TGIF

It's Friday... Joe's coming to town... Katherine and I are going to take time out from our busy schedules to relax with him this evening.... Woo hoo! We're going to dinner and then to see The Other Boleyn Girl. Joe loves Scarlett Johannsson, and we love Natalie Portman, so the two of them together in one movie is perfect for the three of us.

Katherine had a great afternoon at the education job fair... some good prospects for next year!

And it's sunny this afternoon and the snow is melting. Can the day be any better?

I am afraid that our kitties are smarter than us.

We have three abnormally smart kitties.

When Ty wants food or attention, she "bangs" things. Pictures, the giant mirror in our bedroom... she takes her paw, lifts them off the wall, and lets them fall back down. You can imagine, with a 30lb mirror, this is quite annoying. Not to mention that none of our artwork on the walls stays straight. This has always been her thing and it is so annoying. When she does this at 3 in the morning, and we are half-asleep and tired, we will do ANYTHING to get her to stop. Which usually means food.

So, the next girl to pick up on this little trick was Puck. Now Puck is big and fat, and normally jumping on furniture is not her cup of tea. But to get food, oh she'll do anything. So, in the past year Puck has learned from watching Ty that we respond when the mirror is banged against the wall. Now she jumps on the bureau in the middle of the night. Only she's not athletic enough to lift the mirror, so she does "the treadmill" on it. She stands on her little hind legs, and scratches at the mirror with her front paws. Not as bad as Ty, but still annoying. And we respond.

And then there's the last little one. Dory. Our small, "good" girl. She's always been the more "typical" cat. The cat that doesn't need as much attention. She ate when we fed her and never begged. Just your typical cat. Hah... not anymore. Dory has learned from the others. Now, in the middle of the night, Dory comes running into the bedroom, squeaking away (Dory doesn't meow... she can only squeak... we think it may be related to her brain problems as a result of a viral infection in her mom)... hops up on the bed and scratches at the Chagall print hanging above our headboard. My ears perk up immediately at this noise, and at 3 am, I will do ANYTHING to get her to stop. Yes... food.

I tell myself that our kitties are abnormally smart. I would hate to admit that it's not them... it's us...

We're falling apart over here.

Amazingly, we were going to be early to church today. Usually I'm the late one. But today, I was up at 8 drinking my coffee, so at 9:15 when it was time to get ready, I was as perky as can be.

Then, it happened. Katherine moved in a funny way, and suddenly tears were streaming down her face and she was moving in a strangely, stiff way. (Katherine would like me to take this part out... about the tears. She says, "It's not very tough." So, we can "pretend" that they were tears of laughter for her sake.) We think a vertebrae moved out in her upper back. I tried to shake her back into alignment, but to no avail. She's been very stiff and sore lately, after coughing so much.... she has this funny way of half-turning her head when her neck is sore, and I was teasing her last night about it. (I think it must be my punishment for teasing her - that I have to watch her move so stiffly now, knowing exactly what this feels like and that nothing can be done about it until tomorrow.)

So, hopefully she can get in to see the chiropractor tomorrow after school. I wanted to try my "chiropractor skills" and see if I could snap her neck back, but I think it would be better if I don't.

Luckily, there's only one more week in February. Cruel, cruel month. I blame this on you.

If the Democratic primary was a hockey game...

The kitties woke me up at 3 last night, so I watched CNN for a while. I had to agree with one of the pundits, when she said that if it was Sen. Clinton who had swept the last 10 state primaries/caucuses, they would be saying that Obama is done.

I will be trying not to watch CNN on March 4th. The Democratic primary is like watching a really long, agonizing hockey game - when Tech is one goal ahead and the opposing team, perennial powerhouse North Dakota, has pulled their goalie to gain a man-advantage. (Bear in mind that in this scenario, Tech traditionally has difficulties making a goal in an empty net, and North Dakota always finds a way to win.)

I hope that Tech pulls it off this time.

See how others are cashing in on the cold

This is one of the top stories on tonight's local news. "Many people are staying indoors, but see how others are cashing in."

I know who "those others" are. They are the delivery people who deliver to Kath and me. Whenever the weather is bad - and I mean BAD - thunderstorm with hail and downed trees.... snowstorms and ice storms with power outages - Kath and I get home and say, "We should order pizza!"

Our poor Papa John's pizza delivery guy... we ordered pizza during the ice storm and he called to say that he was on our street and the power was out and couldn't deliver our pizza. "Nope," I said. "You're on the wrong street - we have power here."

I told this strategy to my labmates at one point. Jason came in on Monday, after our stormy, icy weekend, and said that he and his wife had Chinese food delivered to them on Sunday.

I feel slightly bad about this at times, but why is it that pizza tastes so good in bad weather?

Ty is crying in the window...

.... because Katherine is out making snow angels on our front lawn.

Comfort foods are out of my comfort zone

I made meatloaf last night - "barbecued" meatloaf from the Cooking Light cookbook. This recipe makes my favorite homemade meatloaf ever. (It's the one I told you about, Laura. I'll put the recipe up in the comments.) It was yummy.

I don't usually make comfort foods. When I cook, I always tend to try new recipes - either from cookbooks or recipes that I've developed. I think this is because when I was growing up, I couldn't wait to live on my own and make whatever I wanted. So, ever since I've lived on my own, I've cooked foods that are very different than the ones I grew up with. Even though I'm not drawn to cooking the traditional foods that I grew up with, really when it comes down to it, nothing compares to those dinners.

When Katherine cooks, those are the foods she makes.... roast chicken, mashed potatoes, tuna casserole (I practically swooned the first time I ate Kath's tuna casserole).... I remember one particular rainy day back when I was in my 2nd year of med school... I had finished up a long day on Internal Medicine and got completely soaked getting home. Katherine made spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner. I hadn't eaten spaghetti with meat sauce in nearly two years. It was the best meal ever.

Katherine and I make a good team, though. Because of me and my strange cooking, she now eats chickpeas and hummus, pesto and veggies on sandwiches. Because of her, I now am enjoying mashed potatoes, tuna casserole, and all of those comforting homey foods that I love but don't know how to make.