Beer and football II — week sixteen

The game: Dolphins at Patriots
The beer: Ipswich 20th Anniversary Imperial Pale Ale
The result: Win, 27–24
The commentary: Crazy Christmas Eve. And that's right, my daughter sucks her thumb! And grabs her nose in the process! Is she beautiful or what? (Also, dig our similarly posed Christmas card on the fridge. Meta!)

This is going to be a short one, with kickoff just over an hour away. I missed most of the first half of last weekend's game: our goal was to leave in time to arrive in Connecticut around 12:30 so we could settle in before I started aw-shucksing "Um, can we put the game on?" But G. had her own ideas and, admittedly, her mom and dad should have finished packing and gift-wrapping the night before. It's just so hard, Ringo.

Luckily, even with an obligatory Starbucks stop, we cruised down with no traffic at all. The TV was on almost immediately and when I saw what I'd missed I pulled up the Fios app on my phone and deleted what I'd so far recorded of the game (I'm glad we elected to go with Sonik Truth II playing the Greatest Holiday Playlist Ever—six hundred twelve songs and counting!—in the car instead of the radio broadcast). No need to watch a bunch of punts and defensive miscues after returning home, right? Anyway, we now know that the second half was the one to watch, in spite of Miami's late touchdown that served as yet another reminder to non-believers that this defense is real-deal atrocious. (I drank the delicious Ipswich while watching two weeks worth of Patriots Football Weekly the other night. During the game and up through the party that evening I alternated between Lagunitas IPAs and some stunning Southern Tier Double Milk Stouts, both of which were my contribution, of course. Fortunately for me there were no big drinkers around and I got to enjoy most of it myself.)

I had a nice week off. On Tuesday I took G. to the mall to try to return a bunch of stuff and to see if I was at all capable of changing her diaper in public by myself. Success! She did well for awhile but before long I cut the trip short, swung by Starbucks again (d'oh!) and took her home. As a parent it was the mature, responsible thing to do—needless to say my new year's resolution is to continue to set such reasonable expectations.

Up next: Remember 2003? Happy new year!