Tigers Win

The Tigers won last night. Unfortunately the Missouri Tigers beat the Memphis Tigers. Not only did they have the same mascot as the Memphis team they had the same game. They were great at defense and played a running/ gunning game. They were scrappy, and playmakers. Well, apparently, the Memphis Tigers don't have game when someone is using the same strategy.

I'm not sure what the problem was. It was a little hard to watch the Tigers from Oregon. They only showed us the first part of the game, and the last. Obviously, they felt that Oregonians were more interested in Duke. We were left trying to watch it on a computer that kept buffering and was apparently a half minute time delayed. It was disconcerting to watch the buffering computer images, and then see a different score displayed on the top of the television screen.

Pacog said that no one could beat the Memphis team if they played the way they played last weekend. Well, they didn't. Oh well. Must give it to Tyreke Evans. He had the best game of his life. He just couldn't do it alone. He will be Freshman Player of the year, and in the NBA next year.

But hope springs eternal for Memphis fans. I hear we have some amazing recruits for next year! We will be at the Final Four next year. For the Memphis fan there is always next year!

The Mountain Is Out Tonight!

Diary Part II

Well, I guess I owe the Memphis Tigers a BIG apology! They showed up today ready to play. They looked like the Memphis Tigers we know and love, but even better! Not only was our defense awesome, we had an offense. We were making three point plays all over the place! Tyreke had a great game, Sallie had a great game, and Donnell Mack had a BIG come back! Poor Maryland Terps, they only had one chance to make a basket, because we got all the rebounds, and they rarely made a basket the first try. We were shooting 80% the first half, and then settled down to 70% second half. We only won by 19 points, because Calipari allowed the bench to play. It was awesome!

Calipari said that he may have overlooked the fact that the newbies might have been excited and unsure about their first NCAA tourney. Well they have found a rhythm and it goes ,"DA DA DADA! DADA DA DADA DA! DADADA DADA DADA!"

The Diary of a Mad Memphis Fan

It is hard to understand a Memphis Tiger fan. Basically, the typical Tiger Fan is a hopeful , idealistic, masocist. The Tiger fan is stoic. The Tiger fan can watch their wonderful team be ignored all year, scrap and fight through the NCAA to lead by nine in the last two minutes of the final game and manage to lose. To lose without using their last timeout! Still the faithful Tiger fan loyally supports the team the following year, though all their great players have moved on. " They have great defense!" everyone says . You wonder how they can win if they don't have an offense, but it appears if you get two or three rebounds you can eventually score.

So, yesterday we were sooo happy! The Tigers were in the NCAA. The President picked them to go to the Final Four. ( Didn't pick them to win, but ...) So, what did we do? We attached our flags to the car. ( We caused a lot of speculation at St. Clare last year with those flags. Oh, your from Memphis? You must be the ones with the flags.)

So, we decorated our car. We were so lighthearted. I remember it as if it were only yesterday!

So today dawned. The day of the first games. The day where the second seed Tigers played a 15 seed. A 15 seed who was hungry, and wanted to play! They were scrappy! They wanted to win. The Tigers? I don't know what they were wanting. Apparently morning games don't agree with them. I didn't recognize this team. Thank goodness for Roburt Sallie. He did such a good job, scoring 35 points for the Tigers, more than three times his score in any previous game. This guy doesn't even start for the team usually. Hopefully he will from now on.

The Tigers' games kill me. Today, I cleaned the house, took a shower, and a walk all during the game, because THEY WERE KILLING ME! Right now I am watching the Gonzaga game, ( Whom the Tigers killed earlier this year) It is amusing to watch them. It's amazing how much fun it is to watch a game when you are not emotionally involved.

Yesterday we watched the 1973 Final Game between Memphis State and UCLA. TLOML was in that game, and he looked cute in those short basketball shorts. Anyway, we watched the Tigers, tie UCLA at halftime, and lose by 26 points. Why? We are Tiger Fans! We are masochists ! You know it is interesting that March Madness is during Lent. Hmmm!

God and Mary to ya

Good morning, and Happy St. Patrick's Day to you! They say that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day, and maybe it is because we all love the beauty, whimsy, and passion of Ireland and the Irish people. But, this is St. Patrick's Day! St. Patrick, the patron Saint of Ireland, a saint, this is his feast day. So, what is all the pub crawling and green beer about. They take a break from Lent , for one day, in Ireland on St. Patrick's Day. Much that is believed about St. Patrick is legend. But what we do absolutley know about him was that he brought Christianity to Ireland, returned to a wild country after escaping his kidnappers. He was brave, he was holy, he loved Ireland. So knock off the drinking, and say a prayer or two.
I close with a thought , or two, I pilfered from my brother's blog. "All human love is a participation in the life of the divine and an invitation for grace. When we pray “on earth as it is in heaven” I think we should be praying that we will find the holiness in the family meal that gives meaning to the Sunday Eucharist. We should find holiness in the joy of friendship that mirrors the Perichoresis of the Trinity! We should find the holiness in making a sandwich for our children and giving food for their flesh. And all of that will enrich our experience of the liturgy where for us Jesus gives us his flesh for food."

Quote of the Day

Once again we go for the quote of the day from TLOML. We have had beautiful weather this week. Beautiful! Clear, clear blue skies. Crisp temperatures! Spring was right around the corner. Today it is absolute gloom. Very gray, and cold and rainy! TLOML said, Well we've gone from sugar to shit!" Isn't that brilliant? That is so true! So succint! FROM SUGAR TO SHIT!! I love that.

Four More Days

"Molann an obair an fear."

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,
Through the strength of his descent for the Judgment Day

St Patrick's feast day is the 17th! I will write more later. I am really working hard. Subbing in the high school five minutes down the road.

I want to shout out to MBF Patte who became a grandmother today! Awesome. Welcome to the world, little Cole!! God! We must be old!

Erin go braugh! ( Ireland forever!)

Word of the Day

As suggested to me by a loyal follower I have given TLOML the job of coming up with the word of the day. The word of the day today is fubar which is F'd beyond all recognition. [ I sense a trend here.] Here it is in a sentence: When my wife caught me smoking I was FUBAR'd. ( He points out that it is an acronym.)

Friday

Today wasn't fugly at all. It was sunny, and cold. I had a job subbing at this really ritzy high school that I have never worked at before. It was a SPED job. At Lake Oswego High I have always worked with severely handicapped a lot of them needing their own aide. At Lake Ridge I was assigned to help students in an Algebra class, Advanced Earth Science , and Geometry. Needless to say my talents were stretched. It was quite the experience.

Word of the Day

My brother quite often has a word of the day in his blog. This serves to illuminate and edify. I have decided to add that feature also. The word of the day is brought to us by TLOML . The word is fugly. As in the weather is fugly today. "Does that mean foggy and ugly?" I asked. No. It means fucking ugly. Hope that wherever you are you don't have fugly weather today.

A Day in the Good Life

My brother wrote on his blog that I have married TLOML and am now living the good lie... I mean life. I want to tell you a story about a rather comical situation that happened yesterday. It happened a little bit like this.
I have been quite upset with my spouse for a month now. While under stress from working 18 hour days during the blizzards at Christmas time he started smoking cancer sticks again! I did not take this well. Our quitting smoking a year ago was one thing that I could look on as a solid accomplishment. We were taking care of our bodies, we were responsible.
After a few histrionics, (You know, me throwing cigarettes into the snow, accusing him of not loving himself, or me ) He settled into a routine. He was even so bold, after a while, as to smoke in front of me. ( He really has a death wish, apparently.) Anywho, he set himself a smoking lounge in our sun room. Our sun room is the size of the closet, and it is where we house all the things we can't squeeze in anywhere else. A vacuum cleaner, cat food, cat litter, and a plethora of little used workout equipment resides there) So TLOML pulls in a patio chair, under the open window pane, and sits and smokes MENTHOL cigarettes while staring at the mini trampoline, and my mini stairmaster. This was obviously not doing it for him, so he gathers books, so now it is his smoking- reading room. After he figures out Wall Street he is going to start on his Lenten Readings.( Wonder what St. Ignatious would think about that!?)
Well, he was asmoking, and areading, and I slid the sliding glass door open to take a pic of Mt. Hood. ( His reading/smoking room has a great view of the mountain.) As I was leaving I slid the glass door close, and on a whim, I locked it. We never lock it. I just was being... I don't know...playful? Anyway, I immediately felt remorse. I had a bad feeling. I went to unlock it, and could not budge the lock! Uh Oh! He just sighed, and sat back down,and lit up.
I ran down to the car to get some WD40, it was three flights so you can see how much I love him and how remorseful I felt. I came back up and started spraying and wiping and trying to open that door. I was beginning to get scared. How would we get him out? Everyone knows I have no upperbody strength and here I was a tugging and pulling. I got out a flash light, and I saw that I had turned the night latch, which is apparently magic, or something. Anyway, with a brave effort I made a 180 degree turn, and it opened. With a disgusted look, TLOML just sat back down and continued to read. He had been a prisoner for 30 minutes already but, apparently, he wasn't eager for release. It was as if he was irritated with me. But, later at bedtime he brought me a glass of ice water for my bedside table which is his nightly ritual, and one that tells me this is the good life.

Study in Skies

I think that clouds are fascinating! I am always stopping and exclaiming over the skies. Here in Oregon the skies are always changing, as is the weather. Though we do get rain many days, we do not get them everyday, or all day. It can be sunny one minute and cloudy, then rainy , the next. It can culminate in sunshine, and a rainbow, or perhaps a fabulous sunset. If I were an artist I would take it as a challenge to paint the skies. Clouds are hard to describe, so ethereal, just wisps sometimes, and sold gray walls at other times. The vista's palette is so varied here that it is breathtaking. Bright blue, slate gray, feathery white can be seen in one sky. And there is quite often the hint of lemon yellow sun shining through to give us hope.

When they filmed the film Twilight here they had to be prepared for three contingencies: sunlight, clouds, rain often in the same day. They filmed the movie here because of the fabulous skies. Well, and the cloudy darkness was also central to the plot. I attempted to take some pictures of the sky today. It was sunny this morning, but supposed to rain. I knew that would afford some stunning skies. It still hasn't rained, but I wanted to share what I have shot so far today!