February Wrap Up

I remember my first February in Seattle. I had this feeling that something was missing. I realized it was winter. I'd missed winter. And then the daffodils started coming up mid-month. I was convinced they were suicidal little daffodils, but they knew the climate better than I did.

I now take it for granted that the daffodils will come up in February (one year it was the end of January when they started coming up). This year, it has seemed colder than normal. More overnights at freezing. More snow: I woke up to snow Thursday, much to my surprise. Thursday was also the day I saw the first daffodils. Walking into work, I saw their green stems coming up. Going to lunch, I saw them in full bloom. I don't think the snow mattered to them.

February has always been the month when I feel myself start to bloom. The days get perceptively longer (although I'll admit it was only the amazingly short Seattle Winter days that got me to consciously notice).

I realized the other day it was ten years ago this month that I moved to West Seattle. I'll skip the cliches about how we don't notice how much time has passed, although I will take the opportunity to blame W for it. I spent eight years living across the street from the Puget Sound. I had not thought I'd be there that long, at least not in the same apartment. And when I left I didn't move away from the place I'd moved to.

My parting February thought is this:
Did anyone else hear less about Black History Month this year? Is it because we are living black history?

Super Bowl Sunday

My first Sunday of life was the first Super Bowl Sunday. I don't suppose that would have meant much if my home had not been filled with football games every weekend during the season. My father was a big sports fan. He was a sports columnist on the Minnesota Daily, the University of Minnesota paper, when he was in college. He stayed a newspaperman, but earned his living as a copy editor, winning awards for headlines he wrote over the years. He still followed sports avidly. And while basketball was his favorite sport (in addition to being the reason my parents ever met), it is football I recall the most.

I'm sure the cold, snowy Minnesota winters combined with my family's indoor tendencies helped that. Plus, although I don't think I really thought about it at the time, it was a way to spend time with my father. (I'm sure a little of it was that was what was on television; although it didn't really change once I had my own television as a teenager.)

It's funny to watch football now (Pittsburgh just got the first td; or not). While a lot of my knowledge is out of date (especially with teams; Arizona? I know its been awhile too, and I can only hope the Cardinals will reset like the Raiders did!), I have knowledge about the games, judgments about the plays. I'd probably have more had my father been more into teaching it, but he really just wanted to watch. So I came up with cheers for the Vikings defense: Interception, incomplete, fumble, fumble at our feet! (sadly, the Vikings usually found a way to lose games, at least the 4 Super Bowls they were in during my childhood.)

They had a football pool at work, too. I played some years and, by the girlie method of picking nicer helmets and names, tended to do better than my dad. I know at least once I won a week.

Growing up, I was more of a baseball fan. One of my parents friends, who also worked for one of the St. Paul papers (back in the day when there was a morning paper and an evening paper), used to take me to the Twins games with the paper's tickets. But football was part of my home and my growing up.