Holiday Happenings

Here it is, Dec 26th, a federal holiday as of last week. The weather today is very uncertain, with wild wind gusts and sudden downpours. The shopping areas are likely all crowded with bargain hunters and gift returners. So not much to do but stay at home and veg! Which in my case, includes updating this blog...

On Christmas Eve, we went to the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl. I'd bought us tickets even before we knew who was playing. Just thought it would be fun to go to a college bowl game. The matchup ended up Univ of Hawaii (7-6) vs Notre Dame (6-6), and the sportswriters ranked it the 7th most exciting potential game.

Aloha Stadium has 50,000 seats and 8500 parking spots, so we went to a designated satellite lot near us and took a bus. That worked out a lot better than I'd hoped. We got to the stadium about a half hour before kickoff, which gave me time for a bio break and Chris time to get a beer. Then we settled into our seats, which were also more comfortable that I'd hoped, and got to see the national and state anthems sung before kick-off. Of course, I sang along, to the usual furtive over-the-shoulder looks I get when I sing...

Our seats were just nine rows up from the field. If I'm being very generous, I could describe them as the 1-yard line... But we could still see pretty well. Notre Dame got two touchdowns before Hawaii got one. When it was 14-7, I still thought we were looking at a competitive game. But at half time, it was 28-7. Still, I'm an optimist. I watched Frank Reich bring back the Univ of Maryland all those years ago from that 31 point deficit. Things can happen in college ball.

They can. And they did, for Notre Dame. You can read all the details on a sports page. By the middle of the 4th quarter, it was 49-14, and we decided to see if they were loading buses for our satellite lot. Fortunately, they were, and the bus driver had the game on the radio, so we could hear Hawaii get their last touchdown and make the score 49-21. "Boy, it has really cleared out here," said the announcer, and all of us on the bus laughed at that.

OH, the half time show! No football game is complete without that. The half time show started with a nice slow hula danced to "Over the Rainbow", and then the next song had the Tahitian hip-shakin' hula dancers with male fire dancers (what's a Hawaiian event without fire dancers?). They were pushing the musician platform off the field as the players were getting into position for the second half kick off.

Still, it was fun to see a football game live. Notre Dame scored right in front of us, with a receiver catching a ball, and that was pretty neat to see so close up. We had a few sprinkles on us, but otherwise it was great to sit outside in the afternoon and enjoy the moment. We ate pretzels and popcorn and teased the Notre Dame fan sitting next to us, in his ND jersey, his blue-and-gold kukui nut necklace, and shamrock-shaped green sunglasses.

I was thinking of putting us on a whale watching boat today, but the website doesn't guarantee whales until January, so that'll be an event for next month. Besides, the winds don't look promising for spending any time on a boat... So we're just hanging out. Chris is watching the Dirty Jobs marathon on the Discovery Channel, and I'm reading a great book that Chris bought me, and may go read / nap by the pool! Hope your day after Christmas is equally enjoyable.