Boo-boos, Owies, Aches, and Pains

A few days ago, I got a mystery cut on the side of my thumb. No idea how I did it. I just looked down at one point and realized that on the outside of my knuckle I had a red spot, which was actually a dark line. It started to itch, yesterday, so I'm happy that my boo-boo is healing.

Tuesday, after pulling into the garage at home, I got out of the car and went to put my bag over my shoulder (in cool-ish "messenger bag" style), and whacked my finger against one of the garage door's metal hinges. By the time I was in the house, I had a bright red spot of blood on the side of my middle finger. I put some antibiotic cream on it, and ignored it. Until yesterday, when the flap of skin started to get caught on my ring finger while typing. So I went down to our main office and searched out a small band-aid for my new owie. I've been wearing a band-aid on it as much as possible for the past 36 hours or so. And since it's my middle finger, I've been offering to show it to as many people as I can.

Last night, while trying to clean up some stuff in the basement, my right knee decided to lock in place, and then fuss at me a little when I stood up. I've been trying to take the stairs at work, lately (to the 4th floor), and my knee didn't really like that this morning.

Then, at work today, I must have done something wrong, because my right lower back started to hurt. This would be the same side of my back that is closest to the achy knee. Ibuprofen is helping. But I'm still not happy with the fact that I'm having to consider my age as the temperature moderates to the "normal" temps which now seem rather chilly.

Considering the ouch-inducers have gotten progressively more painful, I've got to admit that I'm a little worried about what the next few days might bring...

Travel Tuesday - On Vacation

When I was in college and studying French, I learned about how some businesses in Europe (and France, specifically) close down for a full month in the summer so that their owners can go on vacation.

When they do that, they try to coordinate, to some level, with the other businesses in their areas so that the people left behind aren't left without, say, a grocery store for a month.

Yet, somehow, I never really thought about that for over here in the States. Until this week, when I've been trying to look into entertainment options for a trip to Las Vegas that Christopher and I will be taking in January.

We have been looking into seeing one of the Cirque du Soleil shows out there, and had been recommended one or two of them. I tried to pull up online ticketing, but nothing was coming up beyond December. I found out that some of the shows do ticketing through the hotels, so I contacted the hotels to see if I had any better luck.

While I did finally get an answer, it wasn't the one I was hoping for.

It seems that both of the top two shows we were considering are dark (aka not showing) when we're going to be out there. One of them is literally taking a full month off, while the other is simply not running for about two weeks. But that still doesn't help since our visit falls right in the middle of their vacations.

Yes, other shows are still running, but they're not necessarily the ones that were at the top of our list. Kind of like going to Paris in August and having to go to your second-favorite patisserie since your favorite is on vacation. It's still French pastries in France, but it's not quite the same, even so.

Who would have thought that someone would take a vacation in January? Oh. Right. Us.

Weather or Not

Last year on this weekend, Minneapolis had something around 18 inches of snow. Not "on the ground cumulatively" but all at once.

Is 18 inches of snow a real problem in Minneapolis? Not if it's over a week or two. But when it all falls in about 24 hours... well... that was a problem. We were socked in that weekend and for at least a few more days. And, after that, there was snow on the ground all the way to about mid-April.

This weekend, though, has been amazing. Not perfect, but really nice. Yesterday was all about the bright sunny skies, a little melting of our last snow, and a huge clear crisp full moon. Today was warmer (in the mid-30s), but got cloudy and kind of weirdly damp feeling. But this evening I walked the pup without having to put on gloves or a hat - and my fingers didn't even turn red from the cold.

This weekend was also the weekend when Christopher and I were driving back and forth to Stillwater for different Christmas-related events. And could I just say how nice it was for us to *not* have to be worried about the weather?

We didn't have to worry about leaving early before the freezing rain started. We didn't have to white-knuckle the drive home after dark through building snow. And we didn't have to worry about the car freezing up because of the temps.

Yes, I realize that we could move away from this part of the country at any time. And I'm sure that, during the next few months, the topic will come up numerous times. But this weekend... well... this one kind of has me thinking that Minneapolis in December isn't the worst place to be.

And every week of "not *so* bad" is another week closer to spring.

Chilling Out

Have I complained about the weather, lately?

We're having deep-January temps this week (well, not all week, just a few of the days), and I'm already kind of tired of it. I've found out that one of the pairs of gloves I have is just not great for a zero-degree windchill. A fact I figured out while walking the dog the other morning. Even with the gloves on I came back in with red hands. (Time to get out the lotion...)

Apparently, though, we're supposed to be back up to around freezing on Saturday and Sunday. Which to some of you probably still sounds frigid, but for us in this part of the country sounds downright balmy.

And that difference leads me to something I was noticing today on my drive home: The way people dress for the weather.

As I was at a stoplight, I watched two women walk past me. One was bundled up in a coat and scarf and, frankly, looked like she could have survived Antarctica. The other was in a blazer (undone), and looked like she was out for a springtime stroll.

Yesterday, when it was something like 20 degrees out, I saw someone in a hooded sweatshirt and basketball shorts walking out of a Target store, while the person he was with looked like an Eskimo.

Why is it that people can dress so differently for the same weather?

Granted, when I was out this morning with the pup, it was about 23 degrees (no measurable wind), and I didn't have on a hat or gloves. If you didn't know the temperature and saw me out walking you might have thought it was in the 40s or so. For me, that's simply seasonal adaptation. Like when there's a 50-degree day in late January, so I leave my coat inside when I go for a walk, although a 50-degree day in July would have me running for a sweater.

>sigh< It's not even mid-December and I'm already thinking about July weather. This could be a *very* long winter.

Going Nowhere Fast

This has been a tremendously unproductive week at work, even though I've really had the best of intentions.

Both Monday and today I got into the office, had an incredibly energetic hour or so, and then got completely sidetracked by about 82 other things. For the record, only about 12 of those 82 things were personal in nature. The rest were all weird non-work-related work things.

Things like one of my freelancers copying me on a totally snarky/snide email about me which she sent to a coworker. And, yes, I think she meant to send it to me. Do I think it was wise? No. But I do think it was intentional. At the same time, another freelancer spent about 5 emails telling me she couldn't log in to the site - because she was using an old log-in...

Then there was the fact that we've just started using a whole new system for tracking all of our clients' progress, and it... well... it has some bugs. Granted, there's a ton of stuff that it does really well, but there's also a bunch of stuff that it's kind of not working for. Like today when I spent half an hour trying to explain to our IT department that if I need to credit someone - and the system has a little box where I can enter the credit amount - it's not good for me to get an error message that says "total amount charged cannot be less than zero."

There was the client who emailed, yesterday, to say that she desperately needed me to read through her revised 458-page manuscript and call her back about it immediately. Apparently she thinks that we've all taken the Evelyn Wood speed-reading course. (Does that still exist? I've always thought of it as kind of mythical.)

At home, tonight, I did get a decent amount of stuff done. Some presents got wrapped and put under the tree. The Christmas cards are a step closer to done. I did some laundry. And I completely and totally forgot to do about four other things.

I suspect that, at this rate, I'll be caught up to today by around Thursday. And here I thought things were supposed to slow down as the temperatures neared absolute zero... (Have I mentioned that it's gotten Januarily cold, this week?)

Late Sunday Follow-up

Alright... Since I'm sure you've all been on pins and needles for the past few days wondering about tonight's dinner, I figured I should fill that blank in before heading for bed.

Christopher made his lemon chicken (mildly spicy tonight, so that we could stay in the middle of that road). We served it with rice and an arugula salad dressed with a mustard and tarragon vinaigrette. All accompanied by white wine - Viogniers, I believe.

Dessert was brownies with ice cream (I found "Pink Peppermint" at the grocery store and had to buy it - and, amazingly, only 1 out of 4 of us chose to have vanilla, instead). That was accompanied by some Bailey's.

Overall, a very nice almost four-hour dinner, especially considering that we hadn't ever had real conversations with our guests before.

And, after only about half an hour of clean-up (not many pans, just lots of dishes/glasses), we're pretty well set to start the week. Which means that I'm off to bed.

Friday Food - Indecision

Christopher and I have some new neighbors whom we met a few months ago, and whom we have invited over for dinner this weekend. It's all very basic - we've each met one of the two guys at least once and, since we're simply being neighborly, it's not like anything hangs on this meal.

But, that said, it's making our menu planning kind of strange.

Usually, when you're inviting someone to dinner, you know what they're like. And, more importantly, you know what they like. But we're kind of cooking blind this time around. This means we're looking into middle-of-the-road ingredients, with middle-of-the-road flavors and - you guessed it - middle-of-the-road appeal.

As far as we know (Christopher did ask), they don't have any food allergies and neither of them is vegetarian. The latter of those two things is actually probably more important for our meal planning, since we tend to lean toward meat for a main course when entertaining. But beyond the meat factor, we're kind of stumped.

Although we've decided on chicken as our protein, we still haven't made a definite decision as to what kind of chicken it will be. And - more surprising for those who know us - we haven't figured out what dessert will be.

With all of our cookbooks and our bizarrely wide-ranging favorite foods, we seem to have a culinary embarrasment of riches. And no idea where to start.

>sigh<

Maybe we should just order pizza. But would it be better to get it by itself, or with cheese bread...?