Back to work overshare

Aaahhh. Back to work. I have been putting off doing some challenging revisions, so I have not been looking forward to going back to the lab. However, it felt great to take care of all of the loose ends that have been nagging at me. After a day of lab minutia and revisions, I feel much better.
Also, I have almost lost the weight that I gained from all of the delicious food in Baltimore and New York. (The fact that I have a cold and everything tastes like snot is a big help, I would guess.)

Also, every single morning of my vacation at home my shower was disturbed by someone or another coming into the bathroom to drop a deuce. One day I will have two bathrooms! Now that everyone is on weekday schedules, this elimination problem has been eliminated.

Also, we had a light snow last night which gave everything a beautiful dusting of white. Except for the black splotch of ice that was revealed when I slipped and smashed my knee on the way to work. On the way home from work I noticed that there were two more assprints in the same spot, so I guess that I wasn't the only unlucky one.

Alyn, I saw this cartoon and thought of you. Maybe the muttsies aren't just begging for food and attention?

Ice day

The crickets have taken me hostage again. I am determined to finish this experiment before I leave for Baltimore, but it has been an incredible hassle. I have been working long hours all week in preparation for the main event, which was scheduled to take place today. And what else was scheduled for today? A massive ice storm, of course. One bizarre aspect to living in the flyover region is that weather forecasts are dead-on accurate. An ice storm was predicted for 8 pm last night, and darned if it didn't start raining at exactly 8:00.

School was called off for both kids. We had 1.5 inches of ice accumulate in the night, and I was awakened at 6am by the sound of a massive tree limb rolling down the roof and crushing our fence. Surprisingly, the electric fence wiring that we had woven through the chain link was intact, so Argos can still go out without escaping.

In the morning I strapped on my crampons and hiked to work. And bizarrely enough, the place was hopping. I usually get to work @ 8:30 and I see no one. However, today there were tons of people around, each vying for the "Look at Me--I Risked My Life to Get Here and I Am a Martyr for Science" award. Eventually ISU issued a statement saying that only "essential employees" should come to work today, so perhaps we all harbor feelings of self-importance.

The experiment went reasonably well, but now I am stuck here waiting for the last few stragglers to do their thing...

Sledding on Jersey Hill before the ice storm

More strange weather

The LA Times reported that two funnel clouds touched down in Riverside, CA today. What an amazing picture! It takes a little strange weather to keep people on their toes. Illinoids are not phased by tornadoes, but are alarmed by earthquakes. Californians are used to earthquakes, but freaked out by tornadoes. Alternatively, maybe both are regionalists who fear the unknown.

What the hail?

This evening when I took Argos out for our usual run, and the sky erupted in a tremendous storm. There was thunder, lightning and dime-sized pellets of hail. The dog was really freaked out, and we were both soaked to the skin by the time we got home.



When we got home, Argos hid himself in the bedroom and refused to come out. ("Help me! The sky is full of garbage trucks!")

Illin'

There was an earthquake last night. The Normalites are all aflutter. Needless to say, no one in our house even woke up.

Sledding, date night and strange weather

With a foot of snow on the ground, I was really psyched to take the kids sledding. Sam has been sledding once at Big Bear in CA, but Joseph has never been. Saturday we went sledding on a small hill near us. Joseph was highly resistant to the whole idea, and was very disagreeable getting to the park. (Does this sound familiar?) At the park Joseph refused to sled, but had a good time playing a game of his own invention in which he hurled his velociraptor into a snowdrift, admired the shape of the hole in the snow, and then found the dinosaur.

After about 40 minutes, Joseph suddenly announced that he wanted a turn sledding, and he had a great time. Sam loves sledding and enjoyed himself greatly.

Sam assists me in sledding without a sled

Danny says that sledding is A-OK.

Sunday, we went to Jersey Hill, which is the main sledding spot in town, and the kids had a great time. Joseph was giggling all the way down the hill, even as he ran into obstacles and bowled people over.

Sam is a sledding pro, and beats all of us for speed and distance.

I am happy to say that both kids carried their own sleds uphill.


Danny and I finally found a babysitter, so we went on our first date in Normal. For weeks I have been asking everyone for restaurant and entertainment recommendations, but have heard only mediocre reviews. Oddly enough, Bloomington-Normal has a freakishly high ratio of restaurants to people, yet none of them are good. (For a good laugh, read the review of the faux-French restaurant with commentary by David Sedaris.) We ended up at "Jim's Steakhouse," and had an expensive meal in a reasonably ambient restaurant with OK food and a piano bar. We were the youngest people in the place, for sure. We could not find anything (other than a movie) to do in town, so we went to a grad student Mardi Gras party where we played drinking games.

What have I learned from this experience? It is not as though I don't want to grow up and be an adult, but why are the grown-up options so boring? So, don't forget to take a Tylenol and drink a lot of water before you go to sleep. I can't but think that we would have been better off to forget dinner and entertainment and just check into a hotel room for four hours so that we could participate in marital relations whilst we were looking our best and more awake than usual.

As I am siting here, I am experiencing a weather first for me. Although it is only 20 degrees outside, we are having a full blown hailstorm with thunder and lightning. I had to come home early from the dog park where Argos was playing with his friend Jerry Seinfeld the Vizsla. The storm caused some local residents to have their power go out in the middle of the super bowl.

Bad hair day

It was -4 degrees yesterday morning while I was walking to school. If you think hat hair is bad, you should see my balaclava hair.

So very cold

The weather is a major factor for me. Because I walk everywhere, and I tend to be cold all the time, temperature fluctuations really affect the quality of my life. I have been accumulating warm clothes. So far I have:
--a warm, waterproof winter coat that fits me (although it's a girl's snowboarding coat, so it's neon green)
--tights to wear under my pants (I can't find decently-priced thermal underwear in my size. I have a fantastic pair of silk thermals from Wintersilks, but I can't afford to buy a week's worth)
--overpants to wear over my jeans and thermals when I walk to work (boy's snowboarding pants from Meijer)
--many fleece jackets, wool socks, scarves and gloves (Target)
--hat with earflaps (yes, I look stupid)
--massive dorky insulated waterproof duck boots
--insulated snowpants, complete with swishing sound (girl's snowpants from Target)
--I also ordered a silk face mask and gloves liners from Wintersilks, but they haven't come yet.
I look stupid when I walk to work. I feel like a yeti, and my nose is usually dripping from the cold. (Last week, it was so cold that when I wiped my nose on my glove, the snot froze into snow). The last stretch is bad--I tend to meet all the people dressed smartly as they dash from their cars to their buildings.

Running every day has been really a problem for me. I am already cold when I am outside wearing all of the aforementioned gear, so the prospect of stripping down to a running suit and braving the outdoors fills me with dread. I have developed a running outfit that includes thermal underwear under double-lined running pants, a fleece under a running jacket that is already lined with fleece, a stupid hat, and running gloves, but at any given time, some part of my body is giving off frostbite warning signs like numbness and tingling. I have been told by several sources that I should wear less when running in cold weather to avoid overheating. What are they, nuts? I don't think that I have come close to overheating since November: I am lucky if I can end up pleasantly not cold by the time I finish my run.

I have been really dreading this weekend: the forecast predicted a low of -5 degrees (-15, with windchill or "RealFeel" as they call it nowadays). I was worried that I would step outside, crisp up and blow away. Luckily, this did not happen. I put on my 5 layers of clothes, and things were OK. It did not actually feel so bad. I figure that maybe it's like heat in California--if it's over 95 degrees, who cares how hot it is, you are already wearing your coolest clothes--it's not as if you can do anything else about it. I even took Argos to the dog park, and he had a great time. The playground, Frolf course (or "Disk" as they call it nowadays) and woods were empty, so all the dogs could go wherever they wanted off leash.

I also found out that as ISU staff, I am allowed to run laps at the indoor track at the Student Rec Center for free--yippee!

Much to Danny's consternation (I don't know why the man is never cold), I have been making the kids wear long underwear to school. They love it because as soon as the come through the front door, they theatrically rip off all of their clothes (ala Clark Kent) to become superheroes.

Grey ghost and grey ghost.

Snow!

It snowed 6 inches this weekend! Guess which one of the kids doesn't like snow...

Did you guess correctly? Sam loves the snow--he had a great time!

Apparently, Sam needs to be taught to do his snow angels face up, but a good start.

Argos is loving it. He has been asking to stay outside all day every day.

Sam tormenting Danny with snow

Argos in the snow. (There's nothing to hear, so don't bother to turn up the volume, or you'll just hear breathing.)

Random Chanukah pictures

Well, Chanukah is over. It now occurs to me that the two-month-long celebration of pre-Christmas, Christmas and post-Christmas may be more unpleasant knowing that people around here consider Chanukah to be some kind of crazy fringe holiday, but hopefully I will be proven wrong.
Apparently, the region has run out of salt, so let's hope that there will not be another ice storm for a while.

Sam passed his test and was awarded his yellow belt in TaeKwonDo. He is very proud. This week they learn falling technique, which will be helpful for Sam. (He's a natural at falling!)


Joseph breakdancing. Every Monday and Tuesday night when Sam goes to TaeKwonDo, Joseph and I stay home and bake, do yoga and/or dance. Joseph has developed a variety of new yoga poses including a set of poses for each of the Transformers. This is a picture of a dance that he invented called the Spinax dance.


It occurs to me that my Land's End virtual model is dressed like Adam Sandler as "Little Nicky." My coat did finally come in the mail. As my model predicted, the smallest women's coat is huge on me. I look bizarre in it--I have a tiny little head and undersized legs sticking out of a smooth walrus-like padded torso.


Footage of lighting the menorah.