Even though I was off for a holiday this week, it seemed to be a long week. I'm glad it is September, though. The temperatures are dropping and I'm feeling more festive already. No matter how short the season is, to me, Summer always drags on and on and when we finally start to get Fall-like events and things, I get really happy. The events are starting to show up! I have an itch to wear boots and sweaters! Bring on the homecoming parades, the corn mazes, the pumpkin breads, and the turning leaves (well, those that survived the drought, anyway).
Today I held the biggest hailstone I've ever seen. It wasn't really an epic-sized hailstone in the history of hailstones or anything. This was closer to an inch or maybe slightly larger in diameter, I think. A big storm hit Columbia this afternoon and it didn't even start out as rain, it just started dropping massive hail. Some parts of the city got hail the size of lemons. LEMONS. We decided ours was more like cherry tomatoes... Still, it was pretty impressive. Or, I was impressed, anyway. Maybe I'm easily impressed? It's easy to be impressed and not upset about it when you're comforted by the idea that your car is protected in a parking garage and not just out on the street like it would be if I had been at home and the storm hit.
Tomorrow is the first big football game of the season for the Tigers. Georgia is here to play us and to say Columbia is excited would be a major understatement. It's hard to not get excited when everyone else is so excited about it. I'd been hearing all week about these 'sightings'. Like mythical creatures, the fans of Georgia had been seen around Columbia (or were rumored to have been seen) and everyone was kind of ecstatic about the fact that we're now in a conference where the fans actually travel to watch their teams play football. Mizzou and Columbia are incredibly welcoming. I don't know how long that will last. Maybe a season or two? Eventually, it won't be as friendly as it is right now. But, after hearing about them, I looked on Wednesday and Thursday, but until today, I didn't actually see any of these Georgia fans. I had to laugh when I finally saw some today while eating at Chipotle. My friend and I looked at them and smiled, laughing at our reactions, like 'They do exist! Hello Georgians! Welcome!' They were easily picked out by their red Georgia tennis caps, and assorted Atlanta Braves t-shirts. There's been a lot of talk about trying to make Mizzou fit the SEC image, which includes dressing up for football games. That's another thing I'm not sure is really going to stick around Columbia after one or two seasons. It's hard to keep your khakis and tie clean while tailgating for 8 hours pre-game. I just don't really see that working out at MU, but for now it seems like Mizzou fans are all a-twitter about buying dresses and dressy clothing to wear to the football game to fit in with the SEC culture. I know many of the Greek houses are requiring Sunday attire for the games this season. Hmm. Should be an interesting change.
Did you watch any of the political conventions? I think the USA does itself a big dis-service by not having Election Day within a week of these conventions. Americans do not have long attention spans and nobody is going to remember what was or was not said at these conventions in two months. I mean, come on. If you want these things to matter, you've got to know your audience. And perhaps these conventions used to be a big deal, but for God's sake, MTV had it's Video Music Awards on while the President was speaking last night at the Democratic National Convention. I couldn't tell on Twitter who was performing at which event, all the tweets were getting mixed up as AP was trying to report on everything. It was ridiculous. As an aside, though: whatever you feel about politics, you've got to admit that our First Lady is pretty much the coolest woman on Earth. Her speech rocked and she held the attention of an entire room of democrats and got them all fired up without ever once mentioning Mitt Romney's name. She didn't get mean or make cracks about anybody; she was dignified and classy and that's why she's so awesome. I prefer that kind of speech. The kind that makes its point without being ugly about it. Politics is ugly, I know. But some politicians seem to spend so much time throwing mud that their mud pits are so deep now, they couldn't rise out of it even if they wanted to. That's probably why it's so amazing when you have someone like Mrs. Obama who can rise above everything, make her points relevant and personal, and enliven her audience without shredding an opponent's name to bits. I don't know how anyone could dislike her. It'd be like disliking a unicorn and nobody can do that. It's impossible.
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