No more underwear

Britney Spears recently had a photo taken of her getting out of a car with Paris Hilton flashing her woo-woo for all the world to see (see article on CNN - you can find the actual picture on Flickr). There is also a similar picture of Paris Hilton (also on Flickr). Apparently these gals firmly believe that the best way to conquer VPL (Visible Panty Line) is to nix the undies altogether. I don't know about the rest of you, but this seems like a dumb idea if you are constantly surrounded by papparazzi and are wearing a mini-skirt.

10-year High School Reunion

Last weekend was our 10-year high school reunion. It was held at a small bar in downtown Iowa City. One of my co-workers in MN had hers this past summer and said it was really a lot of fun so that helped me work up the nerve to go. Plus a lot of my 'crowd' from high school was there including several people I haven't seen in a long time (one of which just moved to Minneapolis and missed us by a day when we moved out to Seattle!). So having them there was very protective. And it did end up being a lot of fun. The unfortunate thing was that the bar was really really crowded (we had about 150 people in a bar that has only 20 tables) and they kept turning the music up so we were all losing our voices after only a few conversations. We finally took the whole party to a bigger bar across the street. Every time I moved through the crowd I saw all kinds of familiar faces and had to stop and talk to everyone. After the second bar filled up and got too loud, we attempted to take the party to yet another bar but everyone got snagged in the crowd by familiar faces.

In addition to connecting with everyone I knew, I connected with quite a few people I never knew. Conversations with, say, the high school football star are a lot easier when you see he now has a potbelly and is losing his hair. Several of the hotties from back then are still hotties now and we dared each other to talk to them while we swooned distractedly at their closeness. My Studly Hubby, I must add, is one of the ones that got even HOTTER.

While we were all originally living in Iowa City and going to the same high school, we are now living all over the world doing all sorts of interesting things. One of the best parts of the night was simply finding out where everyone ended up. I heard some pretty strange things, too. I found out that a high proportion of my classmates became lawyers (and they all promised to defend me if I ever get sued for sexual harassment, so I think I'm covered). One is a stripper, one is a professor, one of the smarty-pants science geeks (a friend of mine) ended up in drug rehab, lots have kids, and a few have died (!!). Plus a number of people from my class ended up marrying each other (including my Studly Hubby and I!). One guy lost his thumb in a freak accident (it got sewed back on, he showed us) and several people have been all around the world (one response to the question 'what are you doing now' was: 'I'm waiting for a visa so I can go to Timbuktu').

I managed to stay out until 2 am (this is VERY late for me) but my brother still beat me - he was out until 4.

I'm Sick!

I woke up yesterday early morning feeling stuffed up. Thinking it was allergies, I got up to take an allergy pill (I love you Zyrtec) but as soon as I got up I knew it was something more. The allergy pill helped a little bit and I went back to sleep for a few more hours. When I woke up at the normal hour, I was feeling slightly better so I headed to work. Work was cold though. It's cold here in Seattle - the high was only 24F - and although this would be warm in Minnesota, it's too much here. They don't insulate ANYTHING so a cold draft was heading down the hallways at work and some of the offices were only 65F. I got chilled during a meeting in one of the offices and couldn't get warmed up after - I ended up leaving at 1 pm and coming home and crawling under my electric blanket. I turned the blanket all the way up and shivered under it for a good hour before I finally warmed up. Then I alternated between freezing and sweating and started getting the Aches. Convinced I had the flu, I turned our futon couch into a bed and sprawled out with soup, tea, and several movies. Thankfully my Studly Hubby was home and could wait on me hand and foot while I constantly complained of my body aches. After three movies and a half a bottle of ibuprofrin, I started feeling better. I went to bed (again under the electric blanket) and woke up 12 hours later feeling about the same with an added sore throat and no voice. After some more tea, the voice kind of came back. The body aches seem to be gone but I'm afraid to go back to work and get chilled again. I have a few things to do at home but they all require heavy thinking and I'm not sure I'm ready for that. I may go take a long hot shower and ponder all my options. Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday.

It's Backwards World!!

We left the midwest on a warm, rainy late November day (it was in the high '50s the whole time we were home and was wonderful!) but we arrived in Seattle to SNOW and ICE and FREEZING weather. Fortunately we are from the midwest, so we had coats and gloves and good shoes on. Many people at the airport weren't so lucky - a flight arrived from Hawaii at the same time as ours and we saw people outside waiting for shuttles wearing flip-flops, wrapped up in beach towels and huddling together.

Even though our flight arrived at midnight (after a twenty minute delay), we could see how bad the traffic was from the plane - and they ANNOUNCED how bad the roads were on the plane as we were landing. Apparently traffic in Seattle had been gridlocked all day, the airport parking lot was treacherous, the wait for taxis was rumored to be four hours long, and shuttles and buses were getting stuck and weren't showing up. We had parked at a nearby park-n-ride lot and got very lucky catching a shuttle out there, which was the one shuttle still running for that lot (the other two were stuck en route). We sat in traffic trying to get out of the airport area and onto the freeway for about an hour (even though it was less than a half a mile away) and finally rerouted to a highway that we had heard was really slick but had light traffic. It turned out to be fine. I think the Seattle definition of "slick" is very different from ours (although the hills here really change the definition of "slick" too). We finally got home at 3 am.

The city is still shut down today - schools and daycares are closed, buses are running on a reduced route, and we slept in. I am going to venture out and see whether the sidewalks have been salted. It doesn't look bad though.

More reports from Thanksgiving, including a detailed overview of the high school reunion, will be coming shortly.

One Full Belly

I just finished up with Thanksgiving Feast No. 2. What delicious food has been coming my way!! I've had lots of pumpkin pie, and turkey, and even got some candied yams and mashed potatoes and gravy and cole slaw. It's SO GOOD! It's also really nice to visit my family and see the familiar Midwest. We're having some spectacular weather here this week with lots of sun and mild temperatures.

Still coming up tonight: a Battlestar Galactica marathon (my mom has had the good sense to tape it this season) and a break for Gray's Anatomy, then tomorrow some mother-daughter hot yoga (if the turkey has digested), a trip out to the old farm to say good-bye, another Thanksgiving feast, then more Battlestar Galactica. Saturday, Thanksgiving feast No. 4 (and final) and the high school reunion. Then Sunday, a Fondu party.

I've discovered that since the kids have moved out my mom has latched onto her dog with a fierce loyalty. She takes him out for long walks and to dog school and worries about him when she's away, and even takes him with her in the car when she runs errands and goes to yoga. He's soaking it all up and loving every second. She showed me the new Iowa City dog park and the other great dog places to go and then we hooked the dog up and took him out for a while and they showed off the things they learned during school (he went to the advanced class and knows fancy things now).

I hate packing

I've said this before and I'll say it again: I hate packing. Whether it's for the weekend, or for a week (like this time), or to move your whole house. Once, when I was in college, I tried the alcoholic approach to packing: get wasted the night before to drown your worries. While it definitely helped drown my worries, it did NOT help with the packing the next day (and I would not recommend this method, I learned that your mom and boyfriend do not relish moving a couch with you on it). So tonight I am once again ramping up for packing. First, I baked. Next, I cleaned. Then, I sorted some papers. Now, I'm doing laundry and blogging. Next, I'll vacuum. Sometime later, much later, I'll pack. The good thing is there's a washer where we're going and we know where the tylenol is and what the weather will be like and what the rules are so it's a little less stressful than, say, a trip to Zaire, where the terrain would be much less familiar. When I first moved away from home, I would pack for trips like this by throwing all my dirty laundry into a basket and putting it in my car. I also always took my bike, just in case (you never know).

Speaking of traveling, my Studly Hubby and I were out and about the other day and saw a sign in someone's yard that said:

SPEED LIMIT: 300,000,000 m/s. IT'S THE LAW.

I totally didn't get it. My Studly Hubby, who is an even bigger nerd than me (this proves why), knew what it meant: 300,000,000 m/s is the speed of light.

If I don't get to post again until the holiday, Happy Thanksgiving everybody!! Good luck getting all that pie down. I'll be rooting for ya.

Hot Yoga, revisited

After an official two-month break from hot yoga (also called Bikram yoga, a version of yoga done at 105F), I went back this morning. This is why: I am going home for Thanksgiving, and I have no doubt that my mom will drag me to her studio not once, but TWICE (or even thrice) and I am already embarrassed by how out of shape I know I've gotten.

It turned out ok. The fat guy with the speedo who rolls around moaning with a towel on his face was still there. You'd think if he was coming regularly for the past two months he might have lost some weight by now. I don't think he has. But I did notice that when he laughs his belly jiggles like Santa. That got me excited about Christmas.

The room wasn't as hot as my old studio (in Minneapolis). This served me well since I am out of shape, and out of practice. It's honestly very hard to keep your head in the game when it's 105F. As it was (I think it was only 95F), I stayed in the game, and only almost threw up once.

I have stayed in better shape than one would have thought. I really fight to stay even slightly flexible (tying my shoes is still very hard), so I was happy that I don't have to start completely over.

I award myself a million points for getting back to hot yoga. And I award a million points to those of you who are similarly going forth and conquering:

1) my Uncle Bruce and his wife, who have also taken up yoga
2) Speedy KT who is off to the Boston marathon for the first time this year and has gotten addicted to spin classes (I knew it would happen eventually)
3) Uncle KT who has tried thousands of new sports this year and even stuck with a few of them
4) Mr. Mop who also tried hot yoga, and loves Brewer's yeast, and continues to run despite his deep-rooted hatred of running (and video games) - keep fighting Mr. Mop!
5) my Studly Hubby, who has slowed down his running potential so that his wife (me!) can manage to keep up with him, and who is very sweet and handsome and loving (and studly)
6) My dad, who has started commuting by bike and continues to swim regularly, yay Dad! - we can't wait to see you and the herd next week!
7) Any of the rest of you who I neglected to mention

Go everybody! With our guts and fury we can conquer the world (or at least our bodies)!

The Split Infinitive, Part 2

Thanks to the very wise alienvoord, I was alerted to the info on Wikipedia about Split Infinitives. Wickipedia is so great for things like this. Not only does it define "Split Infinitive" (when a word or a phrase occurs between the marker "to" and a verb), but it informed me of two things I didn't know: 1) this is not officially wrong (although it has caused much disagreement) and 2) the word "to" has to be involved, therefore all the "hidden" split infinitives I created in the previous post aren't really right because they were just split action phrases that didn't actually have the word "to" in them.

So therefore, my boss and his henchman are both wrong. Split infinitives aren't wrong, and most of the phrases they were correcting aren't actually split infinitives anyway.

Therefore I win.

Except Tink really wins, because she never found my "hidden" split infinitives in my previous post - they weren't really there. So therefore SHE is president of the Split Infinitives club and as Vice President (that's me, I declare it) I deem her responsible for the club's primary concern of spreading the Glory of the Legal Split Infinitive, starting with my boss and his henchman. Meanwhile, I will run in the opposite direction firing off split infinitives to innocent bystanders in every direction.

Splitting My Infinitives

One thing I have learned through the many revisions I have gone through on this grant is that I very frequently like to split infinitives. If you, dear reader, are like me and have no idea what this means, let me give you an example.

To boldly go

Is a split infinitive.

The infitive 'To go' is split by 'boldly'

It should read:

To go boldly

I blame this grammar error on never having formally learned grammar. I was part of the group of kids that was part of the experiment called "don't teach grammar and see how it turns out." I can't regret it, because grammar is very boring, but every once in a while it trips me up when something that has sounded normal all my life (because it is very frequently used during every day language) is, in fact, grammatically formally incorrect.

So now I am going through this grant for the one millionth time and fixing all my split dang-blasted infinitives. What I'm actually doing is blogging about it, which I think is a very necessary first step towards healing, which will enable better grammar.

Can you boldly count all the split infinitives hidden in this very post?

Another Busy Week

We've been bolting through another busy week, our main conversations happen now when we're out running in the dark together (still managing to avoid the rain, for the most part, during our runs). We're leaving Monday for a week-long Thanksgiving vacation which will be a nice break but probably equally as busy. On our agenda: three Thanksgiving dinners and one pseudo-thanksgiving dinner, a Fondu party, a 10-yr high school reunion (which I have started having weird dreams about) and some major travelling.

This morning I'm 'working from home' and hopefully I am in the final stages of writing this dang-blasted grant. Then I'm off to work for a meeting this afternoon and a happy hour at my boss' house. He lives in this weird very tall house with about five floors. It's the kind of thing you dream about when you're dreaming about getting lost in somebody's house, because it's illogical the way you walk in on what you think is the first floor, but then you walk out on the back deck and realize the backyard is three floors down. Each floor has only a few rooms too. Plus he has this little tiny Chihuahua he calls Mr. Big and carries around on his shoulder. So that should be entertaining.

Seattle Weather

I nicked this image off of the weather.com 10-day weather report for my zip code a few days ago. The prognosis was bad, but the first four days haven't been that bad. Yesterday we actually had about an hour of sun (part of which I could enjoy while I was outside walking to work, luckily), and it hasn't been raining constantly (although it's raining right now). Plus the rain is soft and kind of sweet and relaxing, unless you have to go out in it, in which case it can be blustery but usually isn't. So far I haven't found the rain to be too inhibitive - although we've had a few recent bouts of hard rain that caused some flooding and I guess that was inhibitive (we live on a hill so no flooding here). The thing that's the hardest to deal with here, which we had already gotten used to in Minnesota, is how early it gets dark (right now it gets dark at 4:45 pm). It's hard to keep dragging your butt around work, then later around the house, when it's already been dark for a while and your body is telling you it's not right to still be awake (even though it's only 7 pm). My Studly Hubby's solution to this is to turn on every light in the house (we have three in the living room) but that just ends up being confusing - we're supposed to be winding down because it's dark out, but yet all our lights are still on signaling party time. I think it would be better if we could just go to bed earlier, but I guess that's not really a good solution either. So I'll do what I always do - distract myself with the upcoming holidays, survive through January, and then count down as the days get longer and eventually it gets back to normal. At least here in Seattle January won't be bringing the coldest weather you can imagine on top of it all (the coldest we dealt with in Minnesota was a day with a high of -25F, the whole day I was thinking "why do people live here?" while my friends that were raised in Minnesota were thinking "wow, I better put on some gloves").

The World of IM

So after some encouragement from the Studly Hubby I finally signed on for an MSN Instant Messenger (IM). This little deal gets you: immediate access anytime to send your husband animated pictures and clip-art, and to make a screen come up on his computer and shake all over - all while he's trying to work.

This deal is pretty sweet.

So I spent most of my afternoon sending him laughing heads and sheep and stars and shaking screens - much more fun than email.

There is something better about instant messages - it is slightly more like having a real conversation than email (slightly). It's also more instant (hence the name: instant messaging) - you don't even have to wait for them to check their email now. So I can send demands like: buy me some pie! and bring it over now! right... NOW!! and he can't say, "well, honey, I woulda bought you some pie and brought it over right in the middle of the afternoon even though you work all the way across town, but..... I couldn't because I didn't get your EMAIL."

Speaking of pie, I made some this weekend as practice for Thanksgiving. Every time we eat some we get better at it. I'm almost ready now...

Radium Girls

I did some Radiation Safety Training today because I'm going to be working with radioactivity (everybody run!). We learned some scary things in the class about the early days of radioactive fun. Back at the turn of the (20th) century nobody knew how bad it was for you so they used it for all kinds of fun things and in very high doses (with no attempt to provide protection from it). In fact, one of the early units of measurement was Erythema Dose, which is how long it takes to turn your hand red (dang!). They took X-rays of your feet when you tried on shoes, took X-rays of famous people's skulls as a novelty, offered it to eliminate the need for shaving, and offered "Radium" pills as a cure-all. Note: radiation really is a good cure for cancer (e.g. 'radiation treatment') but obviously you wouldn't want it unless you had cancer - or unless you believe in 'hormesis' (that radiation is good for you).

One of the interesting (and very sad) things that happened during this era was that someone made the discovery that if you make paint radioactive, it glows in the dark. So naturally they started painting watch faces and compasses and marketing them (this is where 'glow-in-the-dark' comes from). Young middle-class girls were hired to paint the watch faces, and to make the job easier they would lick the paint brush heads to make the tip finer. These girls (pictured at left) were called Radium Girls and eventually began to glow in the dark themselves (looking like ghosts at night). Not knowing it was bad for them, they would also paint their nails and one reportedly painted her teeth before a big date (wouldn't you?). Needless to say, they eventually started having big problems so the guy who owned the factory closed up shop and moved on to another city. To convince the girls that the paint was ok, he ate it. Eventually, about four cities later (and thousands of girls exposed), he died of cancer.

FYI - by the '30s it was becoming clear that radiation is in fact bad for you, and by the '50s the radiation regulations that are still in place today were set to protect people who work with radiation on a daily basis (and the general public). As a researcher, I am only allowed to be exposed to an amount that is definitely well under what would ever cause any problems (and researchers generally are exposed to nothing anyway).

VOTING DAY

Yesterday was the big Voting Day and I hiked over to a church in our neighborhood and cast my vote even though I've only been here for three months. I haven't read a single paper while I've been here and didn't have a clue about what I was voting for so it was a little stressful. I mostly voted straight down my party line (ideally I would have researched the independent and green parties a bit but I didn't know how good a chance any of them had and didn't want the other party to win). The thing that totally stressed me out was all the propositions etc. They took an immense amount of concentration to read through and on the back of the ballot were about twenty proposals from the City Council to do simple things like replace their secretary. I couldn't deal with it all. Some of them I just couldn't decide on, some of them I couldn't understand, and by the end there were a few that seemed too stupid to try to figure out. One of the few propositions that I had heard of (amazingly) I voted against my party on (I realized later) but I don't think I regret it - I guess that's just one topic that I cross the party line for. Another proposition, about regulations in strip bars, my Studly Hubby had heard of through his man-radar and even though I didn't have an opinion about it I found out later that he certainly did. My Studly Hubby, it turned out, couldn't vote due to a mix-up with his voter registration - he tried to register when he got his driver's license and by the time he figured out they had goofed that up it was too late (you can't register at the polls here like in Minnesota, bummer).

So I wore my shirt yesterday that has a lip-shaped American flag on the front and on the back, the words:

Go Vote
Go Run
Go Lead
Go GIRL

(Only one person noticed it)

It's a Blog Miracle!

Thanks to some kind of Blog Miracle, my blog hits skyrocketed over the past week. I was actually averaging 120 hits per day! It's now going back down to normal, however, so I thought I'd capture the moment and display it for the world to see.(Note that at the peak I had over 180 hits to my blog). Now everyone can join hands and "oooh" and "aaah" over the Blog Miracle that has happened in our life.

Here are some other interesting bits and pieces. I've started reading more blogs than ever, thanks to being glued to my computer 24/7 for work, and have found another blog I really like, Pickled Beef. Ms. Tink over at Pickled Beef does some creative thinking but threatens that if you steal her stuff she'll "spork your face off" so I must be careful in how I make use of her inspirational posts. She does a monthly review of her blog hits, which I feel is ok to do here, because I did it once before I knew Tink, and Peggy in Scotland has done it also (I'd look up these posts and link to them but they're both very buried so it would take me a year, plus whenever I go back and look through my own blog I always get very distracted and forget what I was originally trying to do).

So, due to inspiration from Pickled Beef, here are my favorite search terms from October (that people used to get to my blog):

1. Pistachio toilet seat - if these actually exist I would love to have one
2. "Beth's boobs" - a reference to Dog the Bounty Hunter's wife Beth, it seems Beth's boobs are on everyone's mind
3. Dead dog suitcase apartment sitting - this one was interesting for two reasons. One, I can't believe someone did a search for such a long string of words and actually found something and Two, relating a bit to number 1, I connected the search to a post I did a while back about a story I heard, and did a search myself, and discovered that this story is in fact a well-known myth. Good thing I titled the post, "Urban legend... or a true story?"
4. Chipotle fart - need I say more? I think I may have actually had these two words in the same post once, but who can blame me?

And one last interesting tidbit, an experience I would like to report from a few weeks ago:

We went to a bar for happy hour with some pals from work. The waitress came over and took our order, but was taking a while to get back to us with our food. I was starving, so I scouted her out in the crowd, and saw her sit down at the table across from us. "What can I get for you?" she said to the man next to her. The man on the other side said, "We want a pitcher of Budweiser!" She turned to him and said "F--K OFF DOUCHEBAG!!" (except she actually said the naughty word I censored out here - I did that for you kiddies out there, I don't want to foul up the minds of my innocent readers).

Yowza.

Needless to say, I opted to abandon my mission and leave this waitress alone. She seemed like she needed some space.

Ode to Apple Crisp

Yesterday I came home early to "work" and was not into it so ended up making an apple crisp, eating some apple crisp, then passing out on the bed for the afternoon from the sheer delight of the apple crisp. Apple crisp is an intimate part of my life, although I hadn't made any in over a year. I like it because it requires simple things that I almost always have (apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, butter), is super easy (cut apples, throw stuff together, mix a little bit, bake), keeps easy, and I can convince myself it's healthy because it has apples in it. Plus I associate it with fall and in the middle of a very busy and unfamiliar fall I can eat some apple crisp and feel like I'm back in the midwest rolling around in a big pile of leaves. In Minnesota we used to always hit the apple farm sometime in the fall and we would have all of their apple treats; apple crisp, apple popcorn, apple syrup, apple pie, apple cider, etc. The last two years we discovered a new apple farm with even more apple treats including apple brats. Oh, yum! I think if we looked we could probably find a good apple farm near Seattle too, we just haven't looked yet. Meanwhile I am overjoyed to have some home-made apple crisp.

Speaking of fall food, Thanksgiving is coming up...! Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday, mainly because I get to have pumpkin pie (and practice making pumpkin pie several times beforehand). That's next on my list for baking, and I'll be sure to blog about that one too.

Tootsie Pops

My weekend is again sucked up by work (and the Seattle rain has started) so I take breaks by eating interesting things, pushing my Studly Hubby around, looking at CNN.com, and checking everyone's blogs. This afternoon the interesting thing I ate was a Tootsie Pop. I am a huge fan of tootsie rolls and tootsie pops but haven't had one in a really long time. I got this tootsie pop from a girl at a halloween party who was using it as part of her costume. For halloween she was some sort of school girl with a short skirt and pigtails and had a basket full of tootsie pops.

Tootsie pops are one of the most fabulous things invented on earth. I found a Tootsie Roll website (with some of their old advertisements and a chronological history, Tootsie Pops were invented in 1939). I was also reminded of an elementary school Legend that if you got three whole Tootsie Pop logos on your Tootsie Pop wrapper then you could get a free one (which wasn't true at the time and I'm beginning to doubt that was ever true). When I was a kid I was also a huge fan of Twinkies. Now, Twinkies kind of gross me out (except for the deep-fried Twinkie at the Minnesota State Fair, those are actually really good). The Tootsie Pop wasn't as good as I remember either. I think my sugar-sensors are changing with age, and it's been kind of hard to adapt. What I remember as being good is still good in my mind but not so much in my mouth.

South Park does Dog the Bounty Hunter

One of my friends alerted me to the fact that South Park recently did a parody of our new favorite show, Dog the Bounty Hunter. In the show, Cartman became "Dawg the hall monitor" and took care of any violators of hallway infractions by spraying them with bear mace. When a particularly difficult hallway infraction occurred, he put a team together with "Beth," whose boobs were so huge they completely blocked her face, and "Leroy" and "Earl" who were dumb hicks (my only grudge with this parody was this - the real Dog's entourage is not made of dumb hicks, one of them is very hot and they are all very good at what they do - although they are maybe slightly hickey). The parody was really great, particularly the parody of the "Dog" intro (in the real Dog show, Ozzie Osbourne sings the intro). You can find both the real "Dog" intro and the both of the South Park "Dawg" intros (one with the team and one with just Cartman) on YouTube.

One more halloween pic

This weekend I discovered that there's a thriving community of pugs in Seattle that get together regularly for various events, including Halloween. Curious, I looked it up and indeed found pictures! Here's one of them.

A Halloween Pumpkin Treat

According to CNN, the small town of Boone CO woke up to a town full of pumpkins - lining the street, on everyone's porches, everywhere one looked, on Tuesday morning. Who would have thought a town could breed a mass of punk kids that supply pumpkins instead of smashing them?

My Hurricane Life

I've been plowing at breakneck speed the last couple months working a full hard week and then trying to get extra things done on the weekends. I finished a paper from grad school and sent that off, then started rewriting a grant for my new job, meanwhile I had to give a presentation on my new research (which was not much since I've only been there for three months) so I was putting in extra time to get data for that and get prepared. Finally, after my presentation yesterday, I just totally crashed and ended up going home at 4 pm, going out for a run (it's getting chilly here!), calling my mommy and chatting with her for a while, then spying on the trick-or-treaters that ran through our front yard all night (none came to our door - it's on the side of the house so I don't think they realized they would get more candy down-that-way. Maybe next year I'll put up a sign).

Now I'm in trouble because it's only Wednesday (why can't it be SATURDAY?!?) and so I still have three more days left this week that I have to drag myself through. I can't imagine going in to work today, much less working.

The good news is, my insurance company here covers massage therapy so I've got myself scheduled for one in a week and a half... o' glory be!