It's -5 C today. This is not normal here. It's warmer in Geneva. Come on, little island that could - you're surrounded by warm water and there's really no need for this.

Re: tech support and families - I give constant tech support to my utterly clueless mother. I'm not even that good with computers, but I know where to turn it on. She calls and asks me where to click.

Ha! I know this one. It's summed up by the joke "Why don't Church of Christ members have sex standing up? "Because someone might think they're dancing."

Heh. Oh dear.

Thanks for the Marit Ayin explanation, Shir. It makes a lot of sense to this former evangelical. Also I saw it a lot two weeks ago. It's amazing what people will do because they 'should'.

Really sorry about the accident, Maria.

smonster, that really sucks. I hope you're not fired. How frustrating (and worrying).

Hope you're feeling better, askye. And Erin. (I had that pukey stomach flu last week. HORRID.)

Vortex, that's fantastic! Must have taken them weeks to animate.

Oh, {{{{Buffistas}}}}.

Smonster, I hope you got back to sleep and this morning is looking better.

I'm up relatively early for a Saturday so I can take the cat to the vet for a pre-dental blood draw. They plan to put him out for his tooth cleaning. After pilling him every month I think this is a perfectly sensible approach.

Good luck to Leifur!

Gronk. We're going house hunting with our real estate agent in a little while. I hope we find something good.

Thanks, amyth. The vet techs were the ones who needed the luck, as it turned out. Leifur made his disapproval of the whole process clear in a very pointed manner. But he's done and home and I've plied him with bacon. All's good in his world again.

Say, amyth, I'm heading out grocery shopping in the next hour or three. Wanna come along?

ETA, Happy house hunting, sj!

Good luck, sj!

Yes, I would love to, Calli! Thanks for asking! Let me just make some breakfast and coffee and get dressed and I'll be ready to go. Hooray!

eta: jeez, can you tell I'm out of groceries? I got a little excited, there.

House~ma, sj!

Fabu! Just swing by whenever; I'm on no particular schedule today.

I hate my car right now. It's not handling winter weather well.

So, I was running late and was scraping all the snow and ice off my car - it took me several tries and the help from my neighbor just to get one of the doors open (they'd frozen shut). I did turn on the car and the defroster but that didn't seem to help.

I was running late, so finally got where I could see (mostly) got in the car and started driving and realized that it's not defogging. In fact it's so fogged up I can barely see. I push some buttons. Nothing works. I try to roll down a window - frozen shut. I had a tiny freak out, called into work and told them I couldn't come in.

Finally got where I could kinda see, and managed to get to a repair place. The panel that controls that isn't working (the fuse is fine, the fuse would be the cheap repair) and they can't do anything until Monday. The whole panel doesn't work, I can turn on the heat and adjust how strong it blows but that's it.

But I'm supposed to work tomorrow. And by the time I got home from the repair place the windshield is defogged, but the door windows and the back aren't.

I'm trying to figure out if I should go to work tomorrow. It seems stupid - the defogger doesn't work. But it's a 30 minute drive on the interstate (longer if I try to go another way) and if I can get the windshield defogged tomorrow in the morning, I'm not sure how long it will take and what it would be like trying to drive home.

Anyone have any advice?