I'm not going to the Super Bowl

A few weeks ago I had the afternoon of Sara: The 49ers were playing the Saints, I bought a DiGiorno pizza, a six pack of Snow Day by New Belgium Brewery, and I had a Saturday night off. All the ingredients were there for a perfect evening, so I settled in to the couch ready to cheer on my team.

For those of you who watched the game, or saw the highlights, know what a crazy win the Niners pulled off. When I came into work the next day, my co-workers were excited to talk about the miraculous win.

“Vernon Davis is my hero!” I said. “We’ve definitely got the talent to go to the Super Bowl.”
This is where my manager Chad (who only watches tennis) interjected: “Why are you using “we?” It’s not like you played in the game last night.”

All season long, he’s corrected me on using the first person narrative when rehashing events on Sundays. For some reason, I’ve had a really hard time adjusting my speech. I’ll catch myself halfway through a sentence and disjointedly redirect my narrative back to third person. After being harassed for 17 weeks during the regular season, one would think this wouldn’t be a problem and more.

But it still is. After the game last week against the Giants, I still find myself saying “we were soooooo close,” and “this was our year.” And why is that? Is it because of my personal history with team sports, or the collective mindset that comes along when rooting for your team?

The closest explanation I could find for my behavior is what experts call deindividuation, which is “the process by which group members become less aware of themselves as individuals and less concerned about being socially evaluated.” Sociologists have used this to describe rioting after games, behavior in a sports venue, and the lack of social constraints occur during some trash talking sessions.

Even though I found many possibilities, I don’t think I can ultimately answer why I use the narrative I do. All can do is hope things will turn out differently for the 49ers and me next season.

Santa's helpers

Christmas tree

This year we had a much easier time traveling down Forest Service roads than we did last year. We did run into a lot of ice on the roads (as seen above) but Moses was the only one who had any reservations about walking on the ice.



Now we have a fully decorated tree that we didn't have to find at Home Depot this year. And Tyler eventually did get his Christmas wish from last year too: a big burly truck.

A Thanksgiving visit

My brother came to visit us for Thanksgiving. Since his freshman year at Northern Arizona University, Zack has always traveled to spend the holiday with us. Part of the reason this began was the trek back home was a little too far for the short holiday weekend, and I’d like to think the other part was because he missed me.

The first few years were a little trying. My brother and I fought a lot growing up — nothing out of the ordinary, but just the normal sibling spats.

But over the course of time, our spats have stopped and we’ve started to enjoy each others company. This has a lot to do with growing up, and me not picking a fight every chance I could to spite my brother. As my dad would say, we’ve pulled our heads out for air and now we’re beginning our post-childhood relationship.

I really enjoy the relationship we have now. It took a long time to get here, but I’m thankful we finally did.

Thanksgiving

I woke up early this morning to start baking for our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. I have to work tomorrow, so we're celebrating a day late.

My Grandma baked the best rolls for the holidays. I looked forward to them every year. I never baked them with her — she’d show up on the day of the feast with perfectly shaped, fluffy, white rolls in square sheets that you’d break apart. I’d always save my rolls for when I was finished eating. I would use them to clean my plate of all the leftover gravy and cranberry sauce.

The first time I tried to make her rolls was in Tahoe. I called her up and wrote down the recipe on an old envelope, which I still have. They weren’t perfect — unless you consider slightly fluffy hockey pucks perfect. The subsequent trials of replicating her rolls only improved by slight increments.

This morning I wanted to bake her rolls like she did. This is the first holiday she won’t be able to make them, and it felt wrong that her legacy wouldn’t be represented. Baking at altitude can be a daunting task, but a little knowledge from the Joy of Cooking can go a long way.

My parents let me have her old recipe box after she died. Her roll recipe is one of the most worn cards in the box. I followed the instructions, letting her handwriting guide me through the steps.

Now the rolls are out of the oven, and this attempt is my most successful thus far — the rolls are beginning to look more and more like hers.

Hopefully they’ll taste just as good too.