SUPERBOWL PARTY BEGINS.

The Super Bowl, I understand, can cost you $25,000 for a fancy box with tickets. On the low end, it costs $35 to park and food is expensive. All that money has given way to Tail Gate Parties and home style Super Bowl Parties. My oldest son, Ken,  began a tradition of super bowl parties with some of his high school buddies. He was the organizer and made artistic invitations, and kept the tradition going without missing a year for about 25 years now. Traditionally, no women are allowed. The guys have their irreverent pet names, and old raunchy stories and jokes that make it off limits. It begins on Friday before the game with a dinner and about five hours of poker. Saturday morning, they usually have breakfast and golf. Then Saturday afternoon is more poker and more food. Then Sunday, they watch the game together and eat a lot. Well, that used to be the case. In recent years, they return home to watch the game with their families. Each year is a bit different.

Hosted at Ken’s this year, he barbecued five different kinds of sausage, Laurie made a quinoa salad and I brought some tamales and beans. But wait, why are we women present? Laurie is headed out for a girls gig with a Lodi friend, a Paint and Wine party in Sacramento. And, I just stopped in and joined them for dinner because I needed to deliver paper work to Doug, who will be headed back to Oregon on Monday. As the guys age, they are getting a bit more tolerant of we women. This is the first time I’ve seen the start of the “big game” even though it has been held at my house, while I’m not there, for at least 3 years that I know of.  They’ve gone to Las Vegas, Chico, Stockton, Farmington, Tacoma, Fremont, Murphys, Pleasanton, Livermore and Arizona, I think!

Hoagie, who is Richard Hogan, used to live neighbors across the street from me. He now lives in Chico. He brought a growler from Des Chutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon.

The handle is very creative and I love the bottle. I want one for my bottle collection!.

Pinkett on the end, to the right is Ken. They are the only two originals. Added later, Darren. Brother Doug, on the opposite end, got invited into the game a couple of years after they started playing. Then, barely visible is Shane, and Hoagie. Shane, Darren and Hoagie are about five or six year newcomers. I had never met Shane and Darren before, though they have played at my house.

They play for the fun and the money. It isn’t high stakes, but the food is good, the pots are nice and the conversation and fun a bit wild.  When Ken lived in Vegas I bought him a set of professional poker chips with his name on them. They are snazzy and look good enough to eat.

The game isn’t so serious you can’t take a lick on the guitar. Or stop and watch some pregame jingles and jangles. Always fun to see the best and worst commercials. Or stuff from previous year relived with a nice big screen close by.

I think in this game, everybody is a winner just for the camaraderie. Laurie and Me, too.

 

 

WETLANDS AND SUPERBOWL SUNDAY.

Just below the prison, an area known as East Wetlands stretches up to the base of a mountain range along the Colorado River.

Wetlands suggest birds to me, but we didn’t see any. I expect we would during the great migration from Mexico and South America.

Much of the water here is provided by the Colorado River and flows through man-made canals.

The terrain changed from low brush to high brush and later to the growing fields under lease or private ownership on what was signed as BLM land.

Now that’s green and we saw miles of it.

A group harvesting lettuce are probably not interested in Super Bowl Sunday. The boss of this crew whistled at me and indicated that I should not to take pictures of them.

I got to see all that green I was longing to see.

Various colors of green as in broccoli.

Kale.

Purple lettuce, too.

On our previous stay in Yuma, we had grapefruit just like this hanging over the motor home where we were parked. Oranges, too.

This bougainvillea doesn’t compare in size to the one we walked past every morning, but there are many beautiful bushes in bloom to enjoy around town.

After our drive, we returned to town and stopped at the VFW to have a beer and a peek at the Superbowl.

We wore our grubbies, knowing we’d have to wash what we wore and take showers to get rid of the smoke. People are nice. Jim befriended Cathy Shrader in the weeks before I arrived and wanted me to meet her. Nice gal, fun to talk to. A widow like me, hesitant about on-line dating as I was.

The VFW was set up for a party, but the game hadn’t started.

I jokingly asked a woman who she was rooting for. Her answer was this. We visited for an hour and left. We never did see anything but pre-game talk on the big screen television. Before going to bed, I called my kids to see who won.