It’s about 9:30 Monday night, and I’m just now feeling almost back to normal after that weekend. Wow. Here’s the details:

* Thursday: Travel to Columbus and several stops in preparation for Saturday before we actually arrived at my folks’ home. Oh, and a stop at La Casita for a quick carnitas burrito before heading home as well. Needed to make sure we keep our energy up.

* Friday: After we picked up the car in the morning — and said goodbye to my beloved old Civic hatchback, the one that had been with me/us for 211,000 miles — we met Fred at Barley’s Arena District brewery to help select the growlers for Saturday. We almost went with their excellent Christmas ale, but picked the Scottish, the imperial pils (for the second week in a row) and the imperial stout. Saturday was supposed to be chilly and wet; the stout was my pick to help ward off the chill if things got ugly, weatherwise. We then headed home to prep for the annual Michigan Game Eve dinner with my parents and Fred and Ethel, featuring the famous Uncle Crappy Family Spaghetti. Here’s the setup:

As dinner approached, I had to reposition the gigantic inflatable Brutus that smiled down from the front deck, to help protect him from the wind. The Wife said I had to post this picture — something about everybody inside laughing while I tried valiantly to save Brutus:

Wait — what’s so damn funny?

As is the case with most Saturdays during football season, we were up early. For one of the tailgate parties, it means packing coolers and loading a whole bunch of crap up in the truck before we head over to the game; because we were just watching this one on TV, it meant only packing up coolers and dragging them to the back patio, where we set things up stadium-style:

I was the designated cook on Saturday. While I’m generally pretty handy in the kitchen, this main course wasn’t especially complicated: fire and meat. I’m good at that.

We ate and settled in to watch the game. About half of the group opted for watching inside, away from the cold and in the presence of good-sized high-definition television. The dumber half of the group — including me, by the way — stuck with Patio Stadium, braving the cold. Refreshments, shown below, helped.

* The game itself? A beast only a Buckeye fan could love. The weather in Ann Arbor was nasty — cold and wet — and that pretty much precluded any kind of passing game by either team. And that worked out well for us, because as it turned out, Michigan was unable to run the ball, either because Mike Hart was too hurt to be really effective or because our defense is actually that good against the run. The answer probably lies somewhere in between; either way, Michigan could only put up 91 total yards and 3 points all day. We didn’t need much more — the answer was to give the ball to Beanie (Q: “Who was the 13th president of the United States?” A: “Run Beanie Wells.”) and let him slowly kill the Wolverines, 4 yards at a time. An ugly game, in the tradition of Woody and Bo, with the shimmering promise of a Rose Bowl at the end — it couldn’t have been more perfect.

* The hangers-on took in the HBO documentary about the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry in the evening, while we scarfed down barbeque, courtesy of The Wife and HP, and the well-done program left me with a couple of thoughts. First, I almost choked when I saw the first footage of the Plain Dealer reporter/Ohio State fan who was featured; I went to school with Aaron Marshall, and I worked with him at the student paper at OU. We used to run into him at games, of both the OU and OSU variety, but we hadn’t seen him for a couple of years. It’s great to know he’s still on board.

Even better than seeing Aaron Marshall was listening to his thoughts about game. A long-held point of contention among Michigan fans is that us Ohio State folks are too over-the-top about the rivalry. We place too much importance on the outcome of the Michigan game, and about Ohio State football in general. Aaron’s response: Why is enthusiasm a bad thing? The Michigan folks in the show — including Mike Wallace, for crying out loud — spend a lot of time talking about how superior their university is, how Ohioans are a little rednecky, slightly uncouth and, apparently, somehow underprivileged. They openly discuss their arrogance and, of course, come off that way in the documentary.

Is that good?

Michigan is a great university, one of the best publics in the country; Ohio State is a gigantic land-grant school, with less stringent admissions policies. UM is there to serve a certain class of people, and there’s no question that money is as big a part of the equation as is test scores or grade-point averages; Ohio State exists to provide opportunities to nearly everyone who is willing to do the work. It’s not exclusive, and it doesn’t seek to exclude people who don’t have the money or the high school class standing that their peers in Ann Arbor might have. There’s no question that OSU is the more democratic of the institutions; there’s also no question which university I’d be more comfortable with, if I was weighing the two without consideration to my existing bias.

Dinner finished up, we cleaned up, and everyone headed home. The Wife read on the patio while the fire pit burned itself out, and I watched WVU and Cincy on TV. That was Miles’ favorite part of the day.

* Sunday. Was. Slow. A nice breakfast out with my folks. A visit with the Coochie Doctor and Matlock, both to return the fire pit they loaned us for Saturday and to spend a little time with their baby (who may soon need a nickname of his own). A drive back to Pittsburgh in the new ride, listening to the Browns game on the radio. Eating soup when we got home. Going to bed by 9:30 and sleeping for about ten hours. Ahhh.

* The Browns game? My understanding was that the field goal was ruled good because Phil Dawson called the banks. Whooo!

* A couple final Michigan-related thoughts. Lloyd Carr? All the rivalry stuff aside, a classy guy. Hope he’s able to enjoy retirement. Les Miles? There’s a coach I’m really going to enjoy hating.

* As much fun as the football trips are, that’s one long-ass season. I’m really looking forward to spending the next few weekends at home.