the owner himself went to italy to purchase a pizza oven

It's been days and days since I've updated. Sorry 'bout that. Here are the highlights:

1) New Years Eve in Des Moines. Katie and I had a fantastic time at the radio-station-hosted party that we went to; unfortunately, that fantastic time was far too lubricated with alcohol. I think I hit a new low point in my life when, at three a.m., the pizza that we ordered arrived at the hotel, and I stiffed the delivery guy by accident. I went down to the lobby barefoot, wearing my pajamas and my pink fur-trimmed bomber jacket, and I'm almost positive that I only gave him $15 for a $19.87 bill. The worst part is that I told him to keep the change. Clearly if I did give him $15, it's his fault for not calling me on it--he looked like he was some homeless dude they drafted off the streets to deliver pizza on New Years. Anyway, Katie refused to wake up, so I ate half the pizza by myself while watching 'Larry King Live'. I was still pretty happy...

2) New Years Day. I stopped being happy when I awoke in a haze of pain and nausea. My foot was bleeding from an unremembered nighttime injury, my head was spinning, and my stomach was rebelling against all those double vodka cranberries. Katie and I tried having breakfast, and she succeeded, but I had a lone strawberry and one bite of fried potato before returning to my room to throw up. Between the bloodstains on the floor and the (I think successfully flushed) vomit in the toilet, I officially turned my bathroom into a biohazard. But, I made it home in time for lunch with my sister and her kids, and I was actually pretty well recovered by then, which made me able to enjoy the chicken and noodles that my mother made.

3) Trip Back to Cali. This was miserable. My flight from Des Moines to Minneapolis was so delayed that it was actually going to leave after the flight that was supposed to be later, so they bumped me to the later flight (which was now earlier). I got to Minnesota four minutes before my next flight was supposed to leave. With my bleeding, swollen foot, I quickly limped all the way across the freaking airport in hopes that I hadn't missed it. I made it just in time to sit on the runway for 45 minutes. Awesome.

4) Tammy. Tammy's staying with me and Claudia for a few days, which is super fun. Right now we're watching 'Iron Chef'--the secret ingredient was crab, and so we got to watch chefs try to make desserts out of crab. There's nothing like crab and lemon sorbet to really cleanse the palate at the end of a meal, eh?

5) Digging Plastic Out of My Foot. Last night, I decided that my foot should have started healing if there wasn't anything embedded in it--the fact that it was still occasionally bleeding and was swollen and painful after four days clearly meant that someone was wrong. So, I sterilized a needle and a pair of tweezers, used my cellphone flashlight to illuminate the surgical area, and spent ten minutes prodding into the wound looking for intruders. I was successful in my quest, after doing some pushing to get the foreign object closer to the open wound--and I pulled out a shard of sharp, pointed plastic an eighth of an inch long. I almost threw up after getting it out, since it was so appalling to think about the fact that it was slowly carving a path through my foot with every step that I had taken over the previous four days. But, my foot felt better immediately, and I awoke today to discover that the swelling was gone and I could walk on it without pain. Yay!

6) Coffee With Vidya. I only mention this because I know that she'll use ctrl-f to see if I mentioned her, since I saw her today. It was quite enjoyable, though.

Okay, that's all. Seeing Katie was fabulous, spending time with my family was fantastic, and it's hard coming back to California when I have so much to do :( Now, though, it's time to go to bed!