Demonstrations Of My Small-Talk Skills That I Gave At Megan's Lab Party This Afternoon:

1. San Francisco is a great city.
2. Though foggy.
3. But still, in the final analysis, a great city.
4. You're right, that is chocolate ice cream on the back of my coat.
5. I probably leaned in it somehow.
6. Thank you for letting me know.

As I'd hoped, today was extremely productive. Dull, yes, but productive nonetheless. I was planning to have a slightly more exciting day tomorrow, as I was going to go to Ohio with my mother, but unfortunately it's going to snow, especially in Ohio, so the trip got scrubbed. There may be lunch in the works if the snow isn't extreme, but we're staying in this state.

Oh, um, I made dinner tonight, so that's something. I even made it in the wok, and Robbie only had to correct my tool usage once. Every day, in every way, and you know the rest.

As predicted, that was a lovely weekend. Let's see--on Friday we went down to DC. immediately after arriving at Matt and Heather's apartment, we presented the birthday boy with his gifts, namely: 1) a present making fun of him, 2) a present that cost $2, 3) DVDs still in their Best Buy bag, and 4) a card that we couldn't get to fit in its envelope. (Well, and let's not overlook 5), the chance to feel like he's managing his life better than we are. With us and Matt, that is truly the gift that keeps on giving.) Then we went to the jazz club, which I have to admit I was game for but not super-excited about initially, but which ended up being lots of fun. I think this probably isn't the case for everyone, but I'm not much of a jazz aficionado, and so I found that being able to watch and listen instead of just listening took it from an acceptable but not great experience to something really interesting.

Then Saturday, Robbie and I went into the city to have sushi with Brett and Amy and Adam and Laura. It was really, really good, although some of my enthusiasm might have been because I hadn't had sushi in three or four months. Then Robbie and I went back to Heather and Matt's, where we'd planned to do our geocaching. It looked like rain, though, so we ended up just sitting around and reading most of the afternoon. Then we met up with Adam and had Vietnamese food for dinner, and then Robbie went to Laura's birthday party for a little while and Matt went to his lab and Heather and I went back to her apartment to have a brief but fulfilling bit of girl talk. Eventually Matt and Robbie both came back and we played a rousing game of Apples to Apples.

On Sunday we got up and Matt made us all some very tasty waffles, and then we drove back here. On the way, I learned how to use our awesome tire pump, which was pretty cool, and we got home in time to catch three quarters of the Steelers game, which was obviously fantastic. And today was uneventful. I finished everything on my to-do list, which may have been because my to-do list was extremely short, but was still exciting. I'm hoping for equally good results tomorrow.

Goodness me. So I take a little hiatus from blogging, mostly because there is absolutely nothing going on here, and suddenly I hear all sorts of rumors about what you all think I must be up to, none of which are true. It was just a short break, although I have to agree that what some of you came up with would certainly be more interesting.

On the up side, I do have hope that something interesting will happen this weekend, since we're going to DC for Matt's 30th birthday. On the docket are a trip to a jazz club and some geocaching if the weather is good on Saturday afternoon, and maybe some sushi for lunch on Saturday. Also, lots of age-related mockery, but that goes without saying.

I think it's safe to say that absolutely nothing of note has happened since my last entry, but I'm up early and I just found a quote in the New York Times that I had to share with you all (you can read the full article here, and it's pretty interesting):

"Drink also featured heavily in the life of George Brown, a Labor foreign secretary in the 1960's, who is once said to have stumblingly invited a guest in flowing purple robes at a reception in Peru to dance. But it was not to be. 'First, you are drunk,' the guest is said to have replied. 'Second, this is not a waltz; it is the Peruvian national anthem. And third, I am not a woman; I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima.'"

In other news, I'm listening to music through headphones right now and I think I just heard a clinking breaking sort of noise over it. I think it's time to go find the cat. (He weighs eight pounds now, by the way. Eight pounds! I'm very impressed by this.)

I'm feeling almost all better now, although I still have a cough, and this was a fine weekend. On Friday Megan and Paul came over for dinner and we played a marathon game of Apples to Apples (Robbie finally won with 25 points). They also brought the Commodore a catnip toy, which he liked to such an embarrassing degree that he eventually lost his jumping ability and slammed headfirst into one of the shelves of our kitchen cart. He finally lost the toy under a bookcase, which is probably for the best for now. We'll dig it out again when he's older and capable of less joy in his everyday existence.

Then yesterday we went out to try to watch the Senators-Canadiens game with Megan and Paul. I didn't know about this, but apparently on one and only one day in the NHL season the six Canadian teams all play intra-country matchups, and it's a big deal and everyone eats poutines and it's very top shelf. Or something like that. Anyhow, we weren't able to find it on TV, so we just hung out for a while, which was fun. Then Robbie and I came home and watched One Day In September, which is the most horrifying documentary I've ever seen, and also extremely graphic in parts, but really, really good.

Today we didn't do all that much. I made cassoulet while Robbie went on a bike ride, and then when he went home we went geocaching, in the course of which I fell down in a really spectacular fashion but which was ultimately successful. I need to work on my geocache that I'm going to hide around here--for Christmas I made Big T a geocache to hide in Muenster and got us each travel bugs, and so there's a race in the offing. Anyhow, after that we watched the Steelers game, this being the time of year when I traditionally begin to pay attention to their fortunes, and soon I'm going to go to bed. I'm looking forward to a more active week this week, which will be nice.

Well, I felt much better today than I did yesterday. I actually don't feel so hot right now, but I felt pretty good for most of the day, so I have high hopes for tomorrow.

And other than that, absolutely nothing happened. Sorry. Better luck tomorrow, I hope.

Well, we had a fine New Year's. Heather and Matt came for the weekend, and then Evie and Aaron decided to make a spontaneous roadtrip west, so we ended up spending a few hours with them as well. They brought Apples to Apples, which I'm sure I'm the last person to discover is a fantastic game. I think I might buy it before Megan and Paul come over to dinner on Friday. Then Sunday, we geocached with Heather and Matt, which was an outstanding success. The four of us found six caches, including three found by Matt, who was sort of on fire.

So that was all swell, and I was really productive after they left yesterday, but this morning I woke up with Satan's Little Cold. I'm pretty sure, symptom-wise, that it's not the flu, but it makes me feel almost as bad. I discovered this afternoon that it makes me feel better to put a hot washcloth over my eyes and nose, so that was something, but it's not super-practical as solutions go. I'm hopeful that it will be an intense awful cold rather than a prolonged mild cold, which is almost better anyhow.