Went to a boisterous and terrific Super Bowl party, about 150 people, lots of rooms, big East End apartment no doubt costing the sky, and lots of TVs, and much gabby fun and delish provender. 

Though we did not know everyone by a long shot, most people there were familiar from organizations, activism groups, lectures, speakers heard together, marches, rallies and even a few from work.

Bests: The guests were all conservatives.  So we all shared a presumed bonhomie that transcended the different fans, some for the Falcons, some (me!) for the winning Patriots, but, like the inauguration a fortnight or so ago, suffused with good feeling and empathy, listening skills, and people making room on crowded couches and floors for one more to squeeze in.  Good manners were spoken there.

Food, lots.  Tiny. timely decorated cupcakes with bright green "grass" and pigskin-tinted "footballs" atop chocolaty confections in the frilly pleated cups.  Wings that were (yay) not spiced to death.  And meatballs floating in melted cheese and whatever.  Salad.  Turkey in bedrolls resembling walruses in the Antarctic, huddled in serried ranks, color-coded for active easy-to-digestiveness.

Someone introduced me to delectable mint chocolate chip ice cream.  Unexpectedly winning.

Women serving wine and liquor and juices.  Attentive eyes and ears mixing with the sage stats of men who know their football since they were bar mitzvah or knee-high to Namath.  (How do men know what that  airplane in the sky is, make and model, year of birth, without half-trying?)  Though I was espoused for a time to a quarterback, and attended games shivering in subfreezing bleachers in fields with but my fealty to keep me and the nether portions of myself warm, I still know next to zilch about the game. 

But even I was agog, watching the amazingest game ever in 51 Super Bowls, a coming-from-behind miracle of 31 unopposed points to win a smashing victory, 28-34, that I liken to Brexit and, most important, Trump's stupefying win.

The year of the astonishing upsets that are good for our side.  Confounding the pundits and the naysayers and the anti-gummint types.  The SNL cold opens and late-night comics and the  Hollyweirdos, media, and college campi.

I wore a fur hat I made, so my head was a pouffy balloon of fur in two tones.  Like that movie Pumpkin Head, except my face was showing.  Warm, and surprising enough to elicit strangers' comment en route both ways.

The gridiron mavens there from congenial sources and confabs, rallies, and volunteer get-togethers over many years, plumping for the same candidates.  I listened and absorbed knowledge I would never get from books or travel.

Fun.  De-programming of depression over the inanity of Democrat "protests" that defy logic, compassion, and understanding.

Freeing.

And a wee benison offered up to the drone gods that Lady Gaga just performed and hung like a doll on wires, gyrated and sang.  She did not insult the GOP, President Trump, or those who disagreed with those who professionally disagree, courtesy of moneybags villain George Soros.

The TV cameras panned over Elton John, V.P. Pence, John Legend kissing his bride, but not Trump...maybe it was a security thing that he did not appear.  He certainly picked the winner, off by only two points.

Leaving me to return home, across the mile and some waist of Manhattan island, full of good feeling and post-win euphoria.  

And like last year, same place, same mission, a few flecks of indeterminate snow flitted lazily about my moonish head, muffled neck, and swaddled  torso as I rode through the night at  near 11 p.m. home to exult.

We won.  They prayed we'd lose, to teach that Trump a lesson.  To kick "patriots" in the teeth.  But we won.