Imagine this - you wake up on Monday morning at 4:30 AM.  Your weekend flew by and you don’t know where the time went.  You look outside and it’s all slushy/snowy.  You feel yucky from head to toe.

But you get up and get ready for work; in the process, slamming into the corner of the table and announcing to the world that you’re quite sick of getting hurt and bruised.

You get to work and start your day.  You turn around from your desk to raise the blind and it seems to be stuck.  You try the other cable and that makes the blind lower more.  You try the first cable again - all the time looking up at the top of the blind, several feet above your head. 

Then the metal valance across the top of the blind flies off and lands on your face.  You spend the next half hour with an ice pack on your nose and the next hour or so blotting at the bloody nose.

I ask you - is this any way to start your week?  Sheesh.  *blots at nose*

A few things that have been on my mind…

1.  First of all, congratulations to the state of New Jersey for becoming the next state in the Union to allow same-sex civil unions.  Not marriages, but not all bad.  Good deal - let’s get the other states on the same bandwagon!

2.  Baklava could be the best thing on earth.  Seriously.  I made it for the first time and even I made it delicious!  Of course, it’s hard to fail with butter, nuts, cinnamon, sugar and honey!

3.  Um, let’s see...I got my hair cut.  Not as short as I was expecting it to be, but it’s shorter.  And neater.  WAY neater!

4.  We’re going on a vacation this year - a for real, honest-to-goodness vacation!  For a WEEK!  Eep!!  (Statia - if you’re reading this, do not plan your trip back East around the first or second week of May!  Unless, of course, you’d like to join us on our vacation.  We’re renting a big house with lots of room!)

5.  Who knew I would like the Colbert Report so much?  I sort of want to make out a little with Stephen Colbert.  But can you blame me?

6.  My weight loss has stalled.  Not because the program’s not working any more, but because I have forgotten how to spell T-H-E-P-R-O-G-R-A-M.  I’ll get back to it, but for now, I’m enjoying my food and wine!

7.  I have to schedule my next tattoo appointment.  I know what step 2 will be for my major project - I just have to get to it.

Well, that’s enough for now.  And to give you all a fond send-off into your weekend, here’s a little Stephen Colbert just for you!  Have a grand time this weekend - that’s an order!

I swear, I have things to say.  I just haven’t gotten the time to write them down yet!  But I will try to in the next few days or so!

I need a good travel mug.  I mean, I really need a good travel mug!  The ones I have are all made of plastic (except one ceramic one that doesn’t fit in the car).  My coffee - which starts out being a spectacular cup of Gevalia coffee - ends up tasting like a plastic travel mug.

I’ve done some research and found several ceramic mugs that would fit in the car but they all have plastic lids and the consumer reviews all say that they give a distinctly plastic taste to the coffee.

Is there NO good travel mug out there?  Is there no respect for my spectacular Gevalia coffee-on-the-go?  The morning is the only time I drink coffee and I sure would love to enjoy my travelin’ joe.  *sigh*

Oh, how precious is this??  I stole the picture from an advertisement but, awwww!

The clasp on the collar on that baby is almost as big as her head!  I want a baby cat!!!!!

Why does everything that you are waiting for seem to take SOOOOO LOOOONG??

I swear, financial institutions are the worst and they employ only members of the Slowsky family.  I swear.

Not far behind?  Customer support at small businesses. 

I’ve been waiting for three things - two since last Friday and one since sometime the week before last.  I know it’s only Wednesday so it doesn’t seem fair to be frustrated by the things that I only asked about on Friday, but I was.

One was a check waiting to go through - that finally did last night, and the other Friday thing was regarding our new wine rack, which we can’t put together yet because I’m waiting on a response from the customer support dude!  I did hear back from him this morning, but he ended with a question, which I have answered and now I’m waiting on him again.  Gah!

The last thing is another finance thing.  This one’s making me crazy.  My financial welfare is in the hands of some stodgy banker-type (I imagine him wearing a pin-stripe suit, sporting a scowl and smoking a big stogy).  Or worse?  A board of some sort.  Gah, again!

I hate waiting on Slowskys.  I really do!

Last night, Buzz and I had wine and cheese for dinner.  Too much wine and not enough cheese.  But the cheese that we had was almost completely splendid.  Here’s what we had:

• Emmenthal - a truly lovely, delicate Swiss-type cheese, which went FABULOUSLY with the little Vinta crackers we had - FABULOUS!

• Morbier - a wonderful change of pace - a smooth cheese made from two different types of curds with a tissue-thin layer of ash running between them - delicious all on its own, no crackers required.

• Stilton - by the time we got to this one, we were tuckered.  And we tried slightly largish bites with our late harvest riesling and it was just too much.  Perhaps it would do better with a port or used in a dish.  Perhaps.

• Saint-André - this is far and away the best cheese I have ever had.  Allow me to repeat - THE BEST CHEESE I HAVE EVER HAD.  I could dive into this wonderful soft cheese and drown, dying a happy woman.  SPECTACULAR!!

And then, after consuming all that wine and cheese, I slept.  And dreamt of Statia and her Meester.

I dreamt that we went to visit them and help them prepare to move back East (yippee!).  They lived in the most incredibly landscaped house - multi-leveled decks, ponds, arbors, benches and large boulders filled both their front and back yards.  Their house was filled with golden objects - a golden tree decorated with golden ornaments, which Statia took down, packed away, and replaced with a lavender tree.  Statia wore nothing but yellow clothing.  She looked radiant!

There was more to it but it’s sort of hazy now.  I think I’m just anxious to see them!

I just put in the 8th load of laundry for the day.  Eight loads, people!  EIGHT!  I’m only washing for two.  How in the world are we coming up with eight loads of laundry in a week? 

I’m astonished.

Happy Super Bowl!