beware the ides of march -- 2009

This morning, a Sunday at the Four Inns restaurant in downtown St. Paul, Joan, my barely-limping sister, was giving me a hard time for not updating my blog in two weeks -- "I'm so sick of opening your blog and seeing that Joan Rivers photo!" she said. Jerry and Tom looked on with blank looks, since they never look at my blog and of course had no idea what she was talking about.

So here I am, back at it, mostly to move Joan Rivers out of the spotlight but also to let all my faithful fans know that I'm alive and well. The first two weeks of March are always nuts for me at the office -- major deadlines on the 15th, the Ides of March (although this year since the 15th fell on a Sunday, the deadline extends to the 16th, so I can take a little breather today). I'm hanging in there just fine, except for being nap-deprived.

Non-work happenings of March 2009:

-- Both our houses are still for sale. Lots of lookers, lots of great comments, no buyers.
-- Jerry took a couple of overnight trips during the past two weeks (while i'm slaving away over a hot computer) -- the first to New York City, the second up to northern Minnesota (Lutsen, on the North Shore of Lake Superior) to go skiing. Either trip sounds great to me (as long as I wouldn't have to actually ski) (Of course, right now getting out of town sounds so wonderful that I wouldn't care if it were to Topeka, Kansas!).
-- I've been reading the newest John Grisham novel, The Associate, for at least a couple of weeks. This is a book that should have been done in a weekend, but, wow, is it a pathetic excuse of a Grisham novel! He used to be a better writer than this, or at least less lazy than this. Not recommended.
-- Everybody is talking about the economy and it may be just that it's a sunny day and I'm feeling blindly optimistic, but I'm wondering if maybe in some ways the worst is over. Let's all get over being depressed about it and make some adjustments.
-- Obama is doing ok, but, wow, who would ever want that job? And I'm feeling kinda sorry for Republicans, who are stuck with Rush Limbaugh (their chubby new "face"), Bobby Jindal, and Sarah Palin. Oh, more March 2009 news -- Bristol Palin and her trash boyfriend broke up. What a big surprise -- wonder when they'll show up on The Jerry Springer Show.

Back to normal soon, guys. My version of normal, that is.

what do the normal folk do?

Jerry decided to take a whole day off -- today, a Saturday -- and he somehow talked me into taking the day off too... His reasoning -- "I need to work this Sunday, so you should just work Sunday too instead of today, and we'll spend the day together." This time of year, I'm working all the time, and right now so is he, but I rearranged a client appointment and cancelled a haircut appointment (and I desperately need a haircut) and took the day off.

So now what? My idea of taking a day off would have been to stay at home and "chill", but, no, Jerry said we should do what normal people do on a Saturday. Which is what, I wonder?

We started by going out to breakfast, at Victor's 1959 Cafe ("revolutionary Cuban cooking") in south Minneapolis, then headed to the Mall of America (the opposite of "chilling"), the highlight of which was running into comedienne Joan Rivers, who I actually like very much. She was there for some promotional event for QVC cable shopping network, I think, and also to autograph a couple of her newer books that I had never heard of and had no interest in. If she would have been signing copies of her old bio, Enter Talking, I would have waited in line (It's one of my favorite celebrity autobiographies). She is 75 years old now but has had so much plastic surgery that she looks like a very blond mannequin. Scary! but she's still funny.

The Mall was mobbed today, thousands and thousands of people. We bought some shirts on sale at Macy's and then wanted some coffee, but all of the coffee shops either had long lines (I don't do lines) or had no available seating. So we left the chaos of the Mall behind and headed into Bloomington, where we found a very cool Starbucks in a very seedy strip mall, and had a leisurely cup of coffee while we read the newspaper -- much more my idea of a day off!

Tonight, Tom is here. We're going to watch In Bruges on DVD and then play cards til we head to bed.

Then we'll get up and go to work, which for us this time of year, is normal.