Its that Time of Year...

Football season. In other words, Brandon is in heaven.

Last year, I joined my work's fantasy football league in an effort to help me bond with Brandon and get in on some playful work banter. Let's just say that the part about it helping me bond with Brandon didn't really work. My interest lasted about two seconds and then I had Brandon do everything for me. Actually, I did two things. As he did all the drafting etc, I named the team and searched the Internet long and hard for an avatar to represent my team in the league.

I ended up naming my team The Cookie Monster Riot and chose this avatar:

Both of those things got me plenty of playful work banter and indirectly and innocently proved that football will never be my thing.

Anyways, I have a point. It is football season again. Brandon is enthralled and loving every second of it. I'm not in a fantasy league (Brandon's three leagues cover this house pretty well) and I don't like it any more than I did last year. BUT something strange has happened. Instead of feeling this twinge* of annoyance when I hear the TV blaring a game, there's a piece of me that is actually pleased that Brandon has something so enjoyable to do. He's working pretty hard these days and lets me do my own thing without batting an eye, so why not let him soak up all things NFL? This revelation has left me feeling so mature and a little like the Grinch whose heart grew three times in size after he let the Whos have Christmas. I just had to share. That's all.




*OK fine. That 'twinge of annoyance' part was a bit of an understatement.

Dilemma

A few days ago, I pulled into my parking space after a long day of being really bored at work. As I pulled my keys from the ignition I noticed a new sight. TWO new garbage cans.
Actually, one of them (the blue one) had been there for a few days and to be honest, I was a little irritated about it. This new garbage can has a drop down lid whereas the last model had a window that you slid open. Although the window version was way less sanitary (the door would always stick forcing you to touch it more. Sick!), it was great because the door was usually left open and our 8 billion kitties would meander in and out their hearts content. This meant that I got to see them in all their glory several times a day. It was a little like this:

Ok, so it turns out you have to click on my art work to see it better.

Anyways, the trash management people switched everything up and all of a sudden everything has changed. I mean, how will my kitties get into the trash now? As I sat in my car, trying to figure out what the people around here have against my precious kitties, I slowly realized that there was something very very different about the second bin....

A recycling bin! Only the devout will remember that I have a conviction about recycling but have never had a curbside recycling service. As a result, I have been diligently driving across town for several years now to properly dispose of my recyclable waste. Once I realized that I would no longer have an embarrassingly large pile of recycling in my kitchen, a radiant smile spread upon my face and washed away my sadness about my job that is slowly killing me and the passive-aggressive way my neighborhood is trying to rid me of our kitties.

That smile, though, disappeared the next morning when I didn't see any of the kitties prancing around the parking lot. They've officially jumped ship to forage in greener pastures, I'm afraid. So now I'm torn. While I can breathe a sigh of relief that I can now live my conviction with gracious ease, how am I going to replace that void that our kitties once filled? Perhaps I need to put out that water bowl I was musing about a few weeks back...is it possible that they would then trickle back and I could have the best of both worlds?