Rachel does such a great job of making weekends special around here. On Friday when I got home from work, she had delicious, homemade whole wheat chocolate chip cookies in the oven and was in the middle of preparing a fantastic dinner. She has been cooking a lot of healthy meals for us lately, but on Fridays she treats us to an extra bakery item that we try to pace ourselves and enjoy all weekend long – the cookies made it until early afternoon today.

On Saturday Rachel outdid herself on two separate occasions. Before I get to those, however, let me give some background.

We headed into Manhattan for some holiday shopping and sightseeing and had planned to hit up Bloomingdale’s. I must admit, Bloomindale’s was pretty cool and when I have extra stacks of cash lying around the apartment I will probably go back and get some new clothes. After exploring all 9 or 10 stories we’d only made one gift purchase and decided we still had energy for more shopping.

First amazing act: Niketown

As we were walking toward Fifth Avenue we walked right by the big Niketown. There is a huge picture of LeBron James out front and she struck up a conversation with me about LeBron. Anyone who knows Rachel knows that she is not a very big sports fan, but she knows I am, so she humored me. Then she asked, “Do you want to go in?” I was in the market for some new Oregon Ducks gear, so we went in. I told Rachel about the gear I needed and she then struck up a conversation about how good the Ducks are, how much she likes The Little One (her nickname for LaMichal James) and Jeremiah Masoli. Amazing!

We proceeded to spend the next five floors talking about whatever sport we were in the section for. My favorite sections were the English Premier League jersey section (she really wanted me to get some sort of Arsenal Gunner gear) and the Nike Pro Combat Basketball gear. That stuff is intense.

Unfortunately we didn’t find any Oregon gear, but I did have a great time talking sports with Rachel in the middle of our fun shopping outing to Manhattan.

Second amazing act: Oregon vs. Arizona St.

Last night’s game was a late one for us out here on the east coast. It started at 10:20. Rachel has watched the last couple games with me and with each game she has gotten more into them. Before last night’s game she even predicted that the Ducks would put up 67 points. Not too bad of a prediction given how well the offense and how poorly the defense have been playing lately (meaning that the starters would have to stay in and keep scoring 67 points since the defense would keep giving up points). Once the game started – I hope I don’t ruin her reputation as someone who doesn’t like sports – Rachel was more into it than I have ever seen her before. At times she was actually yelling at the TV and LaMichael to break another tackle and score again. I think it was her cheering that was responsible for LaMichael’s three touchdowns in the first twenty minutes of the game – that and his incredible moves.

The game ended around 1:30 am, but Rachel stayed up and watched the entire game with me – and she stayed interested in it the whole time. It was perfect.

I realize Rachel probably hasn’t entirely caught the sports bug, but she has come to terms with me liking sports and has been so wonderful talking to me about them.

Today was great too, by the way. We woke up late after last night’s Duck party and took Crusher for a walk to the park. On the walk we discussed the previous night’s game and where we think the Ducks should be ranked – we both agree the Ducks should be ranked higher than 11, but the two winnable games they lost aren’t helping their cause.

I only hope I can now be as great of a conversationalist to Rachel as she is to me.