Well, okay. The weather outside is frightful. At least it is when one's heater isn't working. After a breakneck two weeks the manager showed up today with a new thermostat. Which didn't do a thing. After 20 minutes he announced he'd have to call the "furnace guys." They might be here tonight. Oh SURE they will. I'll eat this jalapeno cornbread if they show up tonight. In fact, I'll eat this jalapeno cornbread if they show up anytime before next Bastille Day. On the plus side, as we're going below freezing at night now, the beds look sort of like an Appalachian linen closet. Colorful blankets and quilts piled up high, topped with robes, afghans and, lastly, bath towels. I'm sure we all look adorable, in fact, we rather resemble something my kids used to build with their Legos. Complete with little heads popping up for no discernible reason. I'm afraid to pull the covers back and change the sheets though, it's way too cold to get up in the middle of the night and run to the necessary...

Tomorrow we're expecting rain here in the urban village. At least the temperature will warm up to slightly ABOVE freezing. So we don't even get snow days. Bah!

I may have mentioned, last Friday the lobby was decorated here. When I left it looked as if an elf had barfed all over my desk. By Monday morning the scotch tape Santa's Little helper had balled up and thrown against the wood trim, attached four year old foil garland to and hung some really ugly teal ornaments from had given up what little ghost Scotch tape has and the garland had slithered down the sides of the furniture and was laying in a heap on the floor. At which point I found myself filled with the spirit of Christmas right damn here and now as I gleefully picked it all up and shoved it in a box. A few tails of worn out tinsel garland remain. It's tolerable. The teal and forest green ornaments are also in the box. Honestly, teal? Who in their right mind uses teal ornaments? Somebody must have been frightened by Christopher Lowell as a child. Christopher Lowell, btw, is someone I think may possibly be a sham. I think Mr. Lowell has a wife and four children at home. Under wraps. Face it. If a decorator showed up at your house driving a pick up with those naked women on the mud flaps would YOU trust him? I don't care HOW you answer that out loud, you wouldn't and deep down you know it. It's sexism, pure and simple.

My cold is finally leaving the building and the cat, once again, is counted among the missing. If those "furnace guys" don't show up tonight that cat better be prepared to warm up his own Popsicle toes when he comes to the door at 4am and expects someone to get up and feed him. That's all I'm saying about THAT.

While I was curled up in bed, nursing my blocked sinus passages last week-end I spent no small amount of time musing about Sarah Palin. I'm thinking it was the fever, which, while slight, was enough to turn me into something that resembled Robert Hayes in the cockpit as he was approaching Chicago in "Airplane!" when it broke. However, I have determined that Sarah Palin is the way she is because she's taken Sigourney Weaver as a role model.

More on this later.