likes to show them crying. Of course they are crying – this is something they have been playing for all season, all year, all their careers. It’s their life. Tebow has been playing football since he was a little kid. He worked hard. He came into the starting QB spot at Florida after his freshman year and playing with Chris Leak and winning that BCS Bowl. He is a great player. And he takes his position as the team leader very seriously. He takes the losses personally. That is a quality you WANT in a leader. Not blaming your losses on others. Or worse, not really caring.

Is he the best player in football ever to be imagined or looked upon? I don’t know – he’s still in college. And probably not – but he’s not the one saying he is. That’s the media. Look to them if you are annoyed with the Chosen One status.

But if you want to trash talk (and I mean trash) a 22-year old kid for being a good player, a good person and nice guy – well, that says a lot more about you than it does him.

Well, I lost my fantasy week. Very sad about this. Especially since I lost to a guy who was trying to snake a trade in with another team manager which I felt was completely bogus. The league vetoed this trade but when someone comes to me to justify something that I feel is ridiculous. Well, I tell them so. Sucks that I lost to him. If Brees and Colston would have just been more productive for me I would have won – damn it! So now I will be 6-3…not sure where that will land me league-wise. At least Hines Ward got me 2 TDs tonight for more points cushion.

I did win our weekly picks pool! For the 3rd time this season!!! This is a record!! Very happy about this :) I just found my cash from my last win in another purse yesterday :) I am keeping it aside for my shoe/bag fund! I think for the time invested – I am doing VERY well in the weekly pools compared to my fantasy team.

And I survived our weekly Survivor too. With a Seattle pick. Holy hell I was stressing into the 4th quarter of that game! Just 2 players survive – both girls :) The only 2 girls who played Survi. Hehehe…But now the picks will just keep getting more stressful! I’ve used most “sure thing” teams. While realizing no team is a sure thing…I’ve used most of them except for Indy. But really…Any Given Sunday…

And my Gators won! Yay!!! Of course I read more gator-hater articles and crap. But meh…And my Bucs won!!! They are sad this season but yay for them winning against Green Bay!! Was a great game! Oh! and I did order my Peyton Manning jersey! To go with my Joe Montana, Ocho Cinco and Alex Smith jerseys :)

I really do love football….

Wheee!!! My Gators won!!!! Great game! And I got a football fix :) And having 3 TVs on in the house to make sure I don’t miss anything while doing chores is NOT an overkill :)

So I’ve just finished setting my Fantasy team (although will make a check Sunday AM as well), made my Survivor pick and made all my pool picks. I did all of this early because…dundundun….I will not be home to watch football tomorrow…ARGH!!!!! I will be able to catch Fox pre-game stuff and maybe 45 minutes or so of the morning games but made plans for an event on Sunday (while thinking it was on a Saturday – doh!) Plus we have to leave the house early due to our local Pumpkin Festival taking place this weekend and the 2 ways in and out of our little coast side hamlet become clogged with insane tourists looking for pumpkins, crafts, pumpkin-themed food and photo ops for their kids. They do have live bands all day long too.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the festival actually. It is quite fun once you brave the drive. But man…the traffic is actually mind-boggling. If you are coming over the hill from the peninsula or south bay, you are looking at a 2 hour sit in your car on 92 at the peak (12-2) to get into downtown to park. For pumpkins. And ponies. And arts & crafts. Yikes. But a lot of pumpkin-themed food which is quite good…

Anyway – due to this, locals usually either bike,  stay ensconced in their homes with provisions procured on the Friday before the festival, or they leave and are over the hill by 10:30-11:00am AT THE LATEST before the masses really clog the place up. And no coming back home until after 6:00pm (festival ends at 5pm on both Sat and Sun.)

BUT – on Sunday we are going to a very fun sounding event! The Champagne Tent Event at K&L Wine. And it benefits Pets N’Need – YAY! Here is a sample of what we will be tasting:

2003 Louis Roederer Vintage Brut Rosé Champagne
Fleury “Carte Rouge” from Magnum
Pascal Lallement Reserve (being shown in the USA for the first time)
1998 Pommery Brut ‘Cuvee Louise’ Champagne
Ariston Aspasie Cepages d’Antan Champagne (being shown in the USA for the first time)
Gosset Grand Reserve
Phillippe Gonet 3210 (being shown in the USA for the first time)
2002 Taittinger Millesime
Bruno Michel 2002 Vintage (being shown in the USA for the first time)
2000 Moet & Chandon Cuvée Dom Pérignon Brut
Ruinart Blanc de Blanc
Baron Fuente 1996 Vintage (being shown in the USA for the first time)
1998 La Grand Dame
Bonville Belles Voyes
Charles Heidsieck Brut 2000
2000 Cazals (being shown in the USA for the first time)
Tarlant Cuvee Louis
Krug Grand Cuvee

With producers direct from Champagne, France here (yes, I will be polite about the whole champagne/sparkling wine thing…unless they are snooty first:) ) Here is what sold me on the event (besides the above list)…

“We hope that you will join us in welcoming eight great producers from Champagne along with representatives from ten other houses at this exciting event. We will taste well over 40 different Champagnes (including eight for the first time in the USA) at what we promise will be the Champagne event of the year. Joining us from Champagne will be Paul Vincent and Caroline Ariston of Champagne Aspasie, Bruno Lemoine of Fleury and Pascal Lallement, Chantal Gonet of Champagne Philippe Gonet, Bruno Michel of Champagne Bruno Michel, Eric De Brisis of Champagne Baron Fuente, Olivier Bonville of Champagne Franck Bonville, Delphine Cazals of Champagne Claude Cazals and Melanie Tarlant of Champagne Tarlant. Representatives of Krug, Pommery, Gosset, Feuillatte, Ruinart, Veuve-Clicquot, Moet & Chandon, Roederer, Charles Heidsieck and Taittinger will also be on hand to pour their Champagne (many of which are rarely poured at events!) and answer your questions. A portion of ticket sales will benefit Pets N’Need. The event will also feature a silent auction with 100% of the proceeds going directly to this worthwhile charity.“

I’m going to try another slow-cooking chicken dish for Sunday as well.  I’ll start it before I leave so I do not have to cook when I get home and can watch the night game! I’ll see how I like it and post the recipe tomorrow night or Monday if I like it :) Will also depend how sleepy I am after bubbly tasting all day ;-)

I am quite excited for it. Very, very sad to miss my football and RedZone Channel though. But I should make it home for most of the night game. All but 2 of my FF players are in the 10:00am games so oh well…what are you going to do :) If I’m losing that badly – I’ll know early to drink more bubbly :)

Well, it was not quite the relaxing Tahoe weekend I had hoped for…

Saturday AM I took the huskies on their morning walk (in the 24 degree weather!!) and they had a good time. Storm wanted to come back after about 30-40 minutes so I dropped him off at home and took Angelus back out. Angelus always wants to be out investigating!

About an hour later as we were walking down our drive-way back to the house, I see that I have 2 missed calls from home.  Weird. Call husband and he answers the phone saying he needs to rush Storm to the vet. WHAT?  Storm apparently got up on the kitchen counter and found his Cushing’s Disease medication. His current daily dose is 20mg and he ate the entire pack of pills equaling of 150 mg.

My husband wanted to know how could *I* be so dumb. Hmm…it was pushed back next to all of their treats (which were untouched.) If I answer you, I will yell at you. So I choose to ignore this stupid question, and your “anger” at this, and work to find a vet for Storm right now.  It was early (8ish on a Saturday) so our “normal” vet in Truckee (actually only been there once but they were great) wasn’t open yet.  But the nearest one was 40 minutes away in Reno so we just went to the regular one, who opened at 8:30am, and were there as they opened.

Got him to the vet and explained what happened. They gave Storm medicine to vomit it all up and wanted to monitor his vitals for a bit.  When we went back to pick him up, the doctor said that in addition to vomiting up his breakfast and the medicine he stole, he vomited up 3 peach pits. We had a box of peaches in the office kitchen this past Thursday and Friday so apparently Storm stole the pits out of people’s garbage cans. I’ve asked people not to throw food away in their desk trash cans because one of the symptoms of Cushing’s is the dog thinks they are completely starving to death. So Storm searches out trash cans every day. I put them on up people’s desks when I see they are gone for the day but during the day, people just forget. I might have to reconsider bringing the buds in. First the box of truffles (that was a scare) a few months ago and now this. Who knows what else he is getting or could get. Sucks though – they have been coming in to work for 9 years (Angelus) and 7.5 years (Storm) with no incident.

Anyway, the vet said it’s a good thing we got those peach pits out as they will clog up a dog’s system and then surgery is required as they are not small enough for them to “pass”.  Hopefully those 3 were all he ate :( I guess we will see over the next few days…but I saw this as the silver lining or upside on the morning as we wouldn’t have known about the peach pits.

By the time we got home, I was tired. I didn’t get to bed till late the night before and woke up early. Then throw in some upset and stress…pretty much took my energy for the day. So I bagged my plan of a hike and did a couple things around the house and watched an episode of Bones (David Boreanz can always cheer me up!) Did go out to our favorite sushi place for dinner. Was very yummy as always. And a very nice family wanted to sit at the bar so we offered to move down a seat so they could squeeze in. The father sat closest to us and was very funny to chat with. He loved his sushi :) The best part though was when we left it was snowing! I was very excited :)  Went home, took the dogs out in the snow fall for a bit, then turned the fireplace on (LOVE gas fireplaces) and read more of “The Lost Symbol” and went to bed.

Sunday morning means football!!! Got up early and took the buds out into the snow. They both had a great time! The snow left a thin cover over everything – certainly not a ton. But enough for the buds to enjoy it! Along with the 22 degree air. They were finally not “baking hot”. And Mom had 3 layers of North Face on :)

Then it was home and football time!!! I made a couple changes to my team this past week with BYEs and injuries happening. Dropped Jamal Lewis (CLE sucks – period) and picked up Glen Coffee (RB-SF). According to the fantasy “experts” this was the genius move of the week. Eh – I guess so. He got me 26 points which is OK but not great for an RB. I should have picked up Mendenhall. That was just dumb on my part not to. At the end of the day, I do not have any RBs that just break out and go crazy and rack up points. Plus as soon as the fantasy columns praised Coffee as the best thing this week, I knew he wouldn’t be. Somehow it always works that way.

But I did drop my non-performing WR Berrian and picked up the SF Defense. My PIT defense hasn’t been playing well at all this year (Troy Polamalu is out and apparently they can’t get anything done without him) and SF was at home playing STL. The fantasy “experts” ranked other available defenses higher for the week but I went with my gut here and it paid off – I got 85 points from them!! YAY! If I would have been able to pull out a win this week, it would have been due solely to these guys. I would have worn my Montana jersey to work tomorrow! But nope, no jersey-wearing. But they kicked ass :)

My gut betrayed me with my WR move though. I benched Hines Ward as he was up against the SD D (what D?) plus he hasn’t done much this year. I also had other WR’s up against more “pourous” defenses. Uhh…yeah. Hines got 38 points for my bench compared to 8 for Colston, 10 for Walter and 17 for Cotchery. I. Am. Idgit.

My top-rated QB? 20 points.  :( Sigh…oh well. I finished the night with 213 points. Not bad but not great. My FF opponent this week finished with 126 points but has his QB, a WR and DEF still to play tomorrow in MNF (writing this Sun night but will post/update after MNF.) So I am pretty much sunk this week. I would have had a 50/50 shot but the PIT Defense that I rightfully benched couldn’t stop Antonio Gates (my opponent’s TE) from scoring a trillion points (and SD STILL lost?!?! Ugh) He got 61 points from his Tight End. Ridiculous. Serves me right for barely winning with (my TE) Dallas Clark in MNF 2 weeks ago I guess.

Mostly sad in my losing because in looking at my team – they kinda suck. No one is a solid points getter. Don’t get me wrong – they are all good real life football players but fantasy-wise they are inconsistent.  So week to week – they are undependable. And now I am playing the much harder/well built FF teams in our league. So I am anticipating losing at least the next 2 weeks as well :( Brees is on a BYE next week (along with Colston) so I have to add waiver wire fill-ins. I haven’t even looked beyond that yet.

So…I was highly stressed about my Stormy, didn’t buy the purse or shoes I was going to get (was debating which), am sad about my fantasy football team BUT very happy the Niners won so handily! :) And I survived one more week in Survivor with my HOU pick (but everyone else survived too!) My weekly picks…ummm…we don’t need to talk about that…I had 10 correct picks (along with 4 other people.) But the winner had 11 so 10 just means 2nd place loser.

Oh well…on to week 5…at least the Gators will be playing (LSU!) on Saturday. I sure hope Tebow is cleared (and healthy!) to play by Saturday….