A moment in time

Yesterday afternoon, the Chicago Bears clinched the NFC championship and assured the team a place in Superbowl XLI in Miami on Feb. 4. To say that it was momentous is a serious understatement. I was visiting my sister in Michigan, and as we looked at each other in the last minutes of the game, there was an expression of incredulity on both of our faces. The BEARS are going to the Superbowl?? We have been hoping for this since we were 8 and 6 years old, respectively. That's the last time our football team (because didn't you know, we own them??) made it to the Superbowl. And they won. And the parade was fabulous, I remember being in awe of the ticker tape madness. And the Superbowl Shuffle played over and over again on the TV and radio. It was right about the time that the McDonald's song came out (big mac, quarter pounder, etc.), so in my mind, they are forever entwined, as if the Monsters of the Midway should be eating at McDonald's on a regular basis. Hey, when you have a player called William "Refrigerator" Perry, anything is possible.

Yesterday was amazing. It was a moment, a series of moments, that I will remember forever, probably. Jumping up and down in my sister's living room, screaming and yelling, and watching my 1 year-old nephew's face as he giggled at me, wondering why I was yelling so loud and bouncing him up and down on the couch. He had that look on his face that he always has around me, the one that says "You're funny, Auntie Tee-tee." Some day, he'll understand. And then that one moment, the moment where my sister, the friend who has watched games with me since we were infants and shares my insane passion and energy for an oft-maligned football team, turned to me and said, "Oh, my gosh. We're going to the Superbowl!!" We both turned to our phones and said, "We have to call Dad!" My dad, the one who instilled the deep love of the Bears and of football in his two little girls, was elated. And for a moment, we were those little girls, back in my dad's workshop while he worked on his latest project, dancing and singing along to the infamous words, forever immortalized by the 1985 Bears...

"We're the Bears Shufflin' Crew.
Shufflin' on down, doin' it for you.
We're so bad we know we're good.
Blowin' your mind like we knew we would.
You know we're just struttin' for fun
Struttin' our stuff for everyone.
We're not here to start no trouble.
We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle."

Go Bears!