Showing posts with label Steelers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steelers. Show all posts

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Get Excited Sports Fans

Don your football jerseys sports fans because today in NYC, the NFL Draft comes to town.


Normally these kids of massive, traffic stopping, crowd inducing events in Midtown Manhattan make me crazy, but not the NFL Draft. 

The Thursday and Friday of the Draft are really fun. There are college football players walking around everywhere, Midtown is ripe for celebrity spotting, the networks set up booths all along Sixth Avenue, and you can buy pretty much any souvenir you would ever want, and hundreds of things you would never, ever need with the NFL logo on it (what, you didn't want a slipcover for your couch that says " NFL Draft 2013?" Because God knows I do).

And anyway, who wouldn't want to step out of their office into an actual red carpet?


Time to start counting down to football season.

218 days until kickoff.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Superbowl Stream of Consciousness


I wasn't bitter, I swear I wasn't.

Ok, maybe I was a little. But the Steelers can't be in the Superbowl every year. Or make the playoffs. Or even be a good team. So I was willing to let it go.

And maybe I consider the Ravens a slightly lower life-form than the flu virus I am desperately trying to avoid this year, but I thought that my brother-in-law, who hails from Baltimore and bleeds purple and black as deeply as we bleed black and gold, kind of deserved to feel some of the football glory that we Pittsburghers have felt in recent years. I guess it's not easy being the sole Raven in a sea of Steelers fans. It's an AFC North clash of the titans in this family of ours, so I was willing to give him this one, if that's how it turned out.

And anyway, beyond my undying love for football and my ever-present fascination with the sparkly gold tights worn by the 49ers (I may hate the Ravens and everything they are, but black tights are far more flattering than gold. Just saying.), I was intrigued by this year's Superbowl, nicknamed, in delightful fashion, the "Bro-Bowl," the "Super-Baugh," and the "Har-Bowl," by the intrepid periodicals that are sold for twenty-five cents each every morning outside Grand Central Station. If you know anything about me, you know that I'm a sucker for a good pop-culture event. So, awesome commercials, coaching brothers' teams playing each other, a retiring defensive player who may or may not be (but probably is) an actual murderer playing his last game, and a blackout in the biggest football game of the year? Count me in.

And since I was watching the game by myself last night, and didn't have anyone with whom to share my musings, I was left to my own devices (well, along with my Twitter feed and my Google Reader) to process the fascinating happenings of last night. My stream of consciousness went something like this:

I wish I could read roman numerals. I keep forgetting what number XLVII is. I think the last Superbowl roman numeral I could legitimately read was XXXIX.

I'm so intrigued by the Harbaughs' sideline dispositions. I wonder if they really hate each other when the cameras are turned off. I wonder how the Harbaugh parents are handling the game. Why don't they just hug it out at the end of the game? Maybe a handshake is more manly. For the life of me I can't remember which one is John and which one is Jim.

The Budweiser Clydesdales are awesome. Amy Poehler should just be in every commercial ever until the end of time. Oh, ew, my eyes. They're burning from this nasty Go Daddy commercial.

Oh, look, the lights went out. Kind of like that time last year that the lights went out when the Steelers were playing the 49ers at Candlestick Park. The 49ers are old hands at this. I wonder how many times the announcers can say something like "the lights are out at the Superdome" before mentioning Katrina. Why is Bill Cowher wearing that gross tie? Maybe Beyonce killed the lights with her utter fabulousness. Who gets fired over this? Thank god for Twitter, it's making this blackout endlessly entertaining.

If Ray Lewis is so hell bent on convincing everyone that he isn't actually a murderer, why does he paint those scary patterns on his face for every game? Does he think mentioning god every time he's in front of a camera will make people think he's innocent even though he might-have-but-probably-did kill some people awhile back? If he's MVP of this game, will Disney World let him come down this time?

The Ravens' owner should consider dialing it down on the spray-tan and tooth whitening. The orange hue of his skin makes his teeth look like they glow in the dark. Seriously, it's winter, and you live in Baltimore. You look insane.

Purple is a stupid color for a football team.

I really want to punch Joe Flacco in the mouth.

It's so boring when football is over.

49 days until the draft.

213 days until the 2013 season opener.

Here we go.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Steeler Pride


Their season may be over, but I bleed black and gold 365 days a year.

And now my car does too.

Here we go.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Thoughts at Thirty

Today is my thirtieth birthday.

Ten years ago I turned twenty. On my twentieth birthday, no one was thirty. Thirty seemed like the destination at the very end of a particularly long road trip. A destination so far away that I couldn't possibly imagine ever reaching it, or what it would feel like when I finally did.

I was a sophomore in college when I turned twenty, living on the fourth floor of a big dorm that was filled with friends I had made during my freshman year. The year I turned twenty was the year I started to feel like I had finally found my place. I had friends I loved, friends who understood me. Friends to stay up late with, and talk to, and have dance parties to crazy songs with. Friends to study with and eat junk food with, and explore our little world with. I had classes that fascinated me, and professors who challenged me. I had enough college behind me that it felt comfortable and right, and enough college left in front of me that I wasn't yet thinking about what came after.

The year I turned twenty was the year that I had my first real boyfriend. And I like to think that, until we broke up the year I turned turned twenty-two, I learned all the things that you are supposed to learn from your first boyfriend. I learned what real love is supposed to look like (because this was most certainly not it). I learned how to be independent and retain my sense of self in a relationship (mostly because I didn't). And I learned to recognize when a relationship had run its course and when it is time to say goodbye (because I let it drag on far too long).

The year I turned twenty-two was the year I started preparing for what would come next. I spend a summer in Washington D.C. as a constitutional law intern for the Anti-Defamation League, I bought big scary books with LSAT written on the cover and started studying for my future, and I raced to the mail room every day after my 2:00 class to check for the letter that would tell me where that future would be. And with shaking hands one cold late winter day, I opened the one that did. And during a nostalgic, tear-soaked weekend, I graduated from college, and holding the hands of my very best friends, I moved to New York City to start law school. And I learned for the first time that it is possible to be, at the same time, incredibly excited for what lies ahead and impossibly sad for what will be left behind.

When I was twenty-three, I six months in to what would end up being a nearly eight year tenure in Manhattan. And during that first year I learned that I could live anywhere in the world as long as I had my friends with me. I learned how to answer questions about reading I hadn't done. I learned how to walk twenty city blocks in heels. I learned that I could, in fact, study for twelve hours straight without dropping dead, and I learned how to be ok with bad grades when they came. I found a Steelers bar in lower Manhattan and was there watching when the Steelers hoisted their first Lombardi Trophy in twenty-six years. I discovered that I could watch a ton of TV, read lots of romance novels, and still be a good law student, and I discovered that I really like to cook. And I watched Sister K walk down the aisle to marry her incomparable man, and in the two of them learned the real meaning of partnership.

I was a second year law student when I turned twenty-four. That year I got my first A+, decided that Trusts & Estates law was the practice for me, had my very first real law firm job, and went on my first date with the boy I would marry. The year I was twenty-four I learned how to "do" law school. I learned that love - real love - can come when you least expect it, and that it is possible to "just know" in the snap of a finger.

From age twenty-five to age twenty-seven I got an internship that would lead, almost five years later, to the job I have now. I graduated from law school with honors, passed the bar exam, watched as the financial world melted down, and saw the Steelers win another Superbowl. I learned how to be unemployed for awhile, and then how to work in a job that I hated. I learned what it feels like to be laid off, how to have a job for awhile that had nothing to do with my chosen career, how to interview for a position that I really, really wanted, and what it felt like to finally get it. I started to learn that I really enjoyed my own company, and I learned to be comfortable and confident in the decisions I was making.

Late one night, two months after my twenty-seventh birthday the boy I would marry proposed to me on a website, and we started a whirlwind seven months of parties, planning and anticipation. And on a gorgeous fall day of that very same year I stood at the top of my own aisle, and, surrounded by family and friends, walked into my future. That year I learned that it is not flowers, caterers, and dresses that make a wedding unforgettable, but rather the people who gather to celebrate. I learned how to live - and live well - in a tiny New York City apartment. On a whim I signed up for a half-marathon and when I started training I learned that Central Park is my favorite place in the world.

A few weeks after my twenty-eighth birthday my cousins, my sisters and I held each other close as we said goodbye to our grandma - my mom's mom - the woman who gave us life, and love, and laughter and sparkly memories. I ran double digits for the first time, and I suffered a stress fracture that would keep me out of the race for which I had trained so hard. I cried happy tears and danced at Sister L's wedding, I started a brand new job, I watched the Steelers lose a Superbowl, and I celebrated when Sister K gave us all a new baby girl to love. In my twenty-eighth year I learned that I could get through anything as long as I had my family close. I learned that I could survive on nothing but ginger ale and crackers for two weeks after an epic battle with salmonella, and I learned to say yes when an important career move came my way, even if the job was something I thought I would never, ever do.

I started this blog a few weeks after my twenty-ninth birthday, and quickly knew that I had found my place. I started training for - and crossed the finish line of - my first half marathon, and promptly signed up for two more. We bought our first house and started making plans to leave NYC. We made it through Hurricane Sandy, moved into our new home - that was still a construction zone - and started to get to know our new neighborhood. This past year I learned that leaving Manhattan was far more difficult than I ever imagined it would be. I learned that moving is impossibly hard even when the move is good and right. I learned that writing fulfills me in a way that little else can, and that there is a big and completely incredible community of bloggers out there that has helped me, and taught me, and befriended me in the vast cyber universe. I learned that I could live for almost two months without a kitchen, and I learned once again that I can live in complete chaos as long as my romance novels are organized on their shelves.

And today. Today I am thirty. And when I woke up this morning I thought I would feel different - older somehow - but I don't. I feel the same as I felt yesterday, and hopefully the same as I will feel tomorrow. And I am incredibly happy to be where I am, in this place, living this good life with the people closest to me. And now I hit the road for another destination far in the distance that I can't possibly imagine ever reaching, or what it will feel like when I do. But if the next ten years are anything like the last, I know that there really is nothing to worry about at all.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The Liebster


One of the most fun parts about starting this blog last February has been the other bloggers that I have had the opportunity to meet. There is an entire community of writers sharing bits and pieces of themselves online, and even though I have not met any of them in person, I feel like they are friends. They are smart, thoughtful and savvy women and men, and I love that they have let me be a part of their cyber universe.

Which is why I was thrilled and incredibly honored when Emma gave me the Liebster Award. And what, you might ask, is a Liebster Award? Kind of like a chain letter, it is an award given to a new-ish, up and coming blogger by another blogger, who in turn got in from someone else. Get it?  Just think of those chain letters you used to get as a kid. Although, I almost always broke the chain, and never did receive the promised 10 letters from around the world.

The origins of the award are a little murky, but it has been making its way around the blogosphere for some time now, and seems like fun.

The rules of the game are simple:
  1. The recipient of the award posts 11 facts about themselves
  2. The recipient then answers 11 questions posed by the giver of the award
  3. The recipient nominates other bloggers for the award, links to them, and posts 11 questions for those bloggers to answer
Ok, so maybe it's not quite so simple, but it is pretty fun, and I am psyched to do it. So, here we go:

11 Facts About Me
  1. I was speaking in complete sentences when I was just over a year old. I was like some kind of mutant child. My mom says strangers used to come up to the stroller and speak to me in baby voices, and I used to answer them, talking like I was 12 years old. It totally freaked them out.
  2. If I hear a song once, I can remember all of the words for the rest of my life.
  3. I love romance novels more than anything in the world, and I own every single book that Nora Roberts has ever written.
  4. I have a notebook filled with ideas about a series of romance novels that I plan to write, and I have already started on the first one.
  5. My favorite food is french fries. I need to eat them at least once a week or I get cranky. I sometimes think that I could eat nothing but french fries for every meal until the day I die and I would be completely content.
  6. I love country music.
  7. I didn't understand a single part of any of the following movies: Inception, Minority Report, and The Matrix 
  8. I use Google as a spell checker. I am the worst speller in the world. Ironic considering, you know, this blog.
  9. I can recite all the dialogue from the movie Speed.
  10. I watch, regularly (as in, don't miss a single episode of) twenty-one television shows a week. That doesn't include Football, Gilmore Girls re-runs, The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. I watch all of those too.
  11. I won't read a book that doesn't have a happy ending.
Answers to Emma's Questions For Me
  1. What is your favorite tree and why? - The huge oak tree that sat right outside our house in Pittsburgh where I grew up that was inhabited by a family of squirrels that fascinated my dad. I'm pretty sure that we have pictures somewhere of that squirrel family.
  2. Are you still in touch with anyone from elementary school? How about high school? - Neither, actually. 
  3. If you could live anywhere in the world with no financial or language concerns, where would it be? - I don't really have aspirations for world travel, I'm pretty much a homebody, so I would probably choose to live right where I am. Or in Pittsburgh so I could be closer to my parents. Speaking of which...
  4. Do you like your parents? - I know that for a lot of people this is a complex question. Not so for me. Yes, I like my parents. I also admire them, and am incredibly grateful to them for giving me strength, character, resilience, and a sense of humor, for teaching me to live with purpose, and for encouraging my sisters and me to blaze our own trails. Basically, if we were any closer, we would be one person.
  5. What is a favorite book and/or what are you reading now? - My favorite book is Birthright, by Nora Roberts (see: my aforementioned love of romance novels). I have read it at least 100 times. Right now I am reading The Panther, by Nelson DeMille. If you have never read any of his books featuring retired NYPD cop John Corey, you are seriously missing out.
  6. Do you have any pets? - No, much to my husband's dismay.
  7. Would you like to travel to other planets, if possible? - I don't think so. Space travel kind of freaks me out. But I really love the movie Apollo 13.
  8. Do you think encouraging children to believe in Santa is "lying" to them? - No way. I think it's good for kids to have something magical to believe in. 
  9. Do you have a secret that only one or two other people know about? - I think that anyone who answers no to this question is lying.
  10. What is the one thing that you would like you spouse/partner to stop doing? - Leaving Coke Zero cans all over the house.
  11. What question have I forgotten to ask that you would like to answer? - How about my favorite season? I prefer fall/winter to summer/spring, and actually love when the clocks change and the days get shorter 
11 Questions For My Nominees
  1. If your life is being turned into a movie, who would play you?
  2. What was your favorite childhood book?
  3. What was the last thing that made you laugh until you cried and your sides hurt?
  4. Coffee or tea?
  5. If you weren't doing what you are doing now, what would you want to do instead?
  6. What is your favorite color and why?
  7. If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would buy?
  8. What is your go-to, never fail recipe for a weekday dinner?
  9. What is the movie that, when you say you have never seen it, people look at you with that confused "I can't believe you never saw it" face?
  10. If you could pick a character from a book or movie to be your best friend, who would it be?
  11. What is your favorite season?
And My Nominees Are These Four Amazing Ladies
  1. Bea, from Living off Script
  2. Larks, from Maybe I Should Blog
  3. Michelle, from The Journey
  4. Ashley, from Ashley, Etc.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Lazy Weekend

One pretty awesome bromance
I had grand plans this past weekend. Since our kitchen is so close to being done, I was going to wield my cleaning supplies and dusting cloths and attack the inside of the cabinets so that I could finally start unpacking all of the kitchen boxes that have been living in my dining room this past month. But unfortunately, those plans fell by the wayside.

See, over Thanksgiving I was struck by the plague. Sometime between when I got to Pittsburgh that Wednesday night and when I left on Sunday I caught a cold from my one year old niece. I felt fine until late Sunday night, when I got a little shaky. I figured I was just tired from all the festivities of the weekend, and I would be find with a good night sleep. How wrong I was.

Monday morning I felt like death, and whatever I had managed to catch got progressively worse every day of last week. Why are the sicknesses we catch from babies always so much worse than the ones that we contract from anyone else? Every morning last week I considered calling in sick to work, but I am a trusts and estates lawyer, and it is December, which means it is also our busiest season. So every day I dragged myself to the city and managed to get through the day.

By Friday I was ready to fall over. So as soon as I got home from work Friday afternoon I put on sweats, parked myself on the couch, and it was there I made my nest until it was time to go to sleep last night. Except for an ill-advised load of laundry or two yesterday morning, I didn't move from the couch. All weekend. And it worked, because this morning I feel much better, if not completely back to normal.

Anyway, a weekend on the couch meant lots of books on Saturday, and lots of TV on Sunday. And the highlight of my Sunday? The Steelers had the 4:25 game, and it was on TV in New York, which doesn't happen very often. And it was magic.

I could rehash all the stats, and talk about how improbable the win was with a third string quarterback and an ailing offensive line, but instead I direct your attention to the picture above.

That just says it all, doesn't it?

HERE. WE. GO.