It's that time of year again...

when I lose the Irishman every weekend for two months to international rugby. Last year Ireland won the 6 Nations tournament with a Grand Slam, beating all each of the other 5 countries (England, Scotland, Wales, France, and Italy), and are gunning to defend their title. The Irishman is pumped for this year's competition, so much so that when I was courted with a romantical suggestion of going to Paris for Valentine's Day for the second year in row I knew there was an ulterior motive: of course Ireland is playing France in Paris on 13 February. The Irishman thought it would be wonderful to spend the weekend in the City of Lights/Love, with an entire day devoted to watching gigantic men in tight shorts jump on top of one another. Actually, as long as #15 Rob Kearney is playing for Ireland, I'm FINE with watching a rugby game, but I had to reject his sentimental offer. He got his wish in the end, though, as friends from the US Kat and DK are going to be here next week, and we're all going to head across the channel for the weekend so the boys can go to the rugby and the girls can go to Chanel. Sounds fair, no?

To be completely honest, I do enjoy watching a rugby game in the pub with the Irishman and his mates, but I get really really nervous. I've come to adopt the Irish team as my own, and I get really upset if they fall behind or miss big plays. Now that they are defending their title, I couldn't actually watch their first game yesterday vs Italy. Even though it was an easy game, and the won handily, the thought of sitting through a heartwrenching loss is too much for me. So I watched the pregame show with the Irishman, and then went shopping. It looks like that's going to be the status quo for my weekends for the foreseeable future.