College Football, Cancer Treatments, and Reading List

What an odd title!  But that's what I'm going to be writing about in this post.  I don't often put my life out there on the World Wide Web, but if I don't talk about my life and what's going on in it, well, I don't have much to tak about! Self absorption? Maybe...

Yesterday, hubby and I drove up to Buffalo to watch the boy's last game of the year.  I got a lot of pictures of him on the sidelines, then I got tired of holding the camera, and put it away!  It's hard to sit in a stadium full of spectators trying to get a good shot of your own personal college football player, so forgive me!

There he is - #17, my son!

I'm thrilled that the Mohawk is gone!  Bryce decided that it started to look grossssssss!   I'm thrilled also that one of his suitemates can cut hair - even if he does give a Mohawk or two, the good feature is that he can also shave them off!! 

I don't see that frown very often, but hmmmm, I'm really wondering what he was thinking at that moment??

It was a hot, hot day!  Can you believe it?  It was so hot that hubby and I turned the air on in the car when we got to Buffalo.  Unfortunately, the Buffalo Bengals play on a field that typically has a great deal of wind that sweeps in from Canada, or Lake Erie, or Lake Ontario, or all three.  Usually the temps are very low there this time of year, and typically we shiver throughout most of my son's games.  So being the last game of the season, we figured for sure, it would be unbearably cold.  We both donned our thermal underwear (hey, it was freezing when we left), and we felt like furnaces for most of the game.  Hubby got a sunburn!

Okay, so I took most of the pictures before the game started, so Bryce has his helmet off in all the pictures that I took, except this one:

Ooops!  I cut his head off!  That probably happened as I was trying to balance the camera with one hand and my other hand was high in the air waving to him and his teammate.  He had turned around and was pointing out his floozy of a mother, standing there in all her Bengal gear, and sweating!  I guess I should be grateful that he's not too embarrassed to say, "See that lady standing there with the Bengal shirt, Bengal hat, jumping up and down with the camera screaming 'Bryce, Bryce, over here, honey'.....well that's my mom."

The Bengals lost, but we all enjoyed going out to dinner with an old classmate of Bryce's and his family after the game.  Bryce and the old classmate played high school football together and were (and still are) pretty good buddies.  The old classmate played for the winning team, not the Bengals!  It always feels so strange sitting in the crowd watching two boys who played together in high school, play against each other in college.  They actually are pretty comical!  They pat each other on the butts (what's that all about anyway?), they slap each other on the backs, they smile and laugh!  Whatever!!!!!!!!!

We had a safe ride home without incident, and we were tired, but happy that we spent time with our son!

On a not so happy note, my father has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.  If you are a praying person, and feel so led, please pray for him.  He has a lot of health issues (although to look at him you'd never know).  He has a super great attitude, and we're all rooting for him.  He actually laughed when he told us how he left the doctor's office the other day and overheard the nurse say, "That poor man has so much wrong with him!  But such a nice man!"  Yupper, that's my dad!

He starts his intensive radiation treatments at the end of the month.  He has a few other health issues that they want to get under control before they start.

Now on to my reading list:

  

I finished Reading Lolita in Tehran.  I enjoyed reading the book, but it was an eye-opener to me also.  It shows the terrible oppression that so many on the other side of the world live with every single day of their lives. 

Hubby and I had a wonderfully, rich conversation on the ride to Buffalo about the mentality, and most of the time, ignorance, that plagues these poor people.  Many have very little in regards to worldly goods.  They grow up feeding and nurturing themselves from their family's political and moral values.  Many don't have the luxury of having much of an education.  We, as Americans, often feel that it is our right to an education, but in other parts of the world, it's not even considered nor is it a priority.  Their 'education' stems from watching censored political agendas that the main message is: "Hate Americans!  Kill Americans!  They are of the devil!"  It's easy to understand the methods of their government (brainwashing, in my opinion), but it's also easier to understand the 'why' of the hatred they feel towards the western world.

The author, Azar Nafisi, lived in the United States for over a decade while obtaining her education, having been born and raised in Tehran.  She had always loved her country of Iran, but when The Ayatollah Khomeini usurped power of her country, she started to see the ripping seams of what her country had been built upon, which was basically a hatred that was so consuming that many were willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause that they had been totally misinformed about.  Or perhaps their views were so skewed that they couldn't grasp the reality of what their country was submitting them to. Many ideals taught within the 'home and hearth' atmosphere, obviously, will shape that person's reality.

Once per week, Azar meets with a few select students that she had previously taught at the University of Tehran.  Although she is not a professor at the University of Tehran while meeting with these young ladies, she realizes how much influence she had upon her students while teaching them Western Literature.  Many of those who had appeared withdrawn or perhaps, disagreeable during her years of teaching, were actually staunch supporters of her ideology.  It wasn't until the girls were in the privacy of Azar's home that they would admit to their allegiance.  Surprisingly, she invited women to partake in their literature meeting, when she hadn't seen their support of her beforehand.   Personally, I think that was pretty brave of her!  

All in all, it is a book that I would recommend.  It's not a 'sit back and let things happen' kind of book. It's of the genre that make the mind work.  It also stayed with me long after I read the last page.

Another book that I'm in the process of reading is The Red Tent by Anita Diamanti. 

It's a little different than what I thought it would be.  It's the story of Dinah, Jacob's daughter.  It's not to be confused as Biblical, as Anita Diamanti has made it clear that she is writing in the novel format.

I'll review the book properly once I've finished reading.