Daily Archives: January 30, 2011
It’s the end of a long weekend. Well, for me anyway.
I took Friday off because the girls had no school. So even though they could probably function just fine on their own unsupervised, us parental types just aren’t up to that concept yet, so on those infrequent days when they’re off but Patrick isn’t, we need to find alternative coverage.
Most of Friday for me was a mish-mosh of tasks: fixing the dishwasher (it was leaking out the front, which means that a rubber gasket has slipped again…Disassemble the machine and fix the position of the gasket and then reassemble…Then some clean-up and work around the house. Add to that a couple of errands, and the day just flew by.
I tried to do some work on the ice dams on Saturday, since things were a little warmer, and some of the channels I’d created with the salt-filled nylons were almost down to bare shingle. So I climbed back up on the ladder and started whacking at some of the bigger pieces with a mallet. But, and this is truly something that I’m sure would be unique to me, a golf ball-sized piece of ice broke off in one strike, and came right back at me and smacked me in the mouth, producing a small cut on my upper lip and fattening it pretty well.
Undeterred, we still took our newly decreed monthly family trip to a museum and spent a couple of hours at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It was a much more successful trip than I’d feared, but we all kind of tired out after barely leaving Asia and Greece and Rome. Which leaves probably a good 60 percent of the museum left to go through during another outing. But the kids enjoyed it, which is a good thing. I remember going as a kid, and not appreciating it as much as I should have, but also feeling like Patrick did when he went on ahead of us because we were lagging behind to look more closely at things and actually read about them. I almost never read about the art when I was young.
Today offered up the usual blur of tasks, but I did still also manage to produce about six dozen mini muffins, two loaves of bread (with one more that will be ready in the morning), and a very good pot of chicken soup (with tri-color rotini, great northern beans, corn, peas, green beans, mushrooms and onions). Yes, I like a substantial soup. That’ll be my lunch on several days this week.
And now, after a family meeting and another load of laundry, I’m sitting on the couch in the living room writing this while I try to not think about the week or weeks to come at work: the hardcore period of moves is coming for the next three weekends, including my own office move not this coming move but the following week. So not only do I have to move myself, but I need to support printers that are moving as well. It’s a double whammy.
I went over with a couple of coworkers to see my new cube. I will say this about my new space: I have windows. All I have to do is turn around, without hitting my desk or my cabinet, or some poor unfortunate sod walking through the narrow walkway behind me, and I can gaze out of the window at what will return to being a park come spring. And just off to my right will be a lake. As for the rest of it, I’m withholding judgement. We’ll see how it works out.
Enjoy your week.
See you tomorrow.