It's the novelty of it. It's being able to watch thirteen football games on a Sunday. Never before have I had this opportunity. On the other hand, it never really occurred to me that I might want to watch thirteen football games in one day.

So for the sake of the novelty, I sat on the couch with two remotes in my hand, flipping frantically. It's amazing how little action there is in a football game, when you boil away the huddles and time outs and breast-beating, in-your-face posturing. I can't prove this, but I think you could tape an NFL game, fast-forward through the fluff between plays, and save about three hours of a three-and-a-half hour game.

Seven of the games I watched were on at the same time, starting at ten this morning. (That means I had to be up and dressed by ten, which is a scoop in itself. Wasn't this Sunday?)

At first I would flip up and down the channel lineup, moving on to the next game as soon as a play was finished. Yes, I missed a few plays that way, but I got a feel for which games were going to turn out to be the most interesting. By the time the early games were drawing to a close, I was focused on the ones in Cleveland and Green Bay, with occasional glances at the last minutes of the other games.

What with the football pool I'm in, I had a rooting interest in every game. (That's the same reason I always pick the 49ers, even when I'm not totally confident in their chances to win.) So when the Packers pulled it out with a last-second field goal, at the same time the Steelers were blowing their last shot at coming back against the Browns, I was involved (and happy, by the way, since I picked both winners in those games correctly).

The late games started at the same time as a baseball game I was interested in, so I didn't give them as much attention. I did keep track between innings, and since the baseball game ended early, I watched the finishes of the close football games.

It was exhausting. There's no way I should sit that long. I started getting restless in the middle of the afternoon, but by then it was too hot to move outside the house. In fact, it was almost too hot to move inside the house. (I'm not sure just how hot, since the version of the Weather Channel you get from the satellite doesn't have local temperatures.)

I guess you could say it was an unproductive Sunday. But I feel as if I can cope with whatever the work week brings, after being so utterly self-indulgent all weekend. It'll feel so clean to get down to business on a Monday morning, after a Sunday like this. I did do a load of laundry today, and I got another area of the yard watered, so you can't say I was entirely unproductive.

Y'know, there was another football game tonight that I could have watched. But I was ready for some Olympic swimming competition by then and pretty much ignored the last game. I could probably tell you a little about each of the twelve games I did watch, but I doubt that I learned enough from any of them to help me with next week's picks.

Next Sunday? I don't know. I can't see myself sitting through six or seven hours of football every week. As I said, it was the novelty of it, but novelty wears off. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a novelty.

As I was out watering in the late afternoon sun, I was surprised to see this creature. If it's a spider (and that's definitely a spidery web), it's the biggest one I've seen outside of a zoo or fair exhibit.

I wish I had David's expensive new camera available, so that you could see the details. I got as close as I dared, but the digital camera has its limitations anyway. It's about as big as my thumb (the spider, that is, not the camera). Yellow, with a black strip and white spots. Thick legs like lobster claws. Not something I want creeping into my house, but it showed no interest in moving.