Sports! Also: Much Chicken is Eaten

So, no, I didn't post on Friday.  I felt like bloody hell all day because of Ted's cheap brandy, and didn't feel up to typing.  But!  That doesn't mean I didn't do anything on Friday -- indeed, I went to Union Pig and Chicken for lunch, and it prompted many thoughts on gentrification, race, and urban redevelopment, which I wrote into a blog and posted here.  Please read it: I'm curious about others' thoughts on the subject.

And then the weekend was busy!  Saturday, first of all, was a big day of Sports.

Ted in his West Ham kit, from back when Dr. Martens was their sponsor.

Ted's English football team is West Ham, and last year they got relegated down into the Championship League.  (My team, Middlesbrough, was relegated in 2009, and there they seem likely to stay for the foreseeable future.)  But, the Hammers were in the Championship Final against Blackpool on Saturday morning, and the winner got to move back up to the Premier League.  So off we went to Piper's Pub to watch the match.

English Breakfast Boxty

Piper's is the best place in the city I know of to watch soccer, and this seems to be confirmed by the number of expats that are there every weekend.  Plus they have delicious United Kingdom comfort food to nom.  I actually special-ordered an English Breakfast (fried eggs, bangers, mushrooms, tomatoes, and baked beans, usually with toast) atop a boxty, an Irish potato pancake.  Needless to say, that couldn't possibly have been a bad idea.

West Ham pulled it out in the end, and Ted is very excited, because this means that next season he'll be able to watch their matches on TV at Piper's Pub.  (The poor Champions League doesn't get televised in America, that I'm aware of, except for the big League Final.)

After that, it was back home for a little relaxation.  Then we set off for the Consol Energy Center to see ... the Pittsburgh Power.  Yes, we went to see Pittsburgh's Arena Football League team.  I'd never seen Arena Football before, and it's kind of odd.  The score runs up much higher, but the play's no faster, because the field's so short north-south that after about five yards or so, the rushing player just gets crushed into the wall; pass plays don't come off too well because, well, they're not the best QBs out there, y'know?  It was hard to judge the fan investment in the affair, by which I mean, I couldn't tell what percentage of the enthusiasm on display was ironic, as compared to earnest.  Ted and I watched with more interest in the spectacle than investment in the winner (and a good thing, because the Power lost to the Kansas City Command), but we had a nice time anyway.  EXCEPT.  I went into the affair super excited because there was supposed to be a Tim Horton's stand in the Consol, and God knows I love me some Tim Horton's.  Except when we got there, the stand had been converted into a motherfucking Dunkin' Donuts kiosk.  Dunkin' Donuts is so mightily inferior to Tim Horton's it is impossible to even quantify the exact level of inferiority -- you like, need an electron microscope or something.  Plus, the Consol Center is Pittsburgh's ice hockey arena; eating Dunkin' Donuts at a hockey game makes no fucking sense, whereas eating a Tim Horton's donut at a hockey game makes infinity sense.  If you don't know why, educate yourself.  So anyway, that was a huge letdown.

Let's go Pixburgh Paher!

Interesting aside: when I was an instructor at the University of Michigan, one of my students was Terrance Taylor.  He was a senior on the UM football team.  At the time people expected him to be a first or high-second round draft pick after he graduated, but then scouts got wind of the fact he was lazy in the off-season, and he dropped to the fourth round.  He bounced around between Detroit, Jacksonville, and Indy, and now he has landed in the AFL as a defensive lineman for, you guessed it, the Pittsburgh Power.  The world is really fucking small.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to see Terrance play, though, because he is apparently on the IR/suspended roster -- the AFL doesn't bother to distinguish between these two states of inactivity, which is sort of hilarious.

Look at how the grease glistens!

After the game we went to Sidelines for dinner, and I ordered the Kitchen Sink Crunch Burger (except with a chicken breast instead of a burger, because ground cow is disgusting).  It was the unhealthiest thing I could think of, and it just felt right, given the evening's activity.

Speaking of unhealthy chicken sandwiches, on Sunday evening we went out to dinner at Burgatory with Davin, which was tasty.  One could also consider it a celebratory chicken sandwich: on Sunday, Ted and I finally finished our jigsaw puzzle.  I did not know those things were so fucking difficult.

VICTORY IS OURS.

Today, I took myself to $5 Movie Monday at Waterworks Cinema -- you get a free small popcorn, and free air conditioning, too.  I watched The Avengers again, 'cause it was awesome.  After that I picked up a hoagie, which I ate in the park -- by which I mean, I parked my car and rolled all the windows down and ate in my car in the park, because I'm not really a sit in the dirt kind of girl.  Then after that it was off to get more leafs at the farmers' market in East Liberty, where I got swiss chard, beet greens, carrots, lettuce, and a quart of absolutely delicious strawberries, plus some local honey.

These are so fucking good.

Currently, I'm making some simple tomato sauce for the stuffed shells we're having for dinner tonight along with the wee lettuces.  I have no regrets about the unhealthy noms of the weekend, but I'm glad I went and bought some leafs to eat today.  A person needs leafy greens to feel OK about themselves.