Maybe the rest of the world spent the weekend celebrating Independence Day, but I've got more important anniversaries to worry about.

This weekend marks the five year anniversary of Catherine discovering sports. Five years ago, on the Fourth of July weekend, she got trapped in front of the television at my parents' house, and found herself watching the U.S. Women's soccer team play at Soldier Field. Quite coincidentally, my dad and I had just been regaling her with stories of Mia Hamm, so she actually paid attention to the game and liked it. More significant, though, was the U.S. Women's Open, also played that weekend. I think she was stunned to discover golf was actually exciting, and I was stunned to hear her agreeing we should alter our travel plans so we could be sure and see the end of the tournament that Monday. I told her today I should send Se Ri Pak and Jenny Chausiriporn thank you notes, because they gave us the best U.S. Open playoff I've ever seen that year, totally captivating Catherine and turning her into a diehard sports fan overnight.

To celebrate, we watched golf off and on all weekend, and all day today (instead of attending a live WNBA game for which we had tickets, a fact that should tell my friends something about how much I like the U.S. Open) and relived all our favorite 1998 U.S. Open memories. It's been kind of a bittersweet weekend, though, because the tournament was being played on a course located precisely five minutes from Catherine's parents' house, and we just couldn't afford airfare out to see the tournament live. I'd give an arm and a leg to see Annika Sorenstam play in person, but no one wants to buy my limbs, so we had to watch it on T.V. And damn, we have to go to work tomorrow and miss the playoffs. Annika finished one off, anyway, so she's not in the playoff round, but I hate to not see the end of a tournament.

It's a good day when you can go into the living room and find your partner switching back and forth between the three cable sports networks, trying to follow three games at once. I've created a monster, and I'm happy about it.