19 posts tagged “ravens”
A. You're a couple
B. The Ravens and The Steelers are playing each other for the divisional championship
and
C. You look like this:
That photo is from our last Ravens/Steelers game actually. But today, the heat is even more on. We went the gym, to a diner for breakfast, and to the Home Depot to buy Lee some goggles for work. And it cracked us up the way people would look at us and the comments they would make.
It is almost like they think maybe we're blind or something, and don't KNOW what the other person is wearing!
Good times.
I'm going to hang out with my mom and possibly another friend for the game at Mom's house - Steeler chicks in hibernation! Lee's not sure if he's going to the bar, staying home, or making a trek to watch the game with his brother. He'll decide at the last minute. He's torn because of how early he has to get up for work tomorrow. I get to be off - yay!
I told him if he didn't feel like he could do the bar or make the trek to his brother's he could always come watch it with us. I don't want him to sit home and watch the game alone. He said he appreciated the thought but no thanks - me and mom cheering so much would get on his nerves ...
Which means he KNOWS we're gonna have a lot to cheer about, huh : )?
The Steelers and The Ravens will meet again!
If Lee and I make it through this football season, we can make it through anything : )!
It has basically been a relaxing weekend around here, with the exception, of course, of football.
Yesterday morning we took down the Christmas lights outside. We'd tackled the tree right after New Years Day, but with Lee being sick we put off the outside job that required him climbing on the roof. Neither of us wants me - The Poster Girl For Clutziness - up there! So that was Saturday morning, with frequent warm-up coffee breaks.
After that I pretty much just did laundry and cleaned the bathroom. We had been planning on watching the game at home, but as it got closer to kickoff Lee realized he really wanted to be around the crew and share in the moment with a bunch of other rowdy Ravens fans. So we went to the pub.
I'm glad we did, because he really had a blast. The bartender who was working generally only works daytime, so we don't see each other much and don't really know each other. She noticed that I was one of the quieter people in the place, and said "You don't get into football much, do you?"
Lee and four or five others immediately ALL chimed in with "Oh, yes, she does. She's just (and here they leaned in and whispered for dramatic effect) ... a STEELERS fan."
During a Ravens playoff game, this is kind of like being the person who shows up to an AA meeting with a bottle of vodka!
We left pretty much right after the game, and I still feel sort of run-down today. I should have stayed home and rested as I'd planned, but I'm a dumbass.
Lee got up and went to the grocery store this morning and is now making a pot of his delicious chicken chili. We'll eat that and watch the Steelers game this afternoon, and that's about it. Next week, we drag our butts back to the gym. We took this week off between him being sick, me teetering on the verge of feeling sick and working such long hours, and neither of us wanting to deal with the "New Years resolution" gym crowds. But we're jumping back in this week.
We'll have to adjust our schedules and be more on top of our game to keep caught up with things around here now. We got spoiled by his old job, where he got off for the day at 2. He'd do most of the erranding and chores and figure out what we were doing for dinner all before I even got to leave work at 6 or so. Then we'd go to the gym, and even though I was pretty much gone from 7 am - 8 pm or so most days, I didn't have too much to worry about once I did finally make it home. He works almost as late as I do now, so we'll have to get ourselves adjusted and organized!
At the moment, I'm feeling an overwhelming urge to curl up on the couch with a blankie and re-read the first Harry Potter until the Steelers/Chargers game comes on. I'm not sure why I'm thinking about Harry - I actually have 2 new books to start. Maybe I just feel like I need a little childhood!
Everyone knows about mine and Lee's little Ravens/Steelers football rivalry. But he's not the only one round' these here parts who thinks along those lines. We ARE in Baltimore, after all.
In fact, our family is pretty much divided down the middle. My mom, my niece and I are the Steeler die-hards. Sis, Dad and Lee are the Ravens all the way. Well, Dad is more anti-Steeler than pro-Raven. He doesn't really have a favorite team as much as he just enjoys watching all the games and critiquing them!
Christmas morning, I showed up at my parents' house wearing a Steelers sweatshirt. Sis, whose apartment is the bottom level of my parents' house, rolled out of her bed and trudged up the stairs wearing this:
Nothin' like a little family football feud on Christmas morn, huh?
If nothing else, being a Steelers fan in Baltimore helps you get a real thick skin!
We get A LOT of weird looks when we run out to the store together dressed like this. Especially this weekend ...
Seriously, though, we aren't watching the game together.
I think I mentioned that years ago, my parents owned a different pub than the one they do now. At the time, they housed the Pittsburgh Steelers Fan Club of Baltimore. They sold their share of that place back in 2001 and bought the smaller place they have now - right across the street from the old place. Dad's new bar is a Ravens hangout. With the Steelers bar right across the street, Ravens/Steelers games were always a rowdy time, but in a good way.
So I was sad when the current owner of the Steelers bar decided last year that he wanted his place to become a Ravens bar too. It didn't take the Steelers club long at all to find a new roost.
That new roost is where I'll be watching the game tomorrow. The Steelers club Prez and his wife are still good friends with our family, and when they came by the pub this week offered to take all of us Steeler girls out to the new place with them tomorrow. So my mom, our friend Deb and I will be heading to Steelerville. As heated as the rivalry is this year, I am more than happy to watch the game among friendlies, and I'm really psyched to see the Steeler club crew again. I've missed them!
Lee, of course, is NOT interested in watching this particular game at a Steelers bar any more than I want to head up to the family pub and watch it amongst the Purple Birdies. So he's opting to go there and be amongst our Ravens friends, while I pack up with our Steelers crew and head up the road for the day.
Trust me, it is much better this way! One of us will sure as heck be sulky when we get home though.
I hope it isn't me!
... there were many things I wanted to blog about and didn't, because time ran away from me.
1. There was the act of kindness that made my day and saved me a lot of aggravation. Lee and I commute to work together when I go in really early, and have a ritual of stopping at the same convenience store every day for coffee on the way. Since it is so early, there's rarely many other people there, and the 2 morning shift clerks have come to recognize us and know our habits. The guy double-checks that we haven't just forgotten something if Lee doesn't grab a banana or I don't pick up a pack of gum. He always jokes with us after game days because he knows about our divided football fandom.
The other day, we were pulling out of the parking lot after being in the store and the clerk came running out after us, waving something in the air. It turned out that in my early-morning foggy-headed state, I had gotten money out of the ATM while going over a presentation I had to give later in the day in my head. I got so into thinking about the speech that I forgot to get my bank card from the machine.The clerk realized it and came running after us just before we pulled back out into the street.
I think I should get him a little Christmas gift for that. He saved me the hassle of having to call and cancel my card and get a new one, which was definitely a chore I didn't need added to my list!
2. Lee has a job interview today - actually, he went in to talk to the company informally yesterday and goes back this morning for something more formal. He's miserable at his job. This one would be more interesting work, and they seem to really be biting on his resume. Even better, his shift would be 4 ten-hour days and he'd get every Friday off in addition to the weekends. Keep your fingers crossed for him, please.
Heck, if I could afford the pay cut and was capable of doing the heavy lifting and mechanical type of work he does, I'd apply there too, just for the 4-day-workweek!
3. I am hosting a holiday party for our project team at my family's pub on Monday. So when I haven't been working this week, I've been planning party details. Having co-workers at the pub is always an adventure, because I never know what kind of characters they'll meet.
4. I am learning that even in today's economy, some companies make it downright impossible to buy something! As an early holiday gift, my parents bought my grandparents one of those heaters that is designed to look like a fireplace. It was something my grandmom really wanted. The heater was delivered last week. We decided that I would order one of the hand-crafted hearth stands the company makes for the heaters to sit on as my gift to them, because Grandmom really wanted that too. I called them Monday to place the order. They told me I couldn't order it without a number that came on a letter that was sent to my family with the heater. I guess they don't sell the hearths to people who haven't bought one of the fireplace heaters or something, I dunno.
So I call my mom to get the number. Like me, my family is not the best at remembering where they store paperwork. We all just tend to throw it in a storage space somewhere and forget about it. So it took Mom a day or two to dig up the receipt, and she couldn't find the letter. She called me with what she THOUGHT was the number on the receipt, but when I called the company back they said that was an order number, but not the number they needed, and they couldn't help me.
Ummm ... if I have the name under which the original order was placed, AND the order number, why can't they just pull up the info in THEIR system and give ME the "special confirmation number?" Ugh. I mean, these heaters and hearths aren't cheap. You'd think in this economy they'd be bending over backwards to make a sale.
If it wasn't for the fact that my grandmother REALLY wants this thing, I'd give up and come up with another Christmas gift idea just on principle. As it stands, though, I'll be calling Mom and sending her back on the mad hunt through her paperwork chaos to try to find me this letter with the magic numbers on it.
5. My neck of the woods is all about the upcoming Ravens/Steelers game this weekend. My Ravens fan co-workers have been ribbing me all week, both in the office and on Facebook. Of course, I rib right back. And you can only imagine what it is like at home with Lee and I!
Yesterday I forgot to take my phone to work with me (I've been forgetful about A LOT of things this week - I guess I'm just overloaded!). When Lee got a call about coming in for the first step in that job interview, he decided to grab my phone and drop it off to me, since my work is on the way to where he had to go. He knew I would be working late and didn't want to wait to tell me about the interview. My consultant and I had gone to lunch, but my ex-boss-now-part-time-teammate was working in the office that he and I share when Lee came by. When I got back from lunch, he said "Hey, Lee brought your phone by, it's on your desk. And by the way, he was wrapped up in so much Ravens gear I couldn't even tell who it was at first!"
Too bad I wasn't there when he came by. I could have taken him around and introduced him to the other Ravens guys, and they all could have picked on me together!
6. I have that Blink 182 "I Won't Be Home For Christmas" song completely stuck in my head. Funny thing is, I didn't even hear it on the radio. My division at work had a holiday reception yesterday after work. One of the boy's choral clubs came to sing for us, and that was one of the songs they did.
There's something REALLY funny about a group of young men who look and sound like they should be singing religious Christmas carols in a church singing a song that includes lines about being sent to jail for freaking out on Christmas carolers and having "Bubba unwrap my package." Gotta love the holidays!
Happy Friday ... I am sooooo ready for the weekend!
So, you all know that Lee is a Ravens fan and I'm a Steelers fan. Because I'm a sweet and loving girlfriend, I let him get away with making our van look like this:
Actually, it has nothing to do with being sweet. It's a trade-off for him helping me decorate our spare room in high Steelers fashion.
Anyway, he was outside doing yardwork today, and I was indoors throwing some lunch together and brought some out to him. He pointed out a little starling sitting on top of the van, and we joked about how odd it would be if it was a raven sitting there instead.
Later, we went shopping. When we came out of the store to the parking lot, two women were standing there looking at our van. They told us that a raven had been sitting there, and that he hadn't wanted to move! He sat there looking at them even when they got close.
"We saw your flags and wondered if he was another decoration at first," they said. "And then when he moved a little, we thought maybe he was your pet!"
I assured them that since one of us was a Steelers fan, we couldn't have a pet Purple Bird.
This made Lee VERY happy. He's taking it as a sign about tomorrow's Ravens game.
I'm not sure I'd do that if I was him. The Raven left a big bird turd right on the roof of our van.
Things That Suck:
- I have to go in to work this weekend, which is yuckier than chocolate covered pickles. I've never had a chocolate covered pickle, truthfully, but I'm assuming that if I did it would be yucky. Anyway, one piece of our new system is being converted Saturday and being moved over Sunday, so I have to go in to validate that all my parts of it come up okay. We do these parts of the project on the weekends so we're not doing major data moves when lots of people are on the systems. My part will most likely fall on Sunday, and Lee works Saturday, so we pretty much don't get a day off together this go-round.
- All the injuries the Steelers suffered in yesterday's game.
- The economic news so far this week.
Things That Don't Suck
- Yesterday's game between the Steelers and the Ravens. It was a face-paced, nail-biter of a game.
For the most part, this is the first time that Lee and I have had a "real" football game when our teams played each other. In the 4 previous matchups since we've been together, one or the other of our teams was totally sucking and never really got going enough to make it interesting. Yesterday's 23-20 overtime win for the Steelers was incredible.
We watched the game at The Pub, so of course my mom and I were outnumbered by Ravens fans. Through the whole first half, the place was wild with cheers and jabs at our Black and Gold boys. The second half was a lot more quiet. Mom and I can't scream loud enough to come close to the noise a boatload of Ravens fans can make! For the first half, the gang really was funny, though. Lee and the guys were all yelling themselves out of voices and chest-butting and hand-slapping and hugging while Mom and I cringed in our corner and watched our Steelers with dismay. The second half was MUCH better, for us!. We actually walked out to the back deck for a break, and the Steelers started turning things around while we were out there. We were too superstitious to go back in to our seats for fear of jinxing them!
Lee is hoarse today, and all squeaky when he talks. Yeah, we were into it : ). The poor guy had to get up at 4 for work today, and it was after 1 when we finally got to bed. Needless to say, he's already zonked out tonight!
- Joe Flacco. I'm a tried and true Steelers fan to the end, but I have to admit my hometown's new quarterback impressed me last night. I didn't LIKE being impressed by him, but I was. He did a great job with his first away game at Heinz field. And yes, I'd probably be much less generous with my praise if the Ravens had won.
- The fact that I took today off work. I put in for a vacation day today back when the football schedule came out. I always know we're in for a wild time when our teams meet, and the last thing I wanted to do is drag myself into the office after just a few hours of shuteye. So I had the day off to lounge around, get some cleaning done, read, make a nice dinner for me and Lee, and exercise early in the afternoon instead of in the evening after work.
- The birthday celebration we had for my Grandma Sunday afternoon. She turned 79, and we took her to a nearby Italian place that my family loves. It was a small group - just me and Lee, my parents, my grandparents, my sister and my niece, but it was wonderful just to get my grandparents out for a while. Grandad doesn't like to go out to eat much. He never was one for restaurants, and became even less interested in them after his stroke. But he agreed to come out for Grandmom's special day, and ended up enjoying himself. The food was incredible, as was the delicious sangria Mom and I had. I came home quite content, full and sleepy, and with enough leftovers for Lee's lunch and my dinner the next day.
This was the first time Lee and I have gone to a restaurant since we started dieting. I have to admit, eating out is one of the things I really miss. I like trying different things I'd never think to make at home, enjoying the atmosphere of a nice restaurant, and most of all not having any mess to clean up!
- Getting back into an old favorite pair of jeans that had gotten way too tight and my leather jacket. That makes me miss the restaurant dining much less.
- My gas and electric bill this month! Yeah, a BILL is actually making it to my "does not suck" list. Back in early summer, the battery in my gas meter expired. The company sent me a notice asking me to schedule a time that they could come in and install a new one, but being both busy and an airhead I forgot and didn't get around to it until late August. It turns out that for all that time they were really overestimating how much cooking was going on here at the ranch! I opened my bill yesterday and saw what I read at first as "122.00." Even that made me happy, since the gas and electric bills are usually quite a bit higher than that. Then I looked closer and realized that it was actually $1.22. They really had to adjust this month's bill to make up for charging for much more gas than we've actually used all summer.
So, a bill that usually taps us out of a few hundred is costing a dollar and change this month - how cool is that?
Things I'm Looking Forward To:
- More fall weather ... this is my favorite time of year.
- Wearing my fall clothes
- The weekend after next, when we have a trip to the cabin to go to a nearby festival planned.
Things That Suck:
- Work. I'm beginning to think that if a "Tuesday Things" post EVER appears in my blog that doesn't have "work" on the suck list, it will mean that my Vox has been hijacked by aliens, or at least Vin or Sly.
- My shopping injury. Yes, shopping injury.
Lee goes to a nearby thrift store to buy his pants for work, since he has the kind of job where clothes get messed up quickly. He went there this Saturday, and I tagged along to see if I could find some cheap clothes to work out in. I didn't pay attention to the fact that they just stapled price tags to the clothes, and that the staple on the pair of pants I was trying on was loose.
The result was that I managed to slice my thumb while pulling up the pants.
- Onion juice on shopping injuries. I'm not exactly known for spending a ton of time in my kitchen. So of course, I picked the day after getting a thumb boo-boo to decide to make tuna and egg salads up to have for lunches this week. I learned that when slicing onions, the juice can seep down into a band-aid quite easily, and that IT BURNS.
- The sucktastic Steelers game on Sunday.
Things That Don't Suck
- The thrift store. In spite of staples and shopping injuries, that place is awesome. I found not only workout gear, but a pair of khakis for work and a nice fall shirt, too. Lee and I each got several items of clothing and spent under $40.
- Trying on clothes and realizing that the size you are "used to" grabbing is too big, and the next size down is a perfect fit and you and can even get into the next smaller size, although they're still a little tight. This is VERY happy-making after less than 2 months of diet and exercise. There is nothing like that feeling of looking into a dressing room mirror and liking what you see.
- Having that "wheee, my butt is shrinking!" experience with my guy. I never knew Lee would be such an incredible shopping buddy. He was as excited about the changes in his size as I was with mine. It was like shopping with a girlfriend, only one that is getting Schwarzenegger arms that give the best hugs ever
- The boots I found at the thrift store. They're black leather, and the old lace-up dressy kind that sort of look like "Little House on the Prairie" shoes but cooler. Love'em, and I just don't see things like that in the regular shoe stores anymore.
- The jammies Lee found for me at the thrift store and snuck into our purchase bundle as a surprise for me. They're Green Day American Idiot pajama pants. So now, I walk around the house in those while he's lounging around in his AC/DC jammies, and we're like this dorky almost-middle-aged headbanger guy and punky political-angst chick. We rock : )!
- The pub we watched football in on Sunday. It has been around forever, but I never really spent much time there. They've done a lot of revamping and have big-screen TVs all over the place. I was prepared to NOT be able to see my Steelers game on Sunday, since the Ravens played at the same time, we don't have a football package, and I'm in Baltimore. But we decided to go out for that reason, and struck gold.
The pub was showing both games, and Lee and I grabbed a table smack-dab between two TVs. He had the Ravens and I had the Steelers. There were Ravens fans on the other side of him, and Steelers fans on my side. It was much fun.
Note To The Steelers: Dudes ... do you know how rare it is that I get to see one of your games on a great big hi-def while surrounded by other fans? Next time that happens for me, win, mmmkay?
Oh well, I love them anyway.
- Coming home after the games and watching the 60 Minutes Obama and McCain interviews with Lee. I'm still loving the experience of me and my partner agreeing on politics. Especially since we do not agree on football, and just a little while before he'd had every reason to rag on me since the Ravens kicked butt and the Steelers got theirs kicked.
- My friend Sully's delicious homemade crab soup, which was Friday night's dinner, and the equally yummy bean soup Lee made on Saturday. Soup rocks. Guys that cook rock. I'm a lucky girl who has soupmasters in both her boyfriend and her close friend.
- The gorgeous, wonderful weather.
- The smells of late summer and early fall coming together. On Saturday evening, I was out in the yard weeding and caught the unmistakeable scent of a neighbor's woodstove burning. And on Sunday, the smells of a late summer cookout wafted through the neighborhood. These smells are heaven in suburbia to me.
Things I'm Looking Forward To:
- A possible Renfest trip this weekend.
- The Ravens and The Steelers meet-up this coming Monday night. Loss this week aside, the Steelers are ready for the Purple Ones!!
Well, Hanna didn't do a LOT of damage around here. We ran out to the grocery store and a few other errands today and I did see one tree down in someone's front yard, but other than that not much evidence that she even paid us a visit.
Well, except for the fact that the huge marigolds in my yard that I took photos of a week or so ago now look like someone with a very large butt plopped down in the middle of them:
Yeah, these poor guys definitely aren't so tall and perky anymore.
We spent most of the storm indoors. It was pretty much over when we left to go to our friend's 40th birthday party. It was a good night of catching up with lots of friends and spending enough time on the dance floor (actually, my friend's living room, which turns into a dance floor EVERY time he hosts a party) to count for a good workout to balance out the drinking and munching that come with the party territory!
Lee got up and went fishing this morning. My friend from out of town and I slept in and lounged around until the afternoon, but I was wide awake and ready to go by football time.
The Ravenites around here were quite happy with new kid Flacco today. I was happy for Lee too. He's been kinda bummed about football this year, not feeling like his boys were going to have a decent season. Today's game raised his spirits quite a bit, and I can congratulate him on it and cheer with him UNTIL the Purple Birds and the Steelers meet : ).
As for the Steelers - 38-17 pretty much says it all about how MY football season kicked off! I'm quite psyched, but really annoyed that I couldn't get the game on TV.
Happy Sunday!
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