Quiet days, not without adventure

For much of the last two snowy days, we were without land line and, much more importantly, internet. It was rather awesome. Nobody isolated in their rooms with their devices. Natalie went over to her friend's house, where they lunched and watched a stupid movie. Graham read with me in the living room, then we went out and sledded. Mary cleaned up a bunch of crap that had been accumulating on the island in the kitchen and around her desk. I made a ton of headway on a Wallander novel. Last night we all hung out around the fire in the living room and read. Except when people interrupted me with their stupid talking.

No but seriously, it was enough to make me think about turning off the router for a certain number of hours per weekend or even evening.

Not that it was without adventures. For example:

• After lunch on Friday, I went back to the office to get my computer, then headed home. When I sat down in my car, I felt a sharp pain near my left hamstring. "What the hell?" I thought. It turned out to be a toothpick which was somehow sticking out of my seat and stuck into my leg, like maybe an inch deep. I had to pull the mofo out of there, and it hurt like hell. On top of having fallen on my right butt cheek on the tennis court Wednesday night (though I won the point), this makes me a little gimpy.
• Early that evening, I put down some salt on the steps leading from our driveway to our side door. At around 7:45 on Friday evening, as frozen precip of some sort was just starting to come down in earnest, Mary discovered we were out of cat food. I had to run out to Pet Smart on the Boulevard to get this ridiculous prescription food. When I got back, there were a bunch of deer hanging out by the steps, licking up my precious salt. The bastards. I honked at them pretty good.
• Yesterday Graham and I were out sledding by the lake. I use this rather minimalist, Zen roll up sled kind of thing. Just a sheet of plastic, really, but it slides rather well. It was pretty windy, and as I made my way back up the hill, the wind blew it up and it hit me in my chin, breaking the skin and drawing little blood. Later a crew from the local CBS affiliate was interviewing people about the sledding, and I shared a few trenchant insights with them, garnering some portion of my proverbial 15 minutes of fame. Not long after that, I was hanging out with Chris Senior talking about this and that, and he looks at me and goes "It looks like you've got some of your lunch on your face." He helped me clear it up. Thankfully, this hadn't shown up on TV.
• The night of the snow, I had a dream. I had recently been to the barber, but he hadn't cut my hair as short as I like it. It was a bummer.