Shaking Down the Thunder from the Sky

My husband, the "iMan" as I like to call him ("The iMan and His Apps" from July 26 has more on this), just loaded a new, exciting app onto his iPhone. It enables him to watch Notre Dame football games, in real time, on his phone. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!! (A light splits through the clouds, shining down from Heaven, and the angels rejoice). It's like a miracle!

Yesterday, we attended the wedding of our daughter-in-law's younger brother, and during the reception the iMan was able to watch the Irish play on a teeny tiny screen while he held one or the other of our not-so-teeny-tiny-anymore twin granddaughters in his arms. Until he found this miraculous app, he didn't know what he was going to do. It was a real conundrum: he was going to be away from a television set for the duration of an entire Notre Dame football game--and it was the opening game of the season, a home game, a game that Notre Dame was favored to win by 11 points. The Irish had gone into the season ranked 16th in the nation and the legions of loyal fans who live and breathe Notre Dame football felt they had reason to hope, after so many dry years, that Brian Kelly was the guy to turn things around, and THIS might be the year that the Irish would make a run for the national championship. Yes, this was a game that couldn't be missed...so thank goodness the iMan found a way not to miss it. Right?

I'm thinking wrong, actually, because if you're a die-hard Notre Dame fan, yesterday's game was a train wreck. And if you didn't get a chance to watch it, that might be a good thing. Notre Dame lost to South Florida--a team that they were predicted to beat handily--23-20. In spite of racking up 508 yards to South Florida's 254 (that's right, they gained twice as much yardage), our boys in blue and gold just made a gazillion mistakes and couldn't seem to put enough points up on the board to get the job done. Thunderstorms caused two lengthy delays during the game. Unfortunately, though, we're not talking about metaphorical thunder here. It wasn't because the football team was inspired by the lyrics of the Notre Dame Victory March to "shake down the thunder from the sky." (And they didn't wake up any echoes, either.) The stadium had to be evacuated twice because of lightning strikes--something that had never happened before in Notre Dame's history. It's almost as if God was as angry at the Irish yesterday as my hubby was! Actually, my husband wasn't really angry--just very disappointed and bummed out.



Anyway, it's early yet. You can't give up hope after the season opener. So let's be eternal optimists like my middle son and believe that anything is possible: for instance, it's still possible that the Irish will be 11-1 at the end of the season. Hey, it could happen! GO IRISH!