Not surprised, meara. Skinner has not consumed but has left the mangled remains of my earbuds twice. I think they always live in the charging case now. Never again will I leave them on a side table. I only wear one at a time, but twice I was foolish enough to leave them in reach. A mouthguard he would swallow.

I bet doggie logic goes ok to put in meara's mouth = okay to put in mine.

Hah and if he had just chewed on it, annoying but fine. Eating it not so good! Going to go take him on a long walk now and hope it moves through him…

Today is my eldest son's 32nd birthday. He is here with his girlfriend. Happy and having a great time. We did sashimi last night, and then he met up with friends at some music thing at the riverwalk downtown. He insisted on eating outside and had the sliding glass door in his room to sleep, and when he is up he is on the balcony. Generally getting as much warm air as he can before going back to snow next week. He'll be going to watch one of his dad's basketball games tonight so he will be stuck inside an air conditioned gym. In the morning we head to the keys for a couple days. All in all a good time being had by all.

Laura, that sounds delightful!

Meanwhile in Tennessee, we are having our fourth snow day of the week (so that makes for a full week off from school, including MLK Day on Monday), and our street is still basically a sheet of ice. Yesterday the temperature was just above freezing for a few hours, but since it was accompanied by heavy cloud cover and freezing rain, that really didn't help matters. The next time we're supposed to get above freezing is sometime on Monday, so god knows how long it will take for all the roads to be drivable again. In my 15 years here I've never seen snow/ice shut the city down for this long!

Wow!

The weather is completely different here than it was for decades too. We always had drought from November through April, but it has rained every couple of days or so, sometimes in huge quantities. The tiniest little raincloud turns into a storm. The surf temperature isn't too bad at 76, but it should be chillier than that in January. The surf was over 100 over the summer in the keys, which has done so much damage to the reefs. Weather is whack, yo!

Oh wow, Kate! I was just saying the fact that it hasn't gone above freezing here is actually helping things after our little snow and ice the other day -- the sun has been out, so between that and salt, the streets and sidewalks are nice and clear.

Meanwhile the drought here in SELA is so bad cypress trees are dying all over town. It’s warmed up today but back to a high of 45 tomorrow, so I’m leaving up all my Jerry-rigged extreme weather measures.

Hi Kate! Good to see your pixels. That is crazy for Tennessee.

Laura, don’t leave us hanging - how did the swimsuits go over?

I’m now three for three ending the work week with a migraine this year. I left at lunch yesterday. I need to find a new job fast, this isn’t working for anyone anymore. I’m half tempted to see if I can get a Mardi Gras job and make some quick bank. My therapist thinks that’s a bit impulsive. She spoils all my fun.