This caused great lamentation, not because of the holiday accusation, but because Bryan prefers Spring for convalescence, specifically the month of March. Here’s an insight into fanthropology – the endlessly fascinating study of fankind.

Here are some stats. In the nearly 20 years since I’ve been married to Bryan he’s had three surgeries: two knee surgeries and one of a highly personal nature related to birth control – yes, the Big V. In each case, unbeknownst to me, Bryan scheduled the surgeries during March so he would have an ironclad excuse to laze around, I mean convalesce, watching college basketball games. As his nurse, I’d set him up with snacks, beer and a bag of peas in the freezer for icing. If you haven’t discovered the glories of frozen peas in the household medical kit, start now. What’s beautiful about peas is that they will sculpt to whatever part of the body needs to be iced.

One day, when my Louisiana mother-in-law was visiting us, we got home from work and she had surprised us with dinner. One of the items on the menu was peas. Once I realized that these were medicinal peas, I politely told her I’d have to pass on the peas.

Lesson learned: label the peas clearly in your freezer if they are not meant for consumption.

Bryan is consoling himself with the fact that there are a lot of Bowl games during this December timeframe, so life is not all bad for the sports fan.

The Sports Widow
(aka Nan Hall)

Listen to the "Sports Widow" Friday at 8:00am(PST) on Chat with Women Radio KKNW 1150 AM or download a podcast.

At the crux of it, it's all about time: me time, we time as a couple, we time as a family AND, of course, equity. There really is no equivalent to sports fanatacism in most women's lives. We laughlingly say shopping is an antidote, but the fact is that two things curtail our shopping - time and, sadly, budget! My husband easily spends about 10-15 hours a week on sports, but the times where the parity rubs me wrong are the long 2 to 3-hour stretches. When you have young children, someone has to shepherd them. This is time I want back.

One of my survival strategies as a Sports Widow is my monthly, 16-year-old Movie Club (we call it the Lazy Woman's Book Club). Knowing that I can look forward to this evening takes away some of the sting. Here are the elements of a good Movie Club.

• Select a group of 6-8 of your favorite women, preferably with a variety of personalities and tastes.
• Alternate who plans or hosts the Movie Night.
• The host has two options: Invite everyone to her house, in which case she usually prepares the main dish and assigns others dishes and beverages, OR
• Arrange to meet the gals at a local theatre and grab a glass of wine and food afterwards. When possible, we select movies that are playing at our local shrines here in Seattle: The Egyptian, Harvard Exit, Seven Gables, places with atmosphere.
• The best thing about Movie Club is the variety of movies you can see. We've watched everything from old Hitchcock classics and screwball comedies to contemporary movies. The best source for movie treasures here in Seattle is Scarecrow Video, but be warned: When renting some movies, you may have to agree to forfeit your most precious possessions if you lose or damage the movie.
• I confess we're light on academic, cinematic discussion and heavy on hors' d'oeuvres, wine and social conversation, but it's a win everytime. And, we track our Movie Club lifespan by our unofficial mascot, one of the member's sons named Christopher, who was a baby when we started and is now 16.

What do you do for me time?

Life is a contact sport. Seize the remote, and watch a good movie.

The Sports Widow
(aka Nan Hall)

Listen to the Sports Widow every Friday at 8:00am (PST) on Chat with Women Radio KNNW Seattle @ 8:00am or download a podcast

Check out Sports Widow in the news: Chicago Tribune: Fall's Biggest Bumper Crop? Sports Nuts

1. They scream and yell like banshees.
2. They have an insatiable appetite for treats in the form of sodas, beers, pizza, and chips.
3. When their teams are performing poorly, they act possessed, making Linda Blair look well-adjusted.
4. They are very particular about their costumes. Don’t lose them and whatever you do, don’t shrink them. And, hide your make-up before games.
5. If they don’t have a designated Fan Room, they will invade your home with garish sports cult paraphernalia: posters, pennants, giant Number 12s at your entryway and, most terrifying of all, team hand towels in your guest bathroom.
6. They have time to watch a 3-hour football game, but they don’t have time to take out the recycling.
7. Their idea of intimacy is watching ESPN Sports Center in the bedroom while you wear a sleep mask and ear plugs.

Sports Widow TV: 13 Horrifying Habits of Sports Fans (Nan Hall, Pam Gray & Rochelle Alhadeff)

8. They are compelled to command the remote and frequently fall asleep clutching it like a pacifier.
9. They can tell you how many touchdowns Brett Farve made in 1988, but they can’t remember your anniversary.
10. If there is an aerial TV in the bar or restaurant you choose, you may as well dine alone.
11. They only let you sit in the La-Z-Boy recliner if you’re pregnant or broke a limb, and even these conditions are debatable.
12. If you let them borrow your car, they will do the audio equivalent of leaving the toilet seat up – they will reprogram your radio channels to sports channels. Yes, Chat with Women will be lost forever.
13. Most diabolical of all, they are body snatchers. They take innocent youth and program them, creating a never-ending supply of sports fan zombies.

Please tell me your additions to the 13 Horrifying Habits of Sports Fans List.

Life is a contact sport. Have a positively fiendish Halloween.

The Sports Widow
(aka Nan Hall)

Mind you, these are not just ANY Cheeseheads. These have been signed by none other than Ralph Bruno, founder of Foamation, Inc., which is based in my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This year, I fleetingly thought about recruiting a few other people to join me so we could form a cheese platter. I thought we could glue sticks with colored cellophane to the top to look like party toothpicks. Then I considered going as moldy cheese. All it would take is a little light green gauze over the top. But this was all too complicated.

Instead, I decided to push the easy button, to go as the Vampire’s Bride because our costume box had all of the necessary accoutrements and we still had some old make-up from last year. I wore this crazy, long Medusa-like wig, which my friend who was dressed as Mae West, sprayed with silver streaks. I then applied pale white make-up to my face, garish black eyeliner and browliner and blood-red lipstick. I wore a Morticia dress with sequence, black tights and a cape, and I was good to go in 15 minutes flat. One of my credentials as a Sports Widow is that I am incredibly klutzy and random problems occur because of this. This time the wig was the culprit. I hadn’t anchored it with bobbypins, so it was sliding around all night like continental drift. At one point, I walked under a low hanging branch and my wig got entangled. Anyway, it was gratifying wearing the costume and seeing the look on people’s faces when they realized my true identity.

From a Sports Widow perspective, the best costume I heard about was a teenager who wore Seattle sports paraphernalia from the Seattle Seahawks, now-defunct Seattle Sonics and Seattle Mariners teams and draped it with a ghostly gauze. He was The Ghost of Seattle Sports.Yes, Seattle is probably ranked The Most Livable City for Sports Widows. Another creative one was Dick Cheney, which was for mature audiences only. Let's just say there were chains around it.

Did you dress up for Halloween? For future reference, if you have any ideas about how to incorporate three Cheeseheads into a Halloween costume, I’ll be your friend 4-EVER.

The Sports Widow
(aka Nan Hall)

There will be a Sports Widow segment every Friday, toward the beginning of their show, which broadcasts from 8:00-9:00am weekdays. If for some inexcusable reason you can't listen to the show live, it's available 24/7 on their website, www.chatwith women.com or at www.sportswidowradio.com.

Stay tuned for The Sports Widow on Chat With Women, KKNW 1150AM.

Life is a contact sport. Grab the mic(as in microphone).

The Sports Widow
(aka Nan Hall)

Chat, Chew and Chocolate has custom retreats, chapters, merchandise and members online AND offline.

Even better: The CCC Party Kit: everything you need to host a Girls Night In for 8 friends. The kit includes gourmet chocolate, Sex and the City Movie DVD, 8 goody-bags for your party guests plus A LOT more stuff.

This is the fun, inspirational and affordable gift. Order one today at www.CCCPartyKit.com .

Got any ideas you'd like to share with other Sports Widows? Drop my a note.

The Sports Widow
(aka Nan Hall)

Like many women, Rochelle is a Sports Widow, but she never really recognized it or labelled it until we started discussing her situation. Even though her husband is a big fan and recently made a surprise investment in a gigantic TV, she didn't comprehend the universality of her condition. Alternatively, Pam is impacted by sports because of her son, who she suspects suffers from fall-asleep-with-your-remote-while-watching-Sports Center syndrome.

Being a Sports Widow is a bit like being the long-term recipient of second-hand smoke, without the physical health implications. The degree of impact on your everyday life is directly proportionate to the degree of sports obsession, to your fan's regular behaviors. Is he an occasional fan or a 3-pack-per-day, chain-TV-watching variety? I calculate that my husband is engaged in sports about 15 hours a week, which from what I hear is moderate.

What's your status? What are your fan's habits?

The Sports Widow
(aka Nan Hall)

Listen to: What to do when your man is into Sports?

If you think about it, conservatively, behind these sports fans at least half -- or 40 million – have a disenfranchised wife, girlfriend, mother, partner or reluctant companion, who is overshadowed or excluded from “The Club.”

Who Are We Sports Widows and What Are Our Credentials?
In my unofficial survey, Sports Widows span age, nationality, temperament and gender, but we are mostly female. Despite Title IX, Sports Widows are as self-replenishing as their foils, the sports fans, are. We may not generally identify with the term Sports Widow, but instead may consider ourselves a specialist: Football Widow, Basketball Widow, Baseball Widow, Soccer Widow, Golf Widow, Tennis Widow, Hockey Widow, Racing (NASCAR) Widow, Bowling Widow, Hunting Widow, Fishing Widow, Cycling Widow, Poker Widow…

Our definition of Sports Widowhood may even get more specific, depending on how the sports fan in our lives manifests his/her passion. Is the fan an athlete or a spectator? Does the fan follow or participate in professional, college, or youth leagues? In other words, there are as many Sports Widow varieties as there are Bubba Gump shrimp recipes***.

Regardless of our specific affiliation, the roots of our Sports Widowhood can be traced to any or a combination of the following sources:

• A natural, often humiliating, lack of coordination;
• Ignorance about and a lack of exposure to sports in general;
• Challenging, daily life negotiations with an adult sports fan and/or children who participate in or follow sports; or
• Extensive knowledge about and possibly even a participant in some sports, but alienated by others.

Sports Widow Psychology 101
Sports Widows have a variety of psychological attributes. Here are some that describe the continuum of typical Sports Widows and their associated mentalities. While my emphasis is on women, there are plenty of men who are Sports Widows, too.

The Avenging Sports Widow HATES sports and considers it an assault on her life. She would like nothing more than to crush the back of sports domination with the heel of her fashionable boot. She may have been raised by a sports fanatic, married to one or in a relationship with one, but she has vowed never again.

The Sabotaging Sports Widow has a conflicted reaction to her fan’s passion for “the game.” Rationally, she thinks it’s great he has something he cares about. Yet, emotionally, she resents how it siphons away his time and focus. Her problem is compounded by the fact that she doesn’t see the counterpart in her life; she doesn’t feel equally indulged. Or, alternatively, she just doesn’t “get” why sports are interesting or important. Secretly, she is jubilant when her fan’s teams don’t make the play-offs. She is also a clever strategist, deftly placing scheduling roadblocks that directly compete with her fan’s plans as a participant or spectator.

The Enabling Sports Widow is the quintessential “water girl,” blithely preparing the snacks and stocking the soda and beer for sporting events. If there are children involved, she entertains them, permitting her fan to indulge in his passions. She may also dutifully attend games, whether professional or for her children, but finds solace in distractions: conversing with other Sports Widows, sampling food and drink, smiling at cute babies, ogling cute players, watching half-time entertainment, reading a good book, or jotting down grocery lists. If you ask her to provide a game recap or to identify which team won, she will have no idea.

The Compromising Sports Widow has devised an intricate, yet satisfying, debit/credit system, frequently with emphasis on the credit card. She makes calculated trade-offs with her fan that may include barter items such as shopping, time alone, socializing with girlfriends or pampering.

The Keeping-Up-With-The-Fan Sports Widow vainly tries to participate in her fan’s sports, but her abilities, mind and heart aren’t truly engaged. After a while, she runs out of steam (or her knees start to give out from advancing age).

The Role Reversal Sports Widow reflects that rare instance in which the fan is female and the Sports Widow is male. In this case, the Sports Widower may be Avenging, Enabling, Compromising or a Keeping-Up-With-The-Fan variety.

My hypothesis is that Sports Widows are effectively members of a club, which has yet to find a sense of community and shared empowerment. Whether you're on an intellectual path from Sports Ignorant to Sports Savvy or a physical path from un-athletic to athletic, or an emotional path from anger/revenge to amusement/accommodation or you're sidelined, off the path somewhere, I hope you'll join me. I want to hear your stories so we can laugh, learn and get inspiration from each other.

After all, life is a contact sport. Seize the remote. Reclaim the recliner. Get in the game. I'm here for you.

The Sports Widow (aka Nan Hall)

***Note: There are 75 shrimp recipes in The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Cookbook: Recipes & Reflections from Forrest Gump.

First question: Why are these soccer games always located in Timbuktu and require a journey involving planes, trains, automobiles, pack mules and camels? And, why do I always think, optimistically believe, I can navigate my way to these new locations? Before we left, I called one of the player's Moms, Ashley, to get some directions. They sounded simple enough and everything seemed to be going well until I hit Normandy Park, which is replete with cul de sacs, dead ends and general road stumpers. I drove into a recycling facility twice, called Bryan thrice, made about four illegal U-turns (is that frice?), cursed, berated myself and finally found the field five minutes after the game started. I am definitely a candidate for a GPS.

Added to this, Austin, who has only played soccer for a few weeks now, was assigned the position of goalie in the second half. In my opinion, the pressure on the goalie is equivalent to the pressure on a baseball pitcher. So, even though I know nothing about the game, I was panicked watching him single-handedly trying to ward off the ball. I won't tell you the final score, but considering the circumstances I think Austin performed really well. Go Lightning Bolts! One good thing: I didn't forget the folding camp chair. If it's going to rain, you may as well be comfortable, right?

Any pointers for a new Soccer Widow or Soccer Mom, depending on your preferred terminology?

The Sports Widow
(aka Nan Hall)