Day 35

I've been a bad, bad girl.

Well, kinda.

It was both fast Sunday and Super Bowl Sunday. So, I skipped two meals, but I sure made up ground on the third one. I had breaded, spicy chicken and some 7 layer dip. But, I did skip out on the ribs and ice cream. For once, I didn't bother to count the calories. Partly because I had decided to give myself somewhat of a free day. Partly because I wasn't really sure how to calculate some of those things. We'll see how it all pans out at weigh in tomorrow morning. My guess is that is won't be stellar. It was another plateau week thus far, so this couldn't have been a huge help. But, in any case, I'm not super stressed for two reasons. The first is that I did show a bit of restraint in the face of extreme temptation. The second is that I know that I will be right back on my diet again tomorrow, no looking back. The occasional holiday won't murder me, it just can't be my lifestyle anymore. My mom's birthday is coming up on the 26th, and I'll be darned if I'm going to skip out on a small serving of cake and ice cream. But, in the meanwhile, I'll be passing up other opportunities to spoil myself through food. I will instead indulge in shoes that don't give my arches horrific blisters. However, that is a post for another day.

The pre-game for the Super Bowl was interesting this year. They showed an interview between Bill O'Reilly and Barack Obama. Then they had a reading of the Declaration of Independence. Then they had the girl from Glee sing America the Beautiful. Then the camera panned over Pres. Bush and several former members of his cabinet in the crowd. Then they had Christina Aguilera sing the national anthem. At this point, I was all ready for something big and historic. I was filled to the brim with patriotism and forgot what I was even watching. I was half expecting a political rally, or an announcement of some new and important plan for the U.S.

Then a bunch of dudes started playing football.

Oh yeah. That's all the Super Bowl is. A football game. After 4 hours of pre-show, and 1/2 hour of "pre-kick" show, it was a football game much like many others I have watched.

Don't get me wrong, it was a decent game. At least it wasn't a blow out. I just don't follow football closely enough to feel passionately about one team more than any other. I looked down and noticed I had put on a green shirt for the day. I decided this meant I should cheer for the Packers. As a family, we used a similarly scientific method. The quarterback for the Packers seemed like a decent guy, but, more importantly, he has John Stockton's old number. In the eyes of my family, this makes him a shoo-in.

Side note: I grew up in the glory days of the Jazz. I can still tell you off of the top of my head that Stockton's number was 12, Hornacek's was 14, and Malone was 32. The day that this happened is a day permanently engraved in my memory:

I was downstairs and suddenly I heard my dad screaming and the whole house was shaking. I thought that something must be terribly wrong. It takes a whole lot to get a serious show of emotion out of my dad. To this day I've maybe seen the equivalent of this once or twice. After a second, I figured out my dad was not violently upset, but ecstatically and insanely happy. I went upstairs and he grabbed my hands and continued jumping around the front room with me and hollering out in joy. We went to games whenever we got the chance. It was the only time we could leave town on a school night. There were one or two times that my parents would put the back seat down in our Tahoe and have my brother and I lay down to sleep on the ride home, so that we wouldn't be tired in school the next day. We were big fans. So, anything related to the glory days of the Jazz, specifically Stockton, is gold in our book. It should be noted , however, that Greg Ostertag is still the butt of many a joke.

http://www.utball.com/photos/ostertag/ostertag10.jpg

But, back to the Super Bowl. The commercials have been increasingly worse each year. The quality is cruising down a steep slope to Lameville. This year was no exception. I like the one with the monkeys blocking the guy in his car. That's the only one that really stuck out to me in a positive way.

The highlight of the game for me came right before half-time when this happened:

Me: Ugh, the Black Eyed Peas are performing at half-time? I'm sure they will suck live. They can't really sing.
Brandon: Oh, don't worry. They can auto-tune live.
Me: Serious? I'll be back when it's over.
Mom: Why do you guys hate the Black Eyed Peas so much?
Me: Oh, you'll see.
Brandon: No. Haven't you heard? Mom's a fan.
Me: Haha, good one!
Brandon: No, seriously. Hey, mom, what's your favorite song by them.
Mom: *sings* I gotta feelin' that tonight's gonna be a good night... etc
Me: Shocked silence and disturbed glances at my brother Wait! They were on Oprah, weren't they?! Darn that Oprah! Darn her to the depths of heck!

To prove to my mom that this was not a band that she actually wanted to like, we watched the majority of the painful half-time show. Even auto-tune couldn't save them. Finally, my mom conceded that they weren't any good at all. She would not admit that Oprah had misled her.

I then got kind of bored and borrowed my dad's ipad to pass 14 levels of Angry Birds and fill out 3/4 of a crossword puzzle, while glancing up at the tv when something sounded interesting.

In the end, I picked the right shirt for the day, because the Packers won.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled 364 days of the year that I am completely indifferent to football.