you and i flying on an aeroplane tonight

I had a nice day despite getting up much earlier than I wanted to on a Saturday. I had a haircut booked in Des Moines at 10, and I left my house right on time... But I did not realize that the St Patty's Day marathon was being run on a course that directly impacted my salon downtown. Luckily this is Des Moines and not Boston, and so even though I was basically at the finish line, I was able to quickly detour and find parking within two blocks of the salon. So I ended up five minutes late, but they were understanding. 

As for the haircut, I was pretty happy with it - I'm cheating on my other salon and stylist bc she's out getting married, and also bc the salon moved into this new space that is both gorgeous and feels too much like an office park. Tbd on whether I fully switch, but today was a good test run (no marathon pun intended).

When I was done, I went to West Des Moines and met Drewbaby and Sammie for brunch at Homegrown. The wait was surprisingly quite long, but it was worth it - they had excellent gluten free pancakes, as well as a variety of other tasty things. The cousins were in fine form, and it was good to see them even if I did walk away with a box of old plat books that I had forgotten to expect. 

Then I stocked up on wine - I was down to the last dregs of my pre-Christmas stockup, which only lasted this long because we had one fewer day of festivities than I expected. I was going to go to whole foods after that, but I discovered that there's now a fareway west of Jordan Creek where there were empty fields a couple of years ago. It's quite nice, and I was able to get everything I needed (with the exception of chicken, because I don't like their chicken even though their beef is excellent).

So I came home with a couple of stops on Indianola to get gas and wash my car. When I got here, I unloaded, put things away, and made dinner for me and Mom and [censored]. I was too lazy to really cook, but I reverse seared some steaks and reheated some twice baked (now thrice baked) potatoes and made some green beans. Dinner was delayed by the end of the Arizona/Houston game, but it was pretty tasty overall. 

Then we said farewell to Mom, I cleaned the kitchen, and [censored] and I watched scrubs. And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

standing in line to see the show tonight, and there's a light on

Yesterday was quite a busy day, and I was wiped out by the end of it. I had a bunch of meetings, followed by a library board meeting, followed by some more work when I got home. Eventually I had a chance to talk to [censored] before it was time for bed, and by then I had no desire to blog or do anything else.

Today I'd hoped to be #inittowinit, but when I woke up this morning, I had a crushing headache. Unfortunately, this happens occasionally, and while I often push through, I wasn't in the mood to even try today. I called in sick to work and spent most of the morning sitting on my chaise and trying to avoid looking at screens...which certainly helped the headache even if it didn't help my productivity.

I rallied enough to make myself a very tasty hot ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, which I ate while watching the second half of the Iowa State vs. Texas Tech game with [censored]. The game was almost as good as my sandwich, which should tell you just how good my sandwich was. Then I closed my eyes for a bit longer before deciding to finally do a couple of hours of meetings just so that tomorrow wouldn't be quite so brutal. I wrapped up the day by making dinner for me and [censored] - chicken and mushroom pasta, which was quite tasty, if I do say so myself. And now it's time for bed - goodnight! 

by the way

I was busy, busy, busy today, as the people say. I had to wake up early this morning so that I could go into town for an economic development meeting, which was complicated by the fact that it was extremely foggy. The meeting went as well as they normally do, and then I had to go to the doctor's office to get allergy shots, which also went as well as they normally do.

Then I came home, took advantage of my only window in which to do some real work, and then sat in meetings from 12:00 to 5:00. This is approximately four hours of more meetings than I wanted to sit in, but at least they were decent enough. Unfortunately I didn't really eat at proper times and so my brain was melting by the end of it. Luckily it was fairly sunny out, so I decided to let my body melt instead - I sat out on the balcony and dozed a bit as I tried to recover.

Recovery was crucial because I also had a city council meeting tonight. I walked at downtown just in time to get started, and the meeting went about as well as can be expected. I also got a surprise tour of the back half of City Hall, which was wilder than you might expect. And then I came home, ate, did some work, did some laundry, procrastinated, etc. And now it's time for bed - goodnight!

and i your willing victim

It was far too beautiful today to be stuck inside, but duty called. So I spent my Monday in my usual slew of meetings with barely enough time to eat anything, which always gives me a bit of a headache. My headache was perhaps compounded by feeling the sun through the window as I tried to focus on my meetings, but I survived.

And literally as soon as I possibly could, I shut my laptop and took a walk downtown (if you can call it that) to drop off some food for the town play's concession stand later this week. Then I came home and sat on my balcony for the first time this season, where I journaled with a glass of zinfandel, which was just about perfect. Then I talked to Katie for an hour while I fended off the season's first mosquitoes, who seemed to be getting into the game early this year. The birds were all awake and there were a suspicious number of box elder bugs on the side of my garage, which makes me wonder what the season portends.

After I said au revoir to Katie, I procrastinated for a bit and then made myself a sandwich rather than cooking anything like I had planned. I then spent the rest of the evening sitting on my chaise and alternating between journaling, daydreaming, and considering work. Now I need to go to bed - goodnight!

the ultimate test in cerebral fitness

I'm back in Iowa and I spent the weekend recovering. Yesterday was a bit of a show mostly because I got unexpectedly delayed in New York. I had gotten up at 5:30 because I hadn't packed yet, and I made it to the airport in time to hang out in the Amex Lounge. My flight boarded on time and everything looked good...but because of turbulence somewhere between New York and Iowa, they decided that they were going to have to reroute north. That meant we needed more fuel. Somehow that took an hour and a half... but at least there was fuel, which seems like something that maybe I should be concerned for future air travel given what's happening in Iran.

sssanyway. I was 2 hours late getting into Des Moines and slightly hangry as a result, but I still wanted to run errands on the way home. I stopped in at a couple of stores in Indianola, got groceries, and made it home just in time to unpack everything before having dinner with Mom and [censored]. We picked up takeout from El Vago, which was tasty, and it was good to hang out for a bit. Then [censored] and I came home and watched the latest episode of Scrubs, which was quite funny. It's pretty amazing that they've managed to pick up right where they left off, with seemingly no issues around chemistry or writing.

Today I of course intended to do all the things and of course didn't do most of them because I was too busy recovering from my trip. I made coffee, cleaned up the kitchen, did a bit of unnecessary organizing of my mug collection, and then helped [censored] with the cleaning out of the garage fridge. It's been having a bit of a crazy buildup of ice ever since I bought it, and we finally decided to tackle the issue. Of course by "we" I mean that I cleaned out what was in the freezer and then [censored] did basically all of the work, including removing the back panel and figuring out what was going on with the blocked drain. But hopefully it's fixed and I can continue with my hoarding of food as I desire.

I spent the rest of the day procrastinating, buying groceries, fixing dinner, and repotting a bunch of plants that I had meant to repot over the past year. [Censored] and I ate dinner while watching last night's SNL, which was fairly funny despite some weird moments. Now I need to go to bed - goodnight!

montepulciano

I have nothing to report tonight - I had a long but productive day at the office, and then a 1:1 with Finn turned into a happy hour for six of us at a wine bar near the office. Someone actually called Adit "the cat" without knowing that supposedly some people call him the cat, which was the most ridiculous moment I've experienced in awhile.

And now I'm going to go to bed early since I need to pack and go to the airport tomorrow - goodnight!

calling out across the line

No blog tonight - I had a lovely day, with plenty of sushi for lunch and a fun dinner with Emily in Brooklyn, but I'm exhausted and already falling asleep. Goodnight!