January 14, 2003
(For those who are unfamiliar with Philadelphia pro sports, the Eagles and Flyers are two of our local teams. The Eagles are also this-close to qualifying for the championship of the National Football League, the Super Bowl. Predictably, the entire city has gone insane as a result.)
Sigh. This "Eagles Fever" is enough to make a non-football fan bananas. I mean, I'm definitely happy that the Eagles are one win away from reaching the Superbowl, but the unending Eagles coverage every moment of the day, well... aack! Overkill! (Either that, or treat the FLYERS this way when WE go deep into the playoffs. ;-) ) You can't turn on a local channel without seeing an Eagles story. Heck, it seems like every time I turn the faucet on, Eagles news stories come out.
Anyway. The other part of this, which I expected because I've seen it happen for the Flyers, too, is that everyone's decorating their home with Eagles paraphenalia. Banners, posters, signs in the window, that sort of thing. The skyline has joined in, and many of the builldings that normally sport white floodlighting during the year are done up with green lighting for the occasion.
This is all well and good. I think. Well, it STARTED out as well and good, lol...
We have a light outside the house, so DH thought he'd go get a green light bulb for it. He went out, and came back with a green bulb. Um, and also with a green flood light. LOL! We now have the front of the house awash in green light at night.
OK, so we have a green house now. That's fine. My favorite color is green, anyway. But DH wanted to do more. I made the mistake of remembering the *huge* teal balloon that we got from the Flyers' carnival a couple years ago. Me and my big mouth. I said, "It's a shame we don't have helium, we could put that big balloon outside the house." Well. Did you ever regret uttering words the moment they left you? DH found the balloon (deflated) in the drawer, and started inflating it. This had to happen in stages, because this thing's about the size of a very large beach ball at full size. Nobody but the Jolly Green Giant can inflate THAT completely, using their own breath, in one session.
Then he wanted to write GO EAGLES on it. I said, "Don't do that, the ink will probably screw up the balloon rubber and make it leak, over time". So he decided to take the Eagles 8x10 poster, courtesy of the Daily News last year in honor of last season's Eastern Conference championship, that has lived on our refrigerator since then. He taped that to the balloon instead, because on the reverse side of the football picture, THAT had a "Go Eagles!" sign on it.
He wanted to attach it outside the house. So he and the kitchen chair and the giant teal GO EAGLES beach ball all headed out the front door. I bit my tongue. Then I watched the interesting-looking silhouettes that were being made on our miniblinds, courtesy of the green floodlight, as DH did I Knew Not What to affix the giant teal GO EAGLES beach ball to our awning. When the mission was accomplished to his satisfaction, he and the kitchen chair returned from the great outdoors, leaving the giant teal GO EAGLES beach ball creating rather vigorously-waving round shadows on our miniblinds, courtesy of the green floodlight. It was very windy last night.
Harmony sat and looked at the round, constantly moving shadow on the miniblind. She was hypnotized by this, as only cats CAN be, and just sat at attention watching the show.
I asked DH, "What did you attach the balloon to?"
"To a rubber band."
"What did you attach the rubber band to?"
"A paper clip."
This was getting me nowhere, fast. "What did you attach the PAPER CLIP to?"
"To one of those white clips that we hung the Christmas lights from".
I didn't think that the "white clip", a piece of plastic that kind of slid onto the edge of the awning like a clothespin, was going to stand up to that wind, not with a giant teal GO EAGLES beachball dangling from it. But I just said, "Oh." Harmony just kept watching the vigorously-waving round shadow dance in the green floodlight.
About a half hour later, DH noticed that Harmony had lost interest in staring at the green-floodlit front window. Sure enough, the vigorously-waving round shadow was nowhere to be seen. He looked out the door. Also emulating the Margaret Mitchell classic (Gone with the Wind) were the giant teal GO EAGLES beach ball, the rubber band, the paper clip, and the white clip that helped affix the Christmas lights to the awning. DH donned his coat and went out to search for it, but it was a lost cause. Goodness knows when it came off, or where it went, but it was well and truly vanished by the time DH went out looking for it.
Our prevailing wind was from the southwest last night, so the giant teal GO EAGLES beachball could be headed your way. If you see it, send it back. In the meantime, we're not only out one mega-sized balloon, we're also missing a 2001 Eagles conference championship poster and one of the clips for the Christmas lights. Grrr.... I hope that next December we don't regret reducing the population of Christmas light awning clips by one.
Those Eagles had better have two more wins left in them this season (next Sunday and the Super Bowl), or I am gonna be seriously steamed.
Donna
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