My Advice to the Packers

Last night I got together with Light Bright for the first time in forever. We met at Brasserie V because her husband was home with her little boy, so we got lots of adult time. She said when she told Corban, “I’m going to have dinner with Hat,” he said, “Hat – we eat salad with her!” We both thought that was hilarious, since I have done lots of things with him that you would think were more exciting to a preschooler, like playing, reading books, and planting plants. But no – I eat salad with him. We laughed really hard all evening; I can’t remember everything we said that was funny, but she just died when I was telling her the story of how I decided not to do the Litany of Humility anymore, and when I told her how Travalon used to always order IPAs when we would go to brewpubs because they have the craziest names, but then I would have to trade beers with him because he hates IPAs, finally I put my foot down and said, “You are not ordering an IPA – I don’t care how much you like the name!” and she said, “Yeah, it doesn’t affect the flavor.” That really made me laugh. (Sorry, Travalon!)

I realize that I forgot to blog about the Packer game on Sunday! Oops! We had taped it, because it was such a beautiful day, and then we watched it in the evening. By that point we knew that they had dominated the Raiders 42-24, and that Rodgers had a perfect quarterback rating for the game, but I still yelled at the TV like it was happening in real time: “What are you DOING?? Move or they’ll sack you!!” Travalon thought that was hilarious, and admittedly it is pretty dorky of me. It reminds me of years ago when a bunch of us were watching a Packers game at the rectory, including a very cute guy and a woman who I think was only there because he was. At one point I yelled at Favre, “Stop with the running game! You have to try a passing game!” and to my surprise the woman turned to me and said in a very vicious tone of voice, “Be quiet! You don’t know anything about football!” That stunned me into silence for a moment, until the parish priest leapt to my defense: “Famous is absolutely right – they should really try a passing game because the running game isn’t working for them.” Later it occurred to me that the woman thought I was showing off for the cute guy, but the sad truth is I just can’t help yelling at the players on the screen when they are not doing what I, in my infinite wisdom, know would be a much better play. Which is why I am an NFL head coach. Just kidding, but I seem especially prone to giving advice to quarterbacks. When I told Travalon and Tiffy the story about the woman who told me to shut up about football, Tiffy said, “I’m offended too, because you learned everything you know about football from me.” So this woman was insulting both of us! Luckily she hasn’t been around in years.

Famous Hat