Wow I am amazed how warm it feels out this morning.  I think it’s only in the mid-twenties and I worked up a sweat on the walk to the office, wearing a light jacket.  Everything is relative I guess.

That was a pseudo-lame weekend, due in part to the fact that I was pseudo-sick.  I spent most of last week really sick, afflicted with quite possibly the worst sore throat of my life.  I even went to the doctor on Wednesday, when the fever started kicking in.  Not that it really helped anything, as usual.  He gave me a bottle of pills about the size of my thumb.  Gee, thanks Doc;  I can’t even swallow a drink of water, much less a freaking gigantic pill.  Oh well, it cleared up eventually.  Hopefully I lost some of my extra holiday poundage over the course of my four-day fast.  Ever the optimist.  By Friday, I was actually feeling “OK” at best, so on the way home from work I hopped off the bus at Linwood and met Donette at Costco for happy hour.  We kicked around checking out all the latest merchandise and munching on the hor d’oeuvres for a good hour and a half or so, then headed home for a night of movies.  I signed up for Netflix again, solely for the purpose of checking out their “streaming movies” offering.  So far, I rate it “The Coolest Thing I Have Ever Seen.”  After spending about ten minutes getting it all set up, I can instantly stream movies to my new PS3 wirelessly.  It works perfectly too, no stuttering or buffering or any of the problems I was expecting.  They have a somewhat limited number of movies available for streaming, so I don’t know how long my fascination will hold, but I’m good for several months at least.

Saturday I was feeling relatively human, so when Martin called around 2:00 to tell me that he & Brice were up at Kennedy’s, I sprang out of bed, got dressed, and rushed up there.  It was definitely good to get out of the house for a while;  Watched the Missouri game and a bit of the football playoffs, and worked in some good planning on the BBQ’s that we’ll never do this coming summer.  That was about it for the day though;  Didn’t want to push my luck.

Sunday started off strong;  Donette woke up with some kind of unusual motivation and made pancakes for breakfast.  I don’t know exactly what prompted this flurry of activity, and I wasn’t asking.  Just enjoy the moment.  I didn’t share any of her energy though;  About 3-ish she headed out to watch a movie with some friends, while Gabe & I settled in on the couch for a day of TV.  I didn’t even feel bad about it really…  There were some entertaining games on all day, and it was still relatively nasty outside.  I’ve about had it with the snow I think, as have the dog and cat.  Poor lil’ animals are about bored to tears but there’s about three feet of snow in the back yard that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I have the day off and don’t intend to fritter it away typing on this thing.  No, I will use it much more wisely, sitting in front of the television eating potato chips.

So, for the brief overview;  For New Year’s Eve, we went over to my long-lost-friend Laura’s house in Lenexa for a pig roast.  Spent the majority of the evening catching up on the last dozen years and watching a pig spin on a spit.  We didn’t see midnight though, at least not at their house.  Don’t want to be out too late with the crazies, you know.

New Years Day, we kicked things off by going to Harrah’s.  This officially marked my first trip to any of the boats.  While most people make silly resolutions, I usually opt for picking up a new vice each year.  So, this year I resolve to gamble at the boats.  Ha.  Gotta have goals.  We hung out down there for about three hours, then headed back home where our friend Brooke joined us for a tamale-making fest.  They came out pretty darn good too.

Saturday, I got off the couch and got dressed at the crack of 7:00.  (In the evening.)  Whoa.  Won’t get that day back.  Too cold out to do anything anyway.  I ended up braving the snow and driving to Target, and picked up a new PS-3, (thanks Mom!) and spent the rest of the night setting it all up.

Sunday was about as productive as Saturday.  I was supposed to go to the shooting range with some guys but that got canceled;  Snow-out.  So, I watched football all day, flipping occasionally to the PS-3 to kill bad guys.  Maybe this coming week will be more productive;  Given the weather forecast I have my doubts.

Almost through with the season, current damage assessment is only four stress headaches and two tanks of gas.  Not bad.  I am certain that everyone is still busy making New Years preparations and taking advantage of the after-Christmas sales, so I will be brief.

Thursday I only had to work a 1/2-day, so we made it to the Brooksider a tad early for a little Christmas Eve cheer.  That bunch down there are quite the pro-Christmas lot; Nearly enough to put one in the spirit of the season.  We stayed an hour or so and then bailed out to make a nice dinner at home.

Christmas day we headed up to the Northlands for Christmas with Donette’s family.  The roads were a little dicey but the ol’ Honda handled pretty well.  I will have to admit one positive for that oversized, gas-guzzling, road-hogging behemoth.  We enjoyed what I guess would be considered a “traditional” Christmas;  Delicious dinner, enjoyed in excess, and a big gift exchange.  I got a nice haul, including one of those sweet flexible keyboards that you can roll up and stick in your laptop bag.  According to the roughly translated directions, I can even use it in the fog!!  Nice!

Saturday we originally had planned to be a bit…  Overextended.  Our calendar included a trip up to my Mom’s for Christmas, and then I was going to make dinner for my Aunt & Uncle from Des Moines.  As it turned out, though, the weather canceled both events.  We did a very little bit of post-Christmas shopping, hit Chipotle for lunch, and then hunkered down in the house for the rest of the day.  Since we already had a rib roast in the ‘fridge for dinner, we went ahead and cooked it up for dinner.  The Martins came down to help us eat it, and then we spent the rest of night playing some Wii.  (Of note, I had a perfect game going in bowling through the 8th frame, then fell apart under pressure.)  The rib roast???  Well, I’m glad it was “just” the Martins over for dinner.  It was OK but I overcooked it a bit.  According to the wife I shouldn’t have used the “convection” setting on the oven;  Oops.

Sunday the roads had cleared enough to make the trek to Mom’s, so we headed down there for lunch.  More food, more gifts, more Christmas!  We got more nice gifts and had more delicious “Christmas food,” including possibly the hottest cheese on the planet.  Of course I had to just keep eating it, sweating all over the place like I was going to pass out.  But it was good!  After that we ventured out for more shopping.  I wanted to use my Christmas money on a new game console, but good ol’ Costco let me down.  They didn’t have anything I wanted.  Quite possibly the first time I just couldn’t find anything to spend my money on at Costco.  We left empty handed and headed to 75th Street for a little dinner, then went home and watched football for the rest of the evening.

What exactly is it that makes Mondays so crappy?  I spent the majority of my time on the lunatic-filled, ridiculously slow, sour-smelling bus this morning contemplating just that.  While I didn’t come up with a definitive answer, I did narrow it down to a few possibilities, which I will ponder later.  Is it the fact that the weekend is over, compounded by the knowledge that I wasted most of it?  (Again?)  Is it the nearly overwhelming banality of another week staring me in the face?  Is it the bad vibes coming from everybody else around me, also despising the start of their week?  Those are just a few of the most likely culprits I came up with.  All I have to do is figure out which one on my list of 15 is the actual cause, remedy it, and BOOM, no more crappy Mondays.  Boy oh boy, what a wonderful world it will be then.  Until the official announcement of said problem resolution, please refrain from antagonizing me on Monday, and at least the first half of Tuesday.

The weekend started out solid enough.  It may have been one of those frequent scenarios where I hit it too hard, too early.  I had Friday off, burning the last of my excess vacation time, so my weekend technically started Thursday night.  Our friends from the Brooksider had assembled their annual bunch of merry Christmas Carolers, so we headed down there for happy hour to watch them perform.  They are a quite… errr… “festive” bunch of singers.  Yeah, festive;  And nothing if not energetic.  After their traditional opening performance at the ‘Sider, they always head out and grace a select few lucky homes and businesses with their unique style of entertainment.  I was supposed to go with them this year, in the capacity of “videographer,” but I bailed out.  Donette took my place behind the camera, and I headed home to take care of Gabe.  He seemed a little antsy, so we bundled up and walked up the street to Waldo and caught one of the group’s later performances.  Festive.

Saturday, after spending the afternoon running various errands, we again found ourselves at the Brooksider for their annual Christmas party.  It’s an event always worth showing up for, and I think this year was particularly solid.  They put out all kinds of food and assorted goodies, compliments of the house.  We got there early, about 3:00, and enjoyed several plates of just about everything.  We made it until about 4:00, when all the riff-raff started filtering in, then we bailed out.  For evening entertainment, we headed over to the home of one of Donette’s co-workers, for our second Christmas party of the day.  More good food, more merriment, etc.  Since it was actually hosted in the boundaries of our usual geographic circle, we even stayed quite a bit later than we normally would have.

Saturday we had yet another party, but this one of the birthday variety.  We crossed the street about noon for our buddy Graham’s big second birthday extravaganza.  He was in high spirits for the event;  Two-year-olds seem to enjoy such things.  All went well, maybe with the exception of his unfortunate decision to grab the (lit) candles off his cake.  Hey, live and learn, kid.  He bounced back from that quickly though, distracted by the absolute mountain of gifts.  After the birthday party we headed back home, where Martin was waiting to whip up a pot of gumbo.  He had amassed a pile of meat scraps over the last few weeks from various cooking escapades, so we gathered it all up and made a recipe of BBQ gumbo, so that he can take over the preparation at the American Royal next year.  That took up the remainder of the day…  We didn’t actually get to test it out until about 8:00.  Came out good, if I do say so myself.

Sunday doesn’t bear mention.  Donette woke up with some kind of flu-ish bug, and as for myself I just never got off the couch.  I made a turkey sandwich for lunch…  That’s about the extent of my Sunday entertainment.

I am home sick today, barely able to muster the strength to type.  I will fight through the agonizing pain and fever-induced hallucinations though, so Munkirs can read my 40-word summary of the weekend.  Woe is me, WOE!!!

As luck would have it, I really didn’t do much so this shouldn’t take long.  Friday, remarkably, I went to happy hour at the Brooksider.  It’s a good way to close out a week.  Didn’t really stay too long.  The “holiday spirit” is starting to ramp up, and it annoys me, so I left.  Humbug.

Saturday it was back to the Brooksider, for our friend Murray’s 68th birthday.  I honestly had no idea he was 68;  If somebody told me it was his 50th I’d have believed it.  I think he’s evidence that a low-stress lifestyle is good for you.  We had just a fine party, cake and all.  We stayed quite a while…  And that was it for Saturday.  Rounded it out with a night of bad TV and a few hundred games of solitaire.  Woo-hoo.

Sunday I got to wake up bright and early and go in for a bonus day of work.  It wasn’t bad…  Got fed at least, and didn’t have to watch the Chiefs.  On the downside it effectively killed my entire day.  Donette made a meatloaf and french fries for dinner, which was delicious.  Not that meatloaf is particularly notable, but I felt like I needed to throw that in there to get an additional sentence in this paragraph.