Do I wake or sleep?

THIS WEATHER. I just cannot with this winter. But yesterday and today it's been much warmer--I've actually been able to ditch my down coat for my lighter L.L. Bean coat. With temperatures in the 40s (and I think tomorrow it will get up to the low 50s), the snow and ice is melting and the city is very drippy and wet. Starting to get hints of spring, yay!

And it's not even the oppressive cold that's been so bad. My apartment is quite cozy and comfortable, and my down coat really does keep out the cold. It's that it's so difficult to *exercise.* I can't run when it's in the teens out--my eyes start tearing up and I'm more likely to get hurt. I can run in the 20s, no problem, but no colder than that. Also we haven't been able to play soccer in a month because the fields are in such bad shape. NO SOCCER. FOR A MONTH. I am DYING here!

I spilled a drink on my MacBook Air laptop last September and decided I would not dip into my savings and buy a new one right away. I would do the responsible thing and save for it. So for the past few months I have really cut back as much as possible on all discretionary spending--and finally two weeks ago I bought my new laptop. *claps hands excitedly* And as another small reward to myself, I bought a new Coach purse--but this was not a huge expense. I'm a member of the Coach factory outlet site--you have to be invited to join and somehow I rated an invitation *smirk.* They must've known of my addiction! Anyway they only have sales a few times a year and they had one a week ago. So I bought this pretty little thing:



SO CUTE AND YELLOW I JUST CANNOT

So, I am a huge gymnastics fan and The Olympics is my happy time. (Although World's is fun too.) Most Olympics fans are what we call four-year fans--nothing wrong with that, BTW!  But I thought I might give you a little bit of background on the American team and the likely contenders.

The team format:

This Olympics, we have a different team format. There are only five members per time (plus 2-3 alternates), in contrast to past Games where we had 6 (Sydney in '00, Beijing) or even 7 (Atlanta in '96). Also 3 team members compete on any one apparatus--and most importantly all 3 scores count. It used to be that you could drop the lowest score on an apparatus, so if one member flopped, it wasn't such a big deal. Not any more. This format is known as 5-3-3. Bruno Grandi, the head of FIG (Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, the worldwide governing body of the sport) in an effort to curry favor with less-represented countries that traditionally have not been featured much in gymnastics, devised this system to that countries like the US, Russia, Romania et al. have less of an advantage--you need fewer good gymnasts to win. I personally hate the system, as do many fans, because I think it's crappy to make the teams smaller and allow fewer gymnasts to become Olympians. Small countries have plenty of opportunities to qualify for event finals or the AA--team finals are supposed to decide the best TEAM, as in plural.

Individual All-Around format:

Only 2 gymnasts per country can qualify, as opposed to the past where 3 could qualify. And I believe the top 24 (not 36) overall qualify.

The Players:

The US team are the current World champions. This is no guarantee of gold, though--in both '04 AND '08, we also came in as world champions. But we are definitely the favorites--I believe our strongest competition is probably the Russian team. However, interestingly, the Romanians beat the Russians in Europeans. China is likely not a threat in team competition. But anything can happen, as Beijing proved!

American Jordyn Wieber is the current World AA champion (and two-time US champion). Jordyn beat out Russian Viktoria Kimova in a controversial finish--Jordyn had had a bad bars routine which seemed to take her out of contention but then came back with flawless beam and floor routines, which were also difficult. Vika made no major errors throughout the meet but her sets weren't as difficult and she gave away a lot of tenths here and there...and they added up. When she saw that she'd ("only") gotten silver she burst into tears, and was...shall we say, not exactly sporting on the medals podium.




BUT. She is a lovely gymnast, and I hope both she and Jordyn hit in London. Vika is definitely out for blood and motivated, but she is a bit of a headcase. We shall see.

Another AA contender is American Gabby Douglas, who actually beat Jordyn Wieber in the Olympic Trials. ("Oooooh, All About Eve drama!")  That dynamic is actually reminiscent of '92--Kim Zmeskal was the current US and World champion, but Shannon Miller won the Trials, and then Kim fell off the beam in the team prelims. Gabby's biiiiig strength is bars--she absolutely flies over them, as high as Dominique Dawes used to, she gets incredible air. Her weakness is that she's a little unreliable--in last year's Nationals she fell off the beam 3 (3? maybe 4) times. In one set. She's also relatively inexperienced, just a few big meets so far. But I think if she hits she has an excellent chance of medaling.

A Romanian AA contender is little Larisa Iordache, who is absolutely darling, a real old-school pixie. I am hoping she will sneak onto the podium, I enjoyed watching her at Europeans. Another Romanian is Catalina Ponor, whom you may remember from the '04 Olympics! That's right, she's making her comeback and doing very well. Catalina's events are the beam and the floor--she and Larisa traded golds and silver on those two events at Europeans.

McKayla Maroney is the current World vault champion, and you will see why when she competes. She has the biggest vault you've ever seen--she gets mad air. Goes up higher, stays up longer, lands further than anyone else. She makes vault exciting.

The vault final at Worlds was interesting--they had gymnasts from EVERYWHERE. Two particular favorites of mine were Yamilet Peña from the Dominican Republic, who tried to throw a very difficult vault and ended up sitting it down. She got up and with a big smile saluted the judges. What a trouper! She gave it her all--gotta love that. Peña has in fact qualified for London at the Olympic test Event, so I can't wait to see her. The other vaulter was a tiny slip of a thing, Phan Thi Ha Thanh from Vietnam who ended up winning the bronze! The joy on her face was incandescent--she was thrilled just to BE there, but to actually medal...!



Since she medaled at Worlds she automatically qualified for the Games but funding for her sport is very low and she's had much difficulty training.  The other gymnast on McKayla's right is Oksana Chusovitina, a fierce HBIC who has been competing FOREVER.  Remember Barcelona in '92?  She was THERE.  She competed as a Soviet, for the Unified team, for Uzbekistan and now for Germany.  Chuso is Da Woman.

He Kexin, one of the age-controversial gymnasts in '08, will be back although just barely.  She actually hasn't done so well since Beijing--a shame as I like her gymnastics.  (Yes, I think she was underage--bitch, please.  No, I don't blame her and would never blame the gymnast--she's part of a totalitarian system, she has no say in this.)  But China needs her bars, so she's back.

Britain might actually medal this year, which I believe would be an Olympic first.  Their big gun is Beth Tweddle, who is a past World champion in both bars and floor.  REALLY pushing for her, I love her work *and* the fact that she's an older gymnast.  I also get a kick out of how very ENGLISH Beth looks.  Case in point:




Those are some CHOPPERS!  But I kid because I love--best of luck, Beth, hope you perform well for the hometown crowd!

So I've been playing in this winter soccer league.  Our record was good enough to get us into the playoffs--there are eight teams in this league and we were tied for third place.  We played our quarterfinal last week and won!  We were supposed to play the semi-final immediately following that game but they had made a mistake somehow and our semi-final was rescheduled for yesterday. 

We'd had practice on Saturday which went very well--we had a pickup game against a really good team who was coached by this older guy, in his late 50s at least.  The guy was AMAZING.  We want him to coach us!  He was not only an incredible player who embarrassed the hell out of all of us younger players on the field, he also offered great commentary.  I actually played a decent amount in the scrimmage and took a couple of head balls--I landed badly on one (the knee is still a little shaky) and went down and popped up immediately.  He was praising me to the other players, saying "that was textbook perfect."  The knee was a little weird--if I twisted it at all, it would hurt like hell, but eventually the pain would go away.  I had (FINALLY) the MRI later that day, so hopefully that will shed light on the problem.  Anyway the game came down to penalty kicks--I took one and got it in!  The thing with penalty shots on goal is that if executed properly, you have an excellent chance of getting it in.  For the goalie to have any shot of blocking it, s/he has to commit him/herself beforehand (they can't see where the ball is going and then react--there's not enough time).  So they just have to decide to which side they're going to dive beforehand and hope the shooter goes to that side.  So you have a 50/50 chance of getting it in if you shoot for the side (proper technique).  And if you shoot for the top corner they have even less chance of blocking it.  Penalty shots are as close to a sure thing as you can get--they're like foul shots in basketball.

So, back to yesterday morning's game, the semi-final.  The winner of that game would go on to play the finals later in the afternoon.  We played the red team whom we'd played in the regular season.  Now there are some teams we don't like--primarily the red and green teams.  Red has a couple of players who are way too aggressive.  They're pretty rough for what is supposed to be a social team (I mean, really rough--one guy took out several of our players, I'm kind of surprised he didn't get a yellow card), and most irritatingly they try to call the games.  (This is a tactic wherein as soon as something happens--say, the ball is kicked out, a handball, etc.--they will "call" it (i.e., for them) which is, hello, the referee's job!).  They do it to try to influence the ref.  One of my teammates on my select team in HS used to do this.  Since I didn't play that much (the knee is still a little shaky), I saw a LOT of this and I was openly calling them out for it.  "Hey, we already have a ref, why don't you just play and stop trying to call it?"  They also argue with the ref a lot which REALLY should be yellow carded, it's annoying as hell.  Anyway, we beat their aggressive asses 3-1, haha!  So now we're in the finals.  I played a little bit and not only did the knee NOT hurt, but I was actually showing skills I'd never shown before.  In HS I was not this fancy-shmnacy dribbler.  I scored a lot because I was very fast, and had very quick reflexes.  I could get past the defenders, but I didn't do cool things like fakes and misdirects, and passing through their legs.  I just ran!  (And kicked.)  Well, some of the players in this league are pretty incredible, including several on our teams--they can dribble the hell out of the ball.  One way of improving yourself (in almost anything physical, including dance) is to watch those who are better.  I've been doing a lot of this, studying the better players, and something must have rubbed off because honest to God, I was doing some of that yesterday.  I actually got past several players dribbling the ball, and heard the surprised voice of one of my teammates (Pete, a Totally Hot British Dude, oh my God, he is completely hotttt) saying "there you go!"  And this makes me VERY HAPPY because I've been worried, especially after hurting my knee, that I have lost my skills.  I played very good soccer for ten years and I want that back, dammit!  Peter (THBD) complimented me after the games, saying "you had an excellent run there."

Anyway, after our first game (before the final), there was another game, for third place.  Red was now in that game, and the green team were their opponents.  The green team is another disliked team--until two weeks ago they were undefeated, and then they lost their last game.  They were given a bye into the semis--and they lost.  Very surprising.  We never played them in the regular season but we've run into them at the bar--they never socialized with the rest of us (any of the teams).  The team captain was quoted as saying he didn't want them to socialize because he felt it would inhibit their competitive drive.  Guess that didn't work out too well for you!  He also tries to recruit players from other teams and apparently they've been together as a team for awhile.  In general they had this huge "we're the best team" attitude that turned off everyone.  Dudes, it's a social league.  Get the stick out of your ass.  Anyway they played their game--green won (so they were the third place winners) --and then it was time for the finals.  Us vs. the yellow team.  We'd played the yellow in our very first game, in the snow, and they'd beaten us handily, 6-3.

They seemed nice enough before the game, chatting with us, but apparently they were THE hated team, which I didn't know,  I didn't figure this out until I saw both the red AND green teams--and other teams--standing next to us, cheering for us!  WTF?!  They were actually quite nice to us, so uh, okay, thanks for the support!  At halftime we were down by one goal.  We huddled together and everyone said something--I said "we are not out of this yet.  Keep your heads in the game.  Look for opportunities and play smart.  Never let up, keep the pressure on."  As a smaller athlete, one of my guiding principles is that a smart player is the best kind of player.  You can overcome all sorts of disadvantages if you're playing smart--if you are constantly looking and hungry and alert to opportunities.  This is especially important when you're down, because momentum is a HUGE thing in sports.  That's why so many Super Bowls turn into blow outs--the team that starts winning, ends up winning.  Not today!

We scored a goal fairly quickly into the second half, so now we're tied.  Then we scored FOUR MORE.  One was kind of a fluke--the goal had the ball and decided to go WAY out of the goal area, dribbling the ball.  Well, he got caught behind enemy lines and one of our players took a well-aimed shot from the half which went in.  I felt bad for him but dude, you're the goalie.  You can't leave your post.

They never scored again--and so we ended up league champions!  We got medals and everything.  It was awesome!  We also got a $100 bar tab.  (I begged our captain to buy at least one pitcher of Guinness, as opposed to disgusting watery Bud Light, but she said they didn't have Guinness on tap.  A horrified me responded "that's outrageous!  What kind of an Irish bar doesn't serve Guinness?!")  At the bar the green team came over to (somewhat creepily) kiss the hands of our captain and ask for her number so he could set up a "friendly" game between us.  He also drunkenly confessed to all of us "deep down we consider ourselves to be the best team."  (Uh, no.  By definition in a league that has playoffs, the best team is the team that wins when it counts.  The tournament is not a coronation.)  We ALSO found out that he'd bought trophies for his team--these had to have been bought before yesterday so what was the point if he didn't know in which place they would end up?  And seriously--trophies for your third place team?  You got the third place medal, why would you buy trophies when even the champions (US!!! :) didn't get them?  It just seemed pathetic, like one of those participation trophies.  Those are fine for kids, whom you're trying to teach good sportsmanship values, but for a die-hard competitive team such as them, it just seems as though they're trying to insinuate that, as he said, they were the REAL winners.  Dude, you came in third!  Accept it.  I will say, he admitted "no one could stop you guys today."

Anyway, so so so happy!  I draped my medal over the trophy I won last fall for the softball tournament, next to my trophy for Least Embarrassing Player.  And I'm so proud of our team.  We won not because we were the most talented (although we have some fierce players) but because 1) we have incredible team spirit (we also won the Spirit Award) and 2) we WORK.  We practice every week.  Hard work is almost always the deciding factor in who wins.  As a team we have signed up for the spring league, where we'll be playing on Sunday evenings.  This will conflict a bit with softball but I'll find a way to make it work.  And at least the bar will be better!  We'll be at Slainte, which is where we hung out many times after various Planet Connections shows.  THEY have Guinness on tap!

Hungry and very tired.

I'm meeting up with Lori later tonight to exchange Christmas gifts--I'd rather wait until Sunday or so but Kevin is taking down the tree tomorrow and it wouldn't be kosher, so to speak, to exchange Christmas gifts after January 6.  Although I suppose we could call them Epiphany gifts?  Hey, they do that in Spain.  I am giving her some homemade peppermint bark and one of the holiday soaps I bought from Holly.

Speaking of Epiphany--Happy 12th Day of Christmas! Today kicks off the season of Epiphany which means you know what is coming up: Mardi Gras!  Mark yo' calendars for February 21 and get ready to laissez les bons temps roulez!  I think i'm going to have it back at my place this year--last year was convenient but not that many people showed up anyway (although I did get out the invitations late) and I just think it's probably easier.  But looking forward to it!  Hurricanes and jumbalaya and King Cake and The Big Easy playing in the background...

I used to hate January because it was so cold and crappy.  Still not crazy about the dark and the weather but it's a nice change from December which was a little crazy this year.  It's always that second and third week that kills me--my birthday is ALWAYS the same week as my work party and then someone's always visiting from out of town and there's a performance of Christmas Carol or something.  Lots and lots of high-profile events that I can't miss.  This year too I was working on a project for a friend of mine--she commissioned me to knit a Christmas stocking for her step-daughter.  What made it tricky was that I didn't have a pattern--she wanted me to replicate a stocking knit by her granmother.  With no pattern, I had to reverse-engineer it, which was actually kind of cool and fun.  And I learned a couple of new skills, including the kitchener stitch which is a way to remove the seam from a sock so that it looks seamless.  It's pretty cool and makes me want to knit some socks now!  But I still (STILL!) have to finish up the purse I've been making for years now...almost done, I should finish it this week and then I just have to felt it.

Aaaaaand speaking of which...Drunken Knitting is coming up!  Lori and I will decide on a date tonight and then we'll let y'all know. I want to do two dates this year, one in January and one in February.  Ladies, sharpen your needles!  (And rev your blenders for all those drinks :)

Since I've been having so much fun with softball (and spurred on by a FB ad pimping out an indoor soccer league at Chelsea Piers), I joined a Meetup group that plays soccer every week.  They play at different locations all over the city but it seems the ones that meet my schedule best are in Long Island City at Queens West Sportsfield.  I played my first game last Saturday--the format is 3 30 minute games, among four teams, played on a field that's about 3/4 the size of a full-size field.  Generally speaking, the smaller the field, the more running.  In a normal, regulation game, you can rest more because the ball can actually be away from you, whereas in indoor soccer, you are CONSTANTLY running.  When they were assigning positions, I said sure, put me at wing (which is where I spent the majority of my soccer career).  Oh my God.  That 1st game was BRUTAL.  Nonstop runningrunningrunning.  I was in agony after the first game and I couldn't stop coughing.  The second and third games went a little better.  Or maybe my system was in so much shock, I just couldn't feel anything!  As soon as I got home (which was difficult enough, my thighs kept buckling whenever I had to go up stairs) I drew the hottest bath I could stand and soaked as long as I could.  This didn't stop me from spending the next two days pretty much on the couch anyway, but if I hadn't, I would've been literally bedridden.

But I gotta say, I didn't do too badly considering I haven't played for 15 years.  I assisted on a couple of goals and got all up in the faces of a few of the guy players :)  And I overheard a couple of admiring "hey, she's not too bad." I just love how brutally physical soccer is.  They always pigeonhole me as some small player that's easily intimidated and I ALWAYS prove them wrong.  Especially the big players :D  Some of these players have amazing ball skills--it's like playing against Pele out there.  Although as I said I played wing for most of my career, I was never an amazing ball handler--I was on the front line because I was very fast and had very quick reflexes, so I was able to score a lot.  (And I did :)  I was the lead scorer on my team--my coach used to call me Green, Green, the Scoring Machine.  Isn't that adorbs?)  Anyway until I get my wind back and can handle all that running, I need to upgrade my ball skills, maybe do some practicing out in Inwood Hill Park or something.  I'm playing my next game tomorrow--hopefully I'll be slightly less physically devastated afterwards!

Softball yesterday was GREAT, although we did lose. But considering we were playing a player down, *and* our first baseman had a broken freakin' arm and could barely throw, losing by only 2 runs was a moral victory. But I was quite stoked personally--I batted .600!!! And I got an RBI! And I hit a double! And scored two runs! It was all basically mental--I started focusing only on the ball, nothing else. I did a battery of other adjustments as well (choked up a little (the smallest bat yesterday was 26 ounces), held the bat higher behind me, and leaned back) but primarily I just focused on the ball and visualized myself HITTING IT. Oh, and forcing myself NOT to swing on the first pitch--that is a terrible habit of mine, and telling myself, over and over, to WAIT. I can usually see immediately if the pitch is any good, which is why I tend to first-pitch swing, and why I always pull to the left.

I also slid under a tag at second base. Woo hoo!

In other news, Anya and I think we have a visitor! There have been...signs that someone--or something--else is in our apartment. Saturday morning Anya woke up to find something that looked like residue in the tub--and it wasn't there an hour earlier when I'd gotten up to feed the cats, use the bathroom, and then go back to sleep. I *know* I shut the door behind me and I know the door had been shut when I first entered the bathroom (to keep the A/C in--the bathroom window is open to help air it out after a shower). That was the first sign. Then Tibby and Tatia started acting strangely--especially Tibbles-and-Bits who seemed to be "seeing" things. He would stare at what looked like blank space and act scared. Hmmm. We noticed a couple of other things as well, and were trying to figure it out. Anya wondered why Edna Mo wasn't visiting the apartment where she spent the last 6 years--I said that's because Stuart and his family are gone from Naples, there's no one there for her. And she did spend the last 5 months of her life with us. Precious lamb. I started calling out to her, telling her she was welcome to stay with us as long as she liked, and Tibby could use the schooling.

Had a lovely time as always. Tim had called the night before, wondering about the rain--I said hells yeah, we should go, I'd been checking the forecast (obsessively) all week and it looked as though there might be showers but not steady rain.

Due to cat shenanigans (that third cat really does add to the cleaning load exponentially), I ended up leaving later than I meant to but no worries, just sailed on out to Flushing Meadows on the ol' 7, reading The Odyssey. That train ride always kills me during the Open--you can see more and more tennis fans getting on, all wearing polos or US Open tee-shirts or hats or whatever. Everyone's in a good mood. Got there around 12:00 and Tim met me with the tickets. We saw some great people play, including Andy Murray (the Great Scot--he rocked), Venus (for like the fifth or sixth time, we always seem to catch her. Where is my Maria?! I'm dying to watch her), Sam Querry, Anna Ivanović, Tim Isner and Rafael Nadal. The Nadal match was SO great--he played against Denis Istomin and the guy seemed to be dying in the first set, and then he really, really fought after that. A lot of us had on the American Express radios (they have a booth where they give them out to cardholders and Tim always gives me his) and McEnroe's commentary was so enthusiastic, saying "Nadal is having the time of his life out there--he's playing a worthy opponent who's making him work and I've never seen him give so much respect to an opponent." The whole crowd was behind this guy--I mean, of course we wanted Nadal to win but this guy was really working and did a great job. I was cheering out loud for him, encouraging him. Tennis is such a lonely sport--it's really hard to die out there. So the crowd always gets behind a good effort (Venus's match was not as close but people were similiarly encouraging to her opponent). So much fun.

We had dinner at a restaurant inside the grounds called Mojitos--food was great (I had scallops, big fat ones) but we made a mistake in ordering a pitcher of mojitos. You really shouldn't make them by the pitcher, they have so many disparate ingredients, they're best made one at a time.

Great, great time. I love the Open.

This past weekend was busy--I had rehearsal Saturday morning, softball, and then a baby shower in Toms River for New Jersey and then NEWS. Rehearsal went fine, although I found out that our darling Luke, our Demetrius, will not be able to do the show because he broke his arm. The replacement seems cool but I love Luke! After rehearsal I went over to Pinkberry--I was sitting there, nomming on my Original with Cap'n Crunch and blackberries, when a guy walked in with a woman and two kids. My gaze drifted over him and I thought "he kind of looks like Kelsey Grammer but I thought his hair was darker?" When he said something, I realized it WAS he! He and the other three sat at the table next to me, which had only three chairs--he asked if he could have the free chair at my table, I said "of course." I'm so shy around celebrities, for several reasons--the main one is that I don't want to bother them. The guy's out with his family, let him have a nice time, don't pester him. The only celebrity I'd ever say anything to would be someone whose work I really admire and follow--Kelsey Grammer is a fine comedian, he was perfect in Cheers, but it's not as though I watched Frasier obsessively every single week. Another reason is that I think celebrities have so much weird energy fixated on them--somebody's always coming up to them for something, an autograph, a photograph, validation, whatever. Someone's always trying to get a reaction out of them. And then they sell the story to TMZ. I can't stand this when it's just a random guy on the street, I can't imagine how annoying this would be times a million. I just leave 'em alone. Also, this is New York, and you just can't fawn over celebrities. It's not cool. (In that way it's like the Vineyard--I saw plenty of them there as well, albeit they were more erudite--Art Buchwald, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Bill Clinton (well, my aunt and uncle met--and had dessert with--the Bill, not me :) But for all my shyness, it's still exciting!

( Whaaaaat a game! )

After the game, I had just enough time to run home, feed the babies, and run back down to Port Authority for the bus down to Toms River. This was fun--I got to talk to Lori's dad at the shower, who for some reason really likes me and always makes a point of talking to me about history after I burned his ears off last Thanksgiving going on about Henry VIII's wives. I was telling him about my class.

( Eeeeeeeeeehhhh!!! )

And Amy is coming to see Thyme! She was a great TA, I hope she likes the show. I'm also inviting some other Columbia friends to the show who've asked about it--they know me as Hermione, just WAIT until I blow their mind as an androgynous, skinny, wood fairy who puts a girdle 'round the earth! Interesting though, I've been reading on the Times site about the horrors of student debt--I'm so behind the times, I had no idea private lenders lent out money to students and had variable rates. For some reason I thought this was a much more regulated market--some of these stories are scary, it sounds like debt bondage. Very glad I've been so cautious about my financial plan so far (1-2 classes at a time, etc.).

Phillies fan intentionally vomits on 11 year old girl after his friend is kicked out for spitting on her family.

Just...wow. As the Philly.com article says, "'It reminds you of the type of behavior you used to hear about at the 700 level in Veterans Stadium,' Vanore said." These are the same kind of people who threw D batteries at one baseball player who'd turned down the Phillies. And when Michael Irvin took a header on their crappy turf and sustained spinal cord injuries that ended his career...they cheered.

What a bunch of thugs. As bad as some professional athletes are (some), some (some) of the fans are worse.

EEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS!!!!

Who Dat Nation rejoices!!!!! New Orleans is on the rise again! Oh, next Tuesday is gonna be MAJOR at my place!!!! Pre-pare to PARTY!! Did y'all see that shot of Bourbon Street with that writhing drunken celebratory mass of humanity? The drought is OVER!

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS, SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS!!!!!