Ugh, blogging.

So it’s been 200 years since I blogged last. I attribute this to general lethargy and/or laziness. Also, I’ve been very boring lately, other than some shitty shit happening.

Let’s see…where to start.

I think maybe I went to some UT football games since that Navy game, but I never really got into football this year. I just watched a Frontline about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) that may have soured me to football forever. If you ever come across that episode, it’s definitely worth watching. The NFL is gross and did everything they could (and probably continue to do everything that they can) to cover up mounting evidence and downplay the severity of the problem. More alarmingly, YOUNG people have been diagnosed with CTE posthumously. The brains of a 21-year-old from Penn and a 17-year-old high schooler showed CTE.

I am a person who enjoyed, you might even say loved, going to football games. My Dad and I famously did not miss an AWHS football game, home or away, from the time I was in 4th grade (and had been to a few before that, too) until I graduated, and we’ve been a few since then. My frenemy Julie Skolmowski and I used to make the locker signs for the football players’ lockers, and I certainly thought my fair share of football-playing boys were dreamier than their non-football-playing counterparts (save soccer, which was a cute boy factory, though most of those boys were dumb as rocks). I’ve been to UT games here and there the last few years. As CTE has been in the mainstream media the last few years (though if the Frontline is to be believed, not nearly as much as it should have been), we’ve all become more aware of it. However, I always thought it affected guys who played YEARS AND YEARS of football – HS, college, long pro careers. Much has been said of how much bigger, faster, stronger players are these days, and also the NFL’s abandoned plan of having more games, MORE HITS per season. Knowing that young men, basically kids, already show both the psychological effects in life, as well as the CTE-related pathological changes on autopsy, is sobering.

This is all interesting for people in my age group. Would I *ever* let a child of mine (assuming such a person existed) play football? No, of course not. Can I watch my peers allow their kids to play football and not pass judgment, even if only to myself? If I had a kid, would I think that the parents of kids who were allowed to play football probably loved their kids less? Yes, probably, because I’m a terrible person. Brian says that in listening to Sports Guy podcasts, Chuck Klosterman says that the only people who will play football in the future will be the poor and oppressed. Now that seems like more of a possibility to me.

So that’s football.

Lady Rockets are back in action, but they are not very good, for the first time since my recent extreme fanhood started (this correlates nicely with the Israeli leaving, for those keeping score at home). Of course, I am still a rabid fan, but it’s not as fun this year.

The Men’s team, which has sucked predominantly sucked since our initial Toledo Basketball exposures, is really good this year. The games are still not that fun to go to, atmosphere-wise, but for those who appreciate dunking and thugs (as my Dad says), they are pretty entertaining. We went to the game before their undefeated streak was ended by Kansas.

The cats continue to be extremely cute, of course. The fluffy cat has a limp on and off, but that’s really the only health concern right now, knock on wood. Here she is in a sink:

A lovely ginger gentleman cat showed up at the homestead not long ago. My brother suggested the name Stewart, and I latched onto that quickly and ferociously, since the last cat he named goes by Broccoli. Stewart is quite charming, and it seems my Dad has agreed to keep him. I took him to the vet for his first shots and stuff, and he was given a predominantly clean bill of health…he had earmites and hookworm (gross) but those are easily remedied. He gets neutered on Tuesday (!). He’s pretty quick and kittenly, so these pictures aren’t the best:

I think it is important that my blog readers see this truck:

We did sort of celebrate Christmas this year…we had Boston Market for Thanksgiving and Christmas both, so you might say both were a little half-assed.

Last week, I worked nights, but I didn’t work New Year’s…I wished I had offered to just work it, since I was already on night shift schedule, but whatever.

On New Year’s Day, we got a crapload (I would guess 8 inches) of snow that no one seemed to plow until after midnight that night when it was no longer a holiday. Of course I had to work that night, and it was as unpleasant as ever sending drivers out into that. In the days following the snow, I went out and filled the birdfeeder, and the snow was deeeep. Here’s a picture I took from that trek:

Our Kroger, which is going to be replaced soon, has those characteristic weird black windows/solar panels/? along the front, and in the last couple years, whenever we get snow, they put up the caution tape to keep you from walking where the snow will fall from those windows onto your head. This time, the weight of the snow brought down part of the structure:

This morning, Brian and I shoveled the driveway early to get rid of whatever old snow was still around, and for a few glorious hours, the driveway was clean. I decided to shovel the patio, so that the snow today could be accurately measured. I elected (wrongly, I’ve been told) to clear off the patio table after measuring the snow on it. This is what was still around of the New Year’s Day snow before I cleaned the table off:

We are getting light snow, but very consistently. We have a Level 3 Snow Emergency. This is SNOW IN PROGRESS:

We’ve been out and shoveled a couple of times today. Here’s the current state of things…including a SNOW BOOB:

I like this:

I sent Chiara some Christmas gifts and candy…here she is modeling her new T-shirt:

Here we are on different continents with our owl twinsies:

One of the bigger things that happened since I was in the habit of blogging is my Dad’s prostate cancer. One day, he came over and told us while we were eating pizza that he had to get a new doctor, because his left, and the new doctor was suspicious of his PSA of 4, given that every previous one was 1. He had a biopsy, which found cancer at 6/12 sites, and the Gleason score was 8. He had a robot-assisted DaVinci Prostatectomy on December 12 at TTH. It went well, and everything the surgeon told us was very encouraging. He has done really well, recovery-wise, and when he went back to the surgeon, he said that the seminal vesicles and the lymph nodes were free of cancer, and they will do a PSA in a month and that will determine whether he needs any radiation or chemo. I am very grateful.

So that’s what’s up around here. I need to go shovel again and/or go to bed.