March Madness??

Well- before we get to the March Madness- Let me tell you today is absolutely gorgeous- weather doesn't get better than this. 70 degrees! Clear skies! No wind! And the daffodils are beginning to flower! And it is St. Patrick's Day- the first of the "welcome" spring holidays. So I made a Shepard Pie- well sorta Shepard Pie- I didn't use lamb (which is why it is called "Shepard's pie- chickens don't need a "Shepard") I used chicken- happy chickens of course- well not very happy recently- though one time this chicken was happy- running about an Amish Farm- not Irish- but there just isn't much Irish in this part of the world. And then I used parsnips- not potatoes. And then since the Irish (and the British and the Germans and the Scots) are not really known for actually seasoning food I borrowed from the Morrocans and used coriander seed, tumeric, cumin seed- threw in celery seed for good measure and salt and pepper.

We did open a couple of bottles of Guinness- but I quickly switched to a French wine.

Now that we've finished with the St. Patrick's Day- we moved onto March Madness.

OK, Max and I are definitely not obsessed with sports (other than watching baseball during the summer), but we decided that this year we would participate in that age old tradition of filling out the NCAA championship brackets with our choices of the winners. We have NEVER paid much attention- this despite the attention paid to this Madness by much of our family. Of course to do this properly one needs to have something at stake, something on which you bet so that if you win, you get the obviously deserved reward for picking all of those winners.

This created our first problem. We decided that the bet should be something that we wanted, that could be provided by the other, and something that we didn't already have. One rule imposed by Max was that we also had to disclose it in this blog, so that left out some of my obvious bets. Trust me- I didn't ask what his bets might be- I don't want to know- not now- not ever...

Now, just exactly what did either of us want that the other could provide (within the confines of this blog) we didn't already have??? Anything either of us really wants we already have. Need I remind you of the Kitchen Aid mixer that apparently I wanted for my Christmas present a couple of years ago. Sure enough Max "surprised me" with one well before Christmas. There seems to be lots of these examples, new pots and pan, a new vacuum sweeper, other kitchen stuff, and this year a new indoor herb "AeroGarden". So what could I possibly want?? I couldn't come up with a thing. Now- trust me- I know how very, very, very happy I am with Don- And I also am always aware of how "indulged" I am (coffee brought to me in bed 7 dayas a week- cleans the kitchen after every "cooking adventure" I might dream up- If I say I like roses- then he's out back digging up a new garden to plant roses- I want a piano- and now I have a GRAND one)- I couldn't think of a single thing that I might wager.
Consequently, we finally decided that the winner would get "winner bragging rights" for one day.

Now to choose the winners in our brackets. Unfortunately, neither of us has watched a college basketball game all year long. We have no idea who has beaten whom. But does that really make any difference since every year there are always some very surprising upsets.

So Max used her magic by picking teams that were from states that had some meaning to her. As she said: "I picked from the heart". For example, since she knows someone from Tennessee, she picked 16th seeded Chattanooga over top seeded UConn and 8 seeded BYU and Radford (Radford??) over North Carolina because she just doesn't like the South. I don't think she knows Radford is in Virginia. But nonetheless March Madness is about upsets, so who am I to question such logic? She did pick Oklahoma to win it all, so her faith in OU sports hasn't diminished after their awful performance in football bowl games year after year. Don had assured me that he hadn't been reading ANYTHING at all about college basketball this year- And that he really didn't have ANY IDEA who might win- and since I don't know ANYTHING about college basketball (stopped watching when the guys started wearing the long shorts) it seemed that the playing field might be relatively level. So I picked FROM THE HEART (Brandy says that this is how she picks her teams)- Always pick the team playing AGAINST ANYONE from Texas, California or the south- except for Duke- I know kids who went to Duke- so I don't consider it a TOTALLY SOUTHERN school- Besides I think I remember hearing that they play pretty good basketball. And I could NEVER, EVER, EVER choose someone over OU. I am LOYAL!

I used a much more informed approach. I did know what the seeding was (I do know what seeds are- just didn't know that basketball has seeds- thought just gardens did!) and who is favored in the supposed easy games for the top seeds. I mostly went with teams I knew of, teams that were in tougher conferences and teams with big names. I think my guesses are probably no better than Max's but we will see. Let the games begin!!!