Finally!

Welcome to ex-CUSA, North Texas! Nice knowing you!

WE WON A HOMECOMING GAME! Cue the 1812 Overture y'all.....



Remember when Nell and I decided last year that we needed to change the name to take off the pressure, and just call it "A Gathering" to reset expectations? Well, mother nature took care of that and forced TPTB to completely wus out and cancel their homecoming village instead.

Except for us. ha ha!

We couldn't be stopped. Our tent did make a sad demise tho from the wind. But hopefully now I can convince Coach Hullabaloo to finally let me buy tent weights already.

We pre-gamed inside the cave and our theme was Oktoberfest. A good time was had by all.

And girl, let me tell you that the menu we came up with was AWESOME. More on that later.

So you'll all be disappointed to learn that I LEFT like a complete wussy in the fourth quarter when Montana got his lights knocked out and we went 3 and out. I just did not have the fortitude that better fans have who stayed for the dramatic conclusion to our Karen Homecoming. Although Coach Hullabaloo did say he was white knuckling it and just dreading in his mind about how we managed to blow the lead and possibly continue our tradition of a) losing homecoming and b) finding extraordinary ways to lose games. Except that we didn't! Because Holy Shizzlemongers, we won.

It is 48 hours later and I'm finally processing it. No kidding, so this is how it feels to win a homecoming. Not to be screaming at refs because your coach can't manage a game clock. No sir.

But hold up, now. This win doesn't make me wistful about South Alabama. Because if certain someone had been on top of things year 3, year 4, and year 4.5 of Toledo ball, that game wouldn't have even been on the schedule, much less that close. And it doesn't make Syracuse fade into the rearview mirror neither, because we should have been competitive like when we played Alabama in 2007. Clemson just humiliated Syracuse at home and we need to aim higher than USA and UNT. I'm not satisfied with being evenly matched with directional schools and I won't apologize for that. So let me set that straight right now.

However, I was so lucky to be there in the flesh and witness Darion Monroe BLOCK A FIELD GOAL and Strozier run it back for a touchdown. Hullabaloo-ray-ray!

Image by Parker Waters
My mind was totally blown. As I was jumping up and down in the stands, all I could hear was Mr. Koozie yelling "FINALLY! FINALLY! FINALLY!" We have waited 120 years to be on the giving end of a play like that.

So anyways, I was outside setting up pre-game late in the fourth. I had turned off the car radio when UNT tied. Even FF Jim packed up Red and headed back to the Northshore. And then I just happened to take a deep breath and decided to just woman up and look at twitter to see the final and read the happy news. It was like the heavens parted and the angel orchestra played the 1812 Overture. Peggy was cracking me up saying that they had given all of the seats button holes by clinching their butt cheeks during the field goal drive.

Image by Derick Hingle for USAToday. Love the look on #85 Duce.
Coach Hullabaloo was very impressed with the two minute offense, as well as with the clock management by Coach CJ. Braaa-vo! No More TimeOut Toledo, thank you. And our friend whom I'll call Buggy, who's been a loyal die-hard since Tulane Football was mentioned in the movie Father Was A Fullback, actually had tears in his eyes after Cairo kicked one for the ages.

Grown Men, crying y'all. This is what it means to be a Tulane fan y'all.

image for the Tulane Hullabaloo newspaper.
So it goes without saying that the post-game revelry was out. the. box. I died laughing when Graff said to not bother calling, because he wasn't in the mood to hear it from the whiners and complainers like me, ha ha!

Us hullabaloo huddlers stayed in the cave for a spell and handed out shots of apple schnapps spiked with goldshlager to passengers as they were being driven out of the dome. It was great. And then we had an amazing dinner at Vincent's with our peoples with a very nice toast.

I was sad to miss Lorenzo Doss's pick 6 though inside the dome. It's no big secret that I am completely neurotic. Sometimes I have kitchen mojo at home, sometimes it's bathroom mojo. For the Saints NFC championship game in 2009 it was bathroom mojo. For the Saints Tampa game a few weeks ago, it was kitchen mojo. Anyways, I take this mojo zone adherence very seriously, as do my friends. If I actually watch a tight game, I literally sometimes get too worked up and I can throw up. No joke. So when momentum was kinda swinging back to UNT, I went and took a mojo break in the powder room. And I could hear the roars and cheering from Doss's pick 6.

So now I have to wait for the replay on Tuesday to watch the fourth quarter winning drive and Doss' pick 6. But at least I didn't have to admit that I was wearing purple drawers like I did after our SMU game. Because that was one of my darkest admissions and something that I am carrying with me to the grave.

The crazy thing is that we are all now getting ahead of ourselves and bickering about which bowl game we would prefer (like we have a say in the matter). My tailgate peeps are now fighting about the merits of Liberty Bowl v. St. Petersburg Bowl. I am holding out for the Bahamas Bowl or Hawaii Bowl if you ask me. It's Christmas/New Years, let a girl dream.

Speaking of dreams, our homecoming spread was fab.

Red brought german chocolate cupcakes. Peggy brought a german fruit salad and a fantastic baked bean casserole with sauerkraut and the recipe is below. We also reprised Circe's German Tater Salad which is always great. And new to our list: the beer cheese dip <- delicious. I was literally almost stupid with the beer cheese dip and ate the whole thing myself.

For our pretzel portion of our Oktoberfest menu I was literally turning myself inside out. Thankfully on Friday, the WWL Unknown Food Critic profiled Gracious Bakery and so that's how we discovered pretzel croissants.

Heavenly.

Coach Hullabaloo found Shiner Bock Oktoberfest too. And we made Apple Strudel shots with half apple schnapps and half goldshlager. Can't wait to reprise this, it was such a success. We are so theme-y, I can't stand it.

So new recipes for proper Oktoberfest tailgating....

Peggy's German Baked Beans

One 15oz can of pork and beans
7 oz of sauerkraut, rinsed and well drained
halfa cup unsweetened applesauce
quatah cup packed brown sugar
pinch of salt
halfa teaspoon ground mustard
nonstick cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400°. Combine all ingredients. Transfer to greased baking dish and bake uncovered for an hour.

Beer Cheese Dip

2 (8 ounce) packages of room temp softened cream cheese
1 (8 ounce) carton of sour cream
1 package of Ranch dressing mix
half a can of full bodied beer
2 cups of shredded cheddar cheease, divided
cooked, chopped bacon - a couple of slices
couple stalks of chopped green onions

mix cream cheese, sour cream, dressing mix and beer. Fold in cup of grated cheese, and maybe a little more. Sprinkle the top of the dip with the remainder of the cheddar cheese. Let the dip refrigerate for an hour or two before serving. You can serve cold, or put it into a crock pot for warm dip. Top with green onions and bacon before serving.

And before we close, I just had to leave y'all with this nugget.

P.S. I am totally NOT judging about the official UNT pre-game. I am an open minded person. I am quite delighted the Mean Green embraced New Orleans and everything it had to offer. Diversity makes the world go round.

Laissez les bon temps rouler, y'all!