Lego

 It's been windy, raining, snowing on and off all day and for the last few days. Nothing sticks and the rain soaks into the ground in minutes, but it was there. It was.

It's cold, falling to near freezing at night. But my allergies are still trying to kill me. And I never thought I'd be one of those old people, but in this cold, damp weather, the arthritis in my hands starts to act up. My sciatica too. It feels like I'm walking on Lego bricks. So that's fun.

I'm still watching and re-watching episodes of Northern Exposure. Right now, Maggie and Joel are stuck out at the airport in a storm. Soon Ed will join them, ruining Joel's amorous designs. 

Northern Exposure reminds me of a former friend, Pam, who I met when I was in community college as a teenager. She was in her early 30s at the time and seemed so impossibly old. But we became friends, kind of. She could be generous but she was also the kind of person who assumed other people would do her favors. Our friendship fell apart and let's just say that I don't really miss it all that much. Oh, sorry, I didn't say why Norther Exposure reminds me of her. At the time, I didn't watch TV (most of my adult life I've lived without a TV and though I watch a lot of crap online these days, there were a handful of decades in there when I never watched anything) but when I would go to visit Pam, we would often watch a show. One time she invited me over specifically to watch an episode of Northern Exposure. I didn't like it, thought it was too long and boring and I didn't like sitting in front a TV for any length of time, much less for an hour-long show. Pam made dinner, packages of ramen noodles with frozen vegetables mixed in.

A few years later, I was sharing an apartment with my brother and he had a television. Northern Exposure had gone into syndication and so I used to come home from work and watch episodes while I ate whatever crap I was eating at the time, probably also packaged ramen noodles.

There were a lot of years of cheap ramen noodle meals in there when I was making minimum wage ($4.25/hr at the time) or living on tips. That was fun.

I spoke to Judi today. I had let her know that she could call this weekend and she did. We talked about Buzz and about the situation wit Dave's mother. (Dave was out, visiting with his mother.) 

When Dave got home, we went out and as we passed the McDonald's at the edge of our little village, I remarked to Dave that I have never had a shamrock shake in my life. So we went through the drive-thru and got a small one. They taste terrible, like off-brand mints melted into cheap soft serve, certainly not worth the 500 calories, 63g of sugar, and 14g of fat. For a *small* shake! I had three sips. Dave had a bit more, but the rest went into the bin when we got home.

What I really want is a big cup of coffee.