Late-autumn light, and trivia heroes

The finest thing about our new kitchen is... well, if I'm being honest, there's a new answer to that statement every day. But yesterday, the finest thing about our new kitchen was this sight right here. The way the late-November sun fills the back window and splashes against the subway tile and right on into the dining room. I don't even care that it illuminates the flour-filmed counters. I don't even care that this time of day lasts approximately twelve minutes, and then BOOM, it's dark, at 4:26 at night.
Last night, Patrick and I partook in Tuesday night team trivia in Norwich, as we often do. We have been trivia people for a long time. In Binghamton, we played so religiously that for years the only week we had missed was our honeymoon. We never won. It became almost part of our identity. Usually we were a team of two, the Wombats, and usually we managed to squeeze into the top tier of teams, even though everyone else around us was twice our size or more. The fate that spins the thread of life? Boom, Arachnae. A play on words that means to skip picking up garbage? Refuse refuse. The thing Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland, and Vince Welnick have in common? All keyboardists for the Dead (thanks Patrick!). We knew it all, some weeks, only to be felled by a few measly sports questions.
Now we play in Norwich at the Blarney Stone Pub. We are not as religious as we once were, but still, these last few weeks we've made a good showing. We came in second by three points a few weeks ago. Last week we lost by a landslide, thanks to our shaky Addams Family knowledge. But then, last night, in the midst of a packed-to-the-gills trivia night with lots of newcomers, some divine light shone down on the Wombats. 
We played really well, but ended up trailing the leaders by 15 going into the final question. Who won TIME's Man of the Year three times? FDR, we guessed. A guy from another team sauntered over, after we'd handed everything in, and asked what we put down. They'd guessed Reagan. I figured that was probably it. I went to the bathroom.
The host always announces the winners from the bottom up, so to speak-- the teams who bet it all and lost go first. There was just one team ahead of us, and when I heard their name read mid-pack, I knew we'd won and immediately went running out to find Patrick. Imagine the Chariots of Fire theme playing right about here. The guy we'd talked to, and the rest of his team, was like, It's you guys! You guys got it! And the whole rest of the place was practically cheering for us, too.
I mean, seriously. It was like Sandlot meets Revenge of the Nerds.
I guess that's the awesome thing about being a two-person team. When you finally do manage to eke out a victory, you get everyone's shock and surprise and goodwill. 
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