I have this decal in my car window.   I still feel all giddy and gushy when I think about the greatest season my team has ever had.   Waiting 40 years wasn’t so bad, just to have the celebration that ensued.

Seriously, Saints fans have always “partied like rock stars when we were the losers of the league,” so you can imagine how much fun it is to party with them when they win.

Believe was the word of the season.  Believe.

Last night, my son and husband headed off to the second high school game of the season.  Our child’s school has a fledgling team, fielded for the very first time this year.  They won their very first game last week.  An exciting way to start the season, yes?

While I stayed home nursing my sore back from all the painting I was doing, I remembered my last year of high school football.   I, too, attended a small Catholic high school, no more than 400 students any given year.  Naturally, we were not able to put together very many winning seasons.  That fall, late in the season, our team was 5 – 5, with one more game to go.

Believe was the word of the season.  Everywhere you went in the school, there were posters up that said “6-5, Believe.”     The players would touch the signs as they headed into classrooms all that week.   And, yes, we did have a winning season that year.

I think it meant as much to that team as last year meant to us Saints’ fans.

Thursday night is the kickoff.  Naturally, the NFL has jumped on the bandwagon along with all the fair-weather fans, and they are sponsoring a pregame PARADE in the french quarter.     I really don’t think the NFL version will ever be able to match the real deal, but what-ever.

My Jewish friends in New Orleans thinks its really kind that NFL is throwing them a Rosh Hashanah parade, but they’ll have to miss because of  Temple.

Went to the dedication at the (future) new high school this morning; not only was it too hot for me, I am also nursing a summer cold. I hate those. I still feel pretty miserable even though I’ve been out of the sun now for about 4 hours.

Only, we get to go back out for my daughter’s soccer game at 4pm this afternoon.

Ever wonder what happens when the worlds of jock-dom and prissy-dom collide? You get a 12 year old tough girl soccer player trying on different hair looks for an hour getting ready for game time.

Yay! The kids went back to school last week!

I love my kids, but this has been a rough summer, and even though my days are filled with chores and general work busy-ness, I have enjoyed the bicker-free moments that are afforded by the enforced separation of the children.

Unfortunately, the kids are little disease carriers. So, one of them seemed to have brought me home a little living present.

Every time I have a fever, the song “Fever” becomes lodged in the earworm recycling facility of my brain. I really do love that song, though, and the Rita Moreno/Muppet Show version is one of my favorites.

I’m taking my stuffy-headed, scratchy-throated, head-achy self back to bed now.

Yesterday, I went to lunch with my husband at a local deli-like establishment.  While in line, a woman in front of me, looked at the jersey I was wearing, and clasped her hand in front of her chest and said, “Oh, I am SO SORRY for you. Gosh, The Madden Curse!!!  I REALLY hope nothing bad happens to Brees.”

I said I wasn’t worried at all.   First of all, the SI cover curse never caused us any problems last season.   She nodded knowingly.  Then I added, “It’s good, really.  NO problems.  I have a really great voodoo doll.”

She looked at me quizzically.  Then, after a brief, awkward silent pause, we proceeded to discuss how well we thought Detroit did in the NFL draft.

Meanwhile, my husband was behind me, burying his head into his hands.

I maintain several recurring bad dreams in my repetoire. (How come the good ones never recur?) In one of these dreams, there is not much plot or action; the only real substance of the dream is that I am trying to get away from someone or something, but my feet are like lead. I can hardly move; it’s a struggle to take a step.

This particular dream culminates when whoever or whatever is trying to get me appears in front of me; at that point, I feel that I must scream, only I cannot. No matter how hard I try, no sound comes forth.

The other night, in my dream, I realized I was having “the dream” and told myself that I only had to try harder. For the first time in my life, I was successful in eking out a howl.

Much to the chagrin of my husband sleeping next to me.

I just like the old gal better…

I am completely drained from the last few weeks: work stress + family stress = one tired mama.

The universe did not get the memo, though. Two nights ago, because I had too many things to do at once, I decided to fix loaded baked potatoes for supper. After I popped the washed, poked, and salted spuds in the oven, I worked at my computer for a while. At one point in the evening, I heard a muffled sound, not unlike a heavy book being closed.

When I went to remove the baked offerings, I discovered that one of them was not happy being a plain, white potato from Idaho. No, it thought of itself more like a Hellfire Missile, and it chose this day to unleash its terrifying and awesome power against the oven coils.

The universe seems to have forgotten that moms bake potatoes for dinner when they absolutely do not have time for anything more elaborate, and as a corollary, do not have time to clean the fucking oven.

The universe needs to remember that I can do voodoo.