giants and patriots

it's a curious thing, this football obsession. grown men in tights, running with a pigskin ball up and down a field with, oh, say, 200 million people watching. kind of puts the gladiators to shame (of course, they didn't have coca cola commercials, or justin timberlake to hawk products).

i digress. today i start the day with a not-totally-atypical mid-life crisis ... are we on the right path, what are we doing, what is the meaning of life? unfortunately, said crisis goes unresolved, although as the day wears on we seem to care less about this.

sunday morning, and we miss our zip into the city ... jane is giving a lecture entitled preparing your daughter for college to a packed house, and i am co-chairing a synagogue trip to israel in december, with our first kick-off meeting at the same time. alas, we must make do without our treat! withdrawal!

everyone somehow makes it back home early afternoon - kids are up and dressed (finally!), we chillax a bit, then the boys are off and running to friends to watch superbowl XLII (presumably, the use of roman numerals is a gentle nod to the aforementioned gladiators). which brings us to the team names. at least the gladiators wielded swords and wore some armor - outfits befitting their gruesome and masculine task.

watching the giants and the patriots, one has to ask, what's in a name. well, the patriots - let's see ... by grabbing this moniker, one can only assume that the implication is that the other team are in fact NOT patriots. nor are they patriotic, or americans in fact! they are to be villified, and they invite you to join the process. the giants, on the other hand - well, they MUST be bigger than the other guys - both in physical stature, fan power, and legacy. so in reality, the names are less definitive and are more relative. got it.

which leads me back to my morning mid-life crisis - which comes on the heels of all that has transpired over the last few months, which comes on the heels of the rest of life preceeding that. how can grown men in tights, tossing a pig-skin ball, garner so much attention, praise, and accolades, while cancer researchers remain un-feted, artists go unknown, aid workers flash anonymously across the screen? a curious thing, this mass worship of man's mastery over the ball.

maybe we'll get there too sometime ... often we feel like we're fumbling!