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March 16, 2008
Quite Possibly the Most Wonderful Woman in the World
You have heard me talk of Robbi on these pages. I am fond of her. She is a fine companion. We enjoy our days together. I always consider myself very lucky to have found her.
Until yesterday. Yesterday I realized that I might just have wound up with one of the most generous, enlightened women on the planet.
By way of explanation, I'll just say that there are a few things in this world that, while very interesting to one person, are exceedingly dull to others, even others who love and care for that person very much.
A few examples:
-One's pet. People think their pets are very interesting and very special, when in reality, they aren't. People don't really like to hear about how interesting and special someone else's pet is, and yet all of us are guilty of shameless pet promotion.
-One's child. The point made above applies equally and more so, because with one's child, one is also insistent on making arguments for uncommon advancement or precocity, as in "Oh my child smiled a full three days before the baby book said s/he would. Can we have a parade?"
-One's sporting team. Sports are a fundamentally empty enterprise. People come together, agree on a common set of terms, execute a silly and pointless (if sometimes thrilling) series of actions, and make themselves and the people foolish enough to care along with them either very happy or very sad at the end of the exercise. Hearing someone's joy or woe in the wake of "their" team's win or loss is very dull indeed.
Which is why I don't talk about sports much here in spite of my almost maniacal allegiance to the Duke University Blue Devils men's basketball team. I did not share my duress when Duke was ousted from the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament yesterday afternoon by the scrappy, determined Clemson Tigers.
I did not publish the unkind adjectives coursing through my bloodstream at the thought that Tyler Hansbrough and the hated UNC Tar Heels have gained the top seed in the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament.
Tyler Hansbrough: even his mother does not like him.
I did not mention these things, though they are important to me, because I realize how unimportant they are to you.
But something happened yesterday that has compelled me to break the silence.
Yesterday afternoon I got an email from DirecTV. I figured it was a bill as I opened the message. But LO! I was wrong. It was, instead, an epiphany from on high. My wonderful wife had ordered for me the MEGA MARCH MADNESS TOURNAMENT PACKAGE, which will allow me to watch all 64 games of the NCAA tournament from the comfort of my own couch, which will allow me to watch 16 games a day this coming Thursday and Friday, eight more each on Saturday and Sunday, A TOTAL OF 48 BASKETBALL GAMES IN FOUR DAYS!@#$ I will be able to select the channel that allows me to watch four simultaneous games AT THE SAME TIME on a split screen. I will be able to casually switch between games per my pleasure. I will, in short, be in heaven.
Provided Duke keeps winning. Which they will. Because if they don't, I will fall into a long, dark funk. I digress.
I imagine that Robbi must have made this gift to me out of sympathy that biological limitations have prohibited me from the pleasure of putting on 30 pounds and incubating a young life for 38 weeks as has been her pleasure. She's just that generous.
And so, today, emboldened by sheer joy at contemplation of the coming bounty of the weeks ahead, I shout it from the mountain tops: I am a Duke Basketball fan. I am a Duke Basketball fan.
Even though I know the thought of it bores you numb, I cannot be held in check.
I realize that I shamelessly inflict uninteresting pictures of my unspecial dog with alarming frequency and suspect that I will soon be shamelessly publishing uninteresting pictures of my unspecial child.
Though, if you were the sort who enjoyed actual content about real and interesting things, you probably would look elsewhere than this blog.
Which is to say, if you're still reading, I wonder who is really to blame?
Posted by bogenamp at March 16, 2008 11:58 PM