This weekend my mom and brother are coming to visit. At first it was going to be a weekend in which we would get to see them both, and I was going to take him to an Iowa Hawkeye game at Purdue.

But the weekend has morphed into “Sports Weekend.” The title of this post “Panem et circences” is Latin for “bread and circuses” which is something the Romans used to distract the people from their problems.  After two solid years of college and graduate school, I could use some bread and circuses.

No more papers. Not today.

Shortly thereafter they arrive, my brother and I are going to drive downtown to watch our first ever “in-person” NBA game (the Indiana Pacers vs the Toronto Raptors). I only wish the Bulls were playing. I didn’t even know the Raptors existed, because the last time I paid any attention to the NBA was the Bulls’ three-peat when I was in high school. I was so busy during college I didn’t even know until five minutes ago that the Bulls won ANOTHER three-peat in 1996-1998. Who knew? Anyway, we’re in the nosebleed section, so no chance of getting involved in any brawls (it IS the Pacers, after all). Should be fun.

We’re going to be pretty high up, so at least the Pacers have a big monitor, right?

Then Saturday morning we get up bright and early to head up to Lafayette, Indiana to watch the Purdue Boilermakers lose to the Iowa Hawkeyes. At least I hope. This will be my first ever NCAA football game, and people are telling me that we’re supposed to get there like four hours early or something. I wasn’t four hours early for my own wedding, I don’t know why I would be that early for a football game. My mom wasn’t even in labor with me for four hours, so there’s that.  The game isn’t until noon, and it takes 90 minutes to get there from my house. If I’m out of bed at 6am, we have a problem. Anyway, the tickets were wicked cheap (since it’s Purdue, after all). We’re four rows up from the field and the tickets only cost $15 each. If we sat up in the nosebleed section, we could have had tickets for $1.31 each. That’s how bad Purdue is, evidently. I hope this comment doesn’t come back to bite me on the rear, just in case the Hawkeyes lose.

Nobody wants to see this. Nobody.

The rest of Saturday (after the game) is just down time. Sunday morning we are going to church, and then my brother and I will be heading down to Lucas Oil Stadium to watch the Colts beat the Rams. I haven’t been to a Colts game in three years, so this should be fun.

Too bad we couldn’t fit any more sports into this weekend.