The big game, or possibly the football season finale was last night and there were a few things that were different for me. I watched at home with my cat instead of with friends. It did mean I could do silly things like eat stuffing cubes and alternate knitting projects. When I say I watched it with my cat, I mean she was present, my attempts to convince her she cared about the team with cats on their helmets were fruitless.
It also was the first year in a while a team I don't automatically hate participated. And in fact, two teams I have general fond feelings for participated, so while I had technically picked a side I really was okay with either outcome, and mostly hoped for a competitive game. (Next time, assuming I actually am in control of such things, I will wish for slightly more competition on the offensive sides.) And the halftime show was great. I do always wonder about the dueling demands of things that are televised like that because things that make a great in person stadium show with the crowd tend to seem a little more toned down at home, and great dance moves and what have you are likely lost to the stadium crowd who can't see some of the subtleties.
It also wrapped up a nice week where I finally managed to get together with a friend and try a new to us restaurant, as well as see Ruta Sepetys at the Lithuanian Embassy. One of the things she talked about was finding messages in bottles. She was talking about her new book Salt to the Sea about a large shipwreck of evacuees during World War II, that people had put messages in bottles, sometimes saying some thing as simple as their name, their age and where they were from. It reminded me that as much as we blame social media for this desire to be remembered, it really is a universal thing, we want people to know we were there. So, yes, the Superbowl is a game, but the spectacle, the shared experience, the fun, the food, I am happy we have all of that.
