That's the Welcome Back Kotter version of a neti pot?

But with a lot more water pressure.

My head is so stuffed up I can barely hear. The Kotter rubber-hose solution is actually sounding good.

Oh, ha. We celebrated it this weekend, but I have just remembered that today is my husband's birthday.

In my case, I can't imagine what the food could have been. Yesterday I had eaten a waffle, a peanut butter sandwich and an apple before it attacked me.

So, when I woke up this morning, my heat wasn't working. I told my landlord, who had their regular heat person come. Turns out a part of the furnace is broken. This would be an easy fix, except that the furnace was installed by the previous tenant, who was a plumber, and he's the only person in the area who has access to parts for that brand of furnace. So the landlords are trying to track him down.

I got home, and still no heat. The landlords are letting me borrow a space heater for now. (I'm going to turn it off when I go to bed -- my bedroom is warmer than the rest of the house, and I can put on some extra blankets, and I don't feel safe with a space heater at night.) They're calling the company that makes the furnace tomorrow, to find out where to find someone who can fix it.

Hil, that sucks!! I hope they get it figured out and fixed tomorrow.

I had my six-month review today. It went really well! It was super informal. The two things he wants me to work on (stress management and estimating project timelines) are things we'd already discussed and I knew about and am working on. And he knows that.

We also talked about what we can do to address the projected budget shortfall, and I got the green light to contact a consultant friend to see if he was willing to talk to us for free. I sent him a message just before five, he replied with his number and to call him, and we talked for an hour an a half. BOO YAH. And he said to call if I need him and not worry about paying him, he has downtime between his big paying jobs that he can use for these kinds of chats. Oh wait, did I say BOO YAH? There are no easy fixes, of course, but I gave him a good overview of the special challenges presented by the culture, politics, and economy of the city, and I think he'll keep mulling it over and let me know what ideas he comes up with.

This is why I'm hot.

And now to work on volunteer shit. Oy. I've got about an hour until my head starts hitting the keyboard.

Into S5 of the Wire. This is getting depressing. Jimmy shoulda stayed a beat cop.

Into S5 of the Wire. This is getting depressing. Jimmy shoulda stayed a beat cop.

I just finished off S3. I knew it was coming, but still, so sorry to have lost Stringer.

Part of Ryan's bathtime ritual is that when he gets out, he makes wet footprints on the bathmat. Sometimes he gets Daddy to do the same, to compare feet. Tonight he got out, made his footprints, looked at them for a moment, shouted "Tummy-print!" and belly-flopped his naked self onto the bathmat.

This growing up thing is pretty damn cool. I love watching him come up with new ideas. Especially hilarious ones.