So very, very wrong

Brett Favre soap opera is winding me up

Only an event of stadium-sized proportion could bring Henry's Sports Dish out of summer hiatus. I'm hurt and disgusted by Brett Favre's recent antics, as are hundreds of thousands of Green Bay Packers fans.

Here's the dish: I admonished Brett back in March to quit whining about being "tired" and annul his unexpected, even scandalous, decision to retire from the NFL. When he refused to listen to me, I licked my wounds and tiptoed away.

I begrudgingly tried to warm up to Aaron Rodgers, knowing this was going to be a tough transition to for me but remembering how impressed I was during his brief and respectable performance on the field last year. I dipped my toe cautiously in the shallow end, gradually adjusting to the idea of the new QB.

Now, all of a sudden, Brett is not tired. In fact, he's been "working out." With less than two months until the Packers kick off their 2008 season at Lambeau Field, he says "I wanna come back!" First, I wasn't sure how to feel. I was all flustered and mixed-up and mood-swingy. I reserved judgment as I watched this drama continue to unfold over the past few days. It's still going on, but I've seen enough. My verdict: Brett Favre has poisoned everything. No matter what happens now.

When he realized he wouldn't be welcomed back as a first stringer, he asked to be released from his contract so he could play somewhere else. The Packers have said no, come back here and play backup to Rodgers or shut your piehole. Bitch slap! I think Favre should be forced to go back, sit on the sidelines, and read aloud the quote he gave to his hometown newspaper back in January:

"I'm not getting any younger. I wake up some days and think I can't even touch my toes. I think about that. I think, well, next year is not going to be like some refreshing, awakening season where all of a sudden you're going to feel great. That's not going to happen."

And you know the best part of it? It just occurred to me that he won't even be able to wear #4 anymore. Because his jersey's already been retired. Oh, that's rich.

Seriously, maybe he will come back, with the expectation that they'll trade him instead of forcing him to eat humble pie. But here's the kicker. As of now I'm no longer in the shallow end for Aaron Rodgers. I'm off the deep end.

Suck it up, number four

Brett Favre calls it quits, saying "I'm tired. I'm just tired." He's 38 years old. In human years, I am 56. I'm tired too, but you don't see me whining about my heart not being in it anymore. People count on me. Not only in this house but, I'm told, in the blogosphere at large. It seems like pundits have exhausted their vocabulary. "Superdelegates," "pitchy" "in it to win it." On American Idol, the adjective-challenged Randy Jackson has resorted to making up words, most recently "prowness." And so it's left to me to scour the ether and find something fresh to say. But I do it. I do it for my family. I do it for the world. When I could just take a nap.

This fall, when everyone is craving the wonky pass play that manages to hit the mark, leaving us to exclaim "Sweet Nelly on a tricked-out teeter totter!" When cheeseheads are dreaming wistfully of the unintelligible, pre-snap, gruffly shouted melange of numbers (is it three-nineteeeeeeeeeeeeeen?), what will I be doing? Probably slaving away at the keyboard, pouncing on the nauseating political process and finding fault with fashion everywhere. And what will Brett Favre be doing? Taking a nap.

Disgusting.

I can't bring myself to tell him

Max is so dim. He still thinks the Packers are in it. And he can't figure out why the cheese tastes like plastic.

Meanwhile, there's a buzz around here, which I at first thought was a fly, but then Max caught and swallowed it (he is handy in that way). When I continued to hear the noise, I realized the buzz is about my upcoming Super Bowl XLII live blog.

So far, no one has challenged my claim that I am the only cat in the world who will be live blogging the Super Bowl. The Boston Globe has put their best fact-checkers on it. I am sure a few copycats will emerge, but I say — and permit me to mangle a famous quote:

"A cat who grabs Henry by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way."