Super(stitious) Bowl Sunday

Most athletes are superstitious. You see baseball players avoiding the baselines when trotting back to the dugout, adjusting themselves several times prior to stepping into the batters box, and who knows how many times they've worn their jock strap without washing it. Basketball players have their own routines, like Kevin Garnett who powders his hands and dusts the entire press row with the excess just prior to the jump ball at mid-court.

Football players must be a little more low-key about their superstitions. They wear too many pads to show if their are patting themselves down prior to the play call. They don't have time to do some silly hand jive just before the snap. I'm sure someone has some special way they wrap their ankles, exotic sports cream they use in unmentionable places or weird meal they eat 30 minutes before kickoff, but it's not sexy enough for the media to care about or else we would have heard about it this week prior to the Super Bowl.

Just as athlete's superstitions are weird and somewhat extreme, so are their fans. In particular Patriots fans. Why is the GBD house completely empty this year on Super Bowl Sunday as the New England Patriots attempt to make their mark on history and Tom Brady becomes the greatest QB of all time? The reason can be found in the infamous words of Stevie Wonder, "very superstitious, nothing more to say."

Since we didn't host one football party this year to watch our beloved Pats go undefeated, we won't have one today. Kevin's day consisted of sleeping in, reading the newspaper, getting a haircut (a lucky cut maybe), and going to the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet (yuck) in town, as he has done for 19 weeks in a row supporting his Patriots. All of which was carefully paced and choreographed until 6:32 this evening (kickoff for non-sports fans).

I hope my purchase of two new Patriots collars for the girls didn't throw off the good chi for the Patriots. These new martingale collars came from Greyhounds of Distinction. Great prices, awesome selection and wonderful service. It's VERY difficult to find any sports-themed martingales, so I was psyched to find these just a week before the big game. Alice, the owner and creator of these collars, was kind enough to put them in the mail so they were here by Wednesday. Now, I'm on the look out for Red Sox collars for this spring.

With all this talk of superstition floating around our house I hope Roxy doesn't get any more spooky. Still no toy playing yet or yard running, but it will come around. Maybe she's got her own superstitions too that we don't know about yet.

Go Pats! As I post this the score is: NE 7 NYG 3 early in Q2.

Edited to add (post-Super Bowl): I'm blaming the Patriots' loss tonight on Coach B's red sweatshirt and not on my girls' new collars. I mean, where the hell did that come from? He wears a beat up, cut off gray one all season long and all of a sudden on the biggest night of the year he busts out with some shiny, new, jinxy, sweatshirt. Blame the loss on a sweatshirt, not handsome Tom Brady.