Let The Game Begin --

Well, every year my three friends and I [you only have three friends, Cippy?]… yeah, pretty much these three friends are the only people that can tolerate me… we get together to watch the Super-Bowl. And so… in a little bit here, we will be beginning our afternoon of eating and drinking and eating some more and being heavily engrossed in burly lads tossing leather around even though none of us really care who wins the game.
But before I mention more about this ritual of ours, I just want to say I finished the Geraldine Brooks book [People of the Book] and it is truly fabulous.
To borrow the reviewing world’s most hackneyed and cliched phrase → it was an “intricately woven story.” It really was, though.

It follows the history of a revered ancient [500 year old] Jewish text known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. This was a richly illustrated [the novel constantly refers to it as “illuminated”] book used on the occasion of the Passover seder meal. Modern-day book expert Hanna Heath is called upon to analyze and conserve the book before it is to be re-displayed in the Sarajevo Museum.

By the way, book “conservation” is different than book “restoration” and Dr. Heath takes her job extremely seriously. In her meticulous work on the Haggadah, she finds four anomalies that obsess her about the book’s history. In the binding and on its pages, she discovers a butterfly wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, and a white hair.
As Hanna chases down the significance of these clues, these harbingers of history, Brooks lifts the veil of time and shows us, as readers, how these four items made their way into the book.
Chapters weave between the centuries, and the author shows us that Hanna’s own life is filled with nearly as many previously unknown mysteries as that of this ancient text.
The book is beautifully done, and I highly recommend it as a worthwhile, engaging read.

And now…. for football!
From using terms such as “harbingers of history” to… “Hey,Tim! Throw me another Budweiser!” Followed by an earth-shattering belch.
Ahh, yes. Life is moods.
As I hinted above, none of us [Canadians] really give a fiddler’s fart [does the eloquence ever end?] as to who wins this game. The important thing though is that you watch it all happen! And you shout things now and then. And keep eating stuff.

For forensic proof that I myself utilize the most Arbitrary Methodology Imaginable as to who I cheer for, you can click → HERE, but for now, for today’s events, I must say that I am rooting for Arizona. And here’s why.
Because I think I would rather live in Arizona than in Pennsylvania.
See what I mean?
My choice is based on SEVERE OVERALL NFL© IGNORANCE.
For me it’s all about location, location, location.
What does Pennsylvania really got going on? Besides the Liberty Bell, and Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater?
Not much.
Snow, Amish people, and smog? A town actually called Bird-In-Hand?

But Arizona!
Now we’re talking. They’ve got canyons all over the place. And copper. They’ve had the modesty to immortalize the cutest, most unpretentious bird ever, the cactus wren.
Plus they’ve got the ORIGINAL London Bridge© , I’m not kidding you.
And tons o’sunshine. More than they need.

So, I’m saying Arizona is the way to go, this year.
Go CARDINALS Go!
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