Yup, my right hand. The cyst is on my pinkie, so I can go to the desk job the next day. I’ll probably have a little vacation from the fire department and rescue squad, though.
Gonna crimp my sex life for a coupla weeks… :eek: 
I came into work today, not knowing if any of our group was involved with the bridge collapse. Fortunately, nobody in our immediate department was, but no word yet about the company as a whole. We’re a rather large employer in Minneapolis, so there’s still a chance. I’ve got a map from our disaster recovery folks showing quite a few locations on either side of the bridge.
I’m full of about fifteen flavors of GRRR now. Last night, my router was acting a bit wonky, then decided it was more comfortable in its factory defaults, so now we have no internet. I’ll have to try ressurecting it tonight, but it’s a genuine pain in the butt to reprogram the device, especially since it doesn’t like being told how to behave by a Mac.
Heffy, your get well wishes worked. Many thanks 
Congrats Drae! How was the first day?
Taxi, glad everything with you and yours are okay after yesterday.
Poor Haze. Hope everything gets sorted out for you.
Ooh, MamaTigs, sorry about your computer - what timing!
Happy happy anniversary McUne! To answer your question…I think after a year you are no longer “newly” wed. Of course, as **Nava ** pointed out, “newlywed” is often a meaningless term since so many couples live together before marriage. I think Flusband and I are nearing the end of our newlyweddedness (like that? :)) since we’ve been living together for a year and married for 10 months of that.
Aaannnddd…now for the main event:
Hobo Chicken:
1/4 c. butter melted in deep casserole pan
2 (16 oz) cans pork and beans
2 T. honey mustard
1 T. brown sugar
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
10 slices of bacon
4 lg. boneless skinless chicken breasts
Arrange chicken in casserole pan. Mix beans with mustard, brown sugar, onion and garlic. Cover chicken with bean mix and lay bacon on top. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour or until chicken is done.
Note: The butter is not entirely necessary, just adds some extra flavoring. Sometimes I use it, sometimes not.
I ran out at lunch to Radio Shack to buy a cassette-player adapter for my Sirius radio (I can’t find a single FM frequency to piggyback on that stays clear between work and home, and it’s onlt bout a 10 mile trip.) I figured that Sirius would have a specific thingy for this. But no - I ended up with a generic RS POS unit that makes the music sound worse. So it’s off to somewhere else to find a decent adapter (plugs into the Aux Out jack of the receiver and ends up in a cassette-shaped doohickey.) Any suggestions?
Jabber, chatter, prattle…
No more talk of snakes, mmkay? Me no likey the legless critters.
Nava–are you sure your grandparents aren’t an alien race? I’ve never heard of lobes in the colon.
Awaiting friends to arrive from NYC via interstate highway. The we will all commence to a great Asian restaurant here in town. Work in am. AND on Saturday–it oughta be outlawed.
I cleaned all morning and now have a halfway clean house. Still need to wipe down the bathroom and I’m thinking of making scones. I am tired, though. (I am so sick of being tired, I cannot tell you)
I am sort of dreading the doc visit I have next week. I will also have a repeat chest Xray. He said that if my pneumonia hasn’t cleared I’ll need a bronchoscopy. No, thanks…
Sorry I just skimmed, but think of it as me increasing my productivity, not me ignoring you.
Off to work, see you tonight. BEHAVE. OR. ELSE.
Isn’t that the point of the MMP? 
Maybe, but we ain’t got nothin’ on Columbia, who get 18 statutory holidays a year – with as many as 3 falling in just one month. Slovenia sits just behind at 16, and Slovakia, Cyprus and Chile each have 15. Of course, that’s not enough to make me want to live in any of those places. 
No, that look is an order of magnitude worse, and is more involved. See, when holding a woman’s purse, it’s really just a temporary thing – 5, 10 minutes or so in which you either maintain the same arm length and position as when she handed it to you (in that “I’ve just been handed something I don’t know what to do with and don’t want associated with me” look) or try and hide it somehow. I don’t know anyone who attempts the latter, because it is patently impossible to hide a purse anywhere on a man’s body while still maintaining some level of cool.
Buying feminine hygiene products though, that usually involves some pleading and whining when first asked, generally followed by caving in to the demands. Once at the store, spend some considerable time searching for them. (The Man Code states that knowledge of where such things are kept in stores is not only forbidden, it should be treated as if they do not exist unless dire, life- or sex-threatening consequences force one to find out.) Once located, there are two ways to transport them:
- If you have other shopping to do in the store, bury the package well underneath whatever else is in your cart or basket and carry on
- If you have no other shopping to do, it should be carried in such a manner that as little of the package surface as possible is touched, and it should be ferried as quickly as possible to the checkout.
If at all possible, try and buy something else – something manly. DO NOT BUY CONDOMS. This is a rookie mistake. The inference made from someone carrying condoms and a pack of tampons or maxi-pads is too horrifying to contemplate, so if you really need condoms, buy them in a different transaction – at a different store. Of course, if you’re buying feminine hygiene products, you probably don’t need condoms just then anyway. Buy a can or stick of Axe, maybe some razor blades or shaving cream or a Harley. If the place you are at also happens to sell beer, so much the better. Non-alcoholic beer does not count.
Once at the checkout, there are two ways to deal with having to confront another human being – the cashier, and potentially whomever else might be in line – while in possession of a feminine hygiene product.
- Dump the product(s) unceremoniously on the counter and look annoyed while fishing for your wallet.
- Place the product on the counter and do not look at it, or the cashier. Act like it doesn’t exist, and that the only reason you are there, giving the cashier money, is to settle a tab.
In either case, do not engage the cashier in smalltalk, as this will only betray your embarrassment, and ask to have the product(s) double-bagged. If the bags are particularly thin and translucent, ask for three. If the bags are clear, void the purchase and go to another store.
So sayeth The Man Code.
I respectfully disagree. I don’t mind buying these products in public. It means that a woman trusts me enough to handle this Very Important Mission, shows the women who see me that I am a Caring Individual, and shows the guys who see me that I’m gettin’ some on a regular basis.
Teamwork.
Chatter and more chatter.
Swat mosquitoes.
Listen to facilitator tell us all about him.
Teamwork exercise.
Learn how to lash together 3 canoes into a ‘raft’.
Attach lifevest. Folks, the river, at it’s deepest is about knee deep right now.
Chatter incessantly.
Push into river.
Discover that you (me), and possibly two others on the ‘raft’ of 7 people are doing anything at all.
4 miles, 5 stops later, exit river.
Eat cold fried chicken.
I’m not feeling all that team-y.
The forecast is done!! WOOHOO! All the numbers tie out, the totals make most everyone happy, and the parts that don’t make people happy aren’t my fault! YAY!!!
Motivation has totally tanked here at work. Coming off a solid week of really hard work on the forecast, it’s tough to get into anything new. Everyone else seems to be in a similar situation as well. Oh well.
Happy Anniversary McUne!! I still think we need to have a MN-dopers get together some time. Are you in the greater Twin Cities area or are you Out State as I believe we say here? (Sorry, I’m still new to MN… I’m used to being an Upstate NYer. Out State confuses me.)
We’re headed to NJ tomorrow for a wedding Sat. I’m looking forward to seeing my college friends, but I’m soooo not looking forward to the travel bit. Bleh. Oh well.
See everyone on Tuesday!
Taxi, I live in South east MN, but could head up the cities sometime. I’d drag hubby along too, LOL. In fact, we are going to be up there on Saturday for a Twins game (unless it’s cancelled).
Thanks for the happy anniversary wishes everyone!!!
MBG-shit like that just used to piss me off. It’s like those “groups projects” you had in grade school: two of the four members would goof off and two would do the work, and one of those two had to write it up because she had the nicest handwriting.
Ugh.
House is as clean as it’s going to get. Awaiting houseguests now.
Half an hour till the critters get loaded for their trek to the vet. FCD’s car is still in the shop so he gets to drive my car again and I get to drive the van again tomorrow. Oh well…
Almost Friday. <insert happy dance here>
I posted this in my LJ, but I knew you’d all appreciate it.
I promise I didn’t drink or take any funky meds last night, but I had one bizarre dream. It started out with Rue and my husband bulding a snow fort on our back porch. Even tho we don’t have a back porch. And it’s most certainly not snow weather. Oh, and Rue had daughters instead of sons. :eek:
Then the dream transitioned to a bunch of us in a van and I was giving invitations to some celebs I saw in a restaurant. I can’t recall who they were now, but in my dream, they were big stars of years gone by - real stars, not pop tarts and boys band types. And there was something about water in that part of the dream.
It ended with one of the Geico cavemen coming to stay with us, and he was bitching about our guest accommodations. At that point, I woke up very confused.
Maybe I should start drinking - at least then I’d know why I had weird dreams…
Two of our ‘team’ sat in the back playing Cleopatra. One lead us in song. (Yes, song).
Another only spoke up to tell us when we needed to correct our steering, or to ask to switch sides because his poor widdle back hurt him.
I’m off for a bike ride.
Kind of a shame when so much physical exercise leaves you so wound up that you need more.
Grr.
Mork, I like your musings on buying womanly stuff. It made me giggle.
I’m slowly getting stuff out of the way and calming down about life and stuff, although my brother is still sitting around doing nothing, which makes me contemplate fratricide several times a day. I’m at work right now, even though I have no classes, so I can sort out all this paycheck nonsense. One can only hope.
Back from the vet. Bernie is a whopping 69+ pounds. Well, lessee - she lays around all day. That’s about right. Otherwise, she’s healthy for an old girl.
Miss Brandy yowled the whole way to the office and the whole time in the waiting room. She does not like her crate. I’ll be curious to see how long before she forgives us and returns for skritches. I expect it’ll happen before the night is out.
I just ate a bowl of cereal. I think I’ll have some watermelon now. Yum. Come on by - there’s lots to share! 
More like 5 minutes after she’s done eating…
She ate before we went. But just a few minutes ago, she was happy-dancing on FCD, so he’s been forgiven. I’m still waiting.
Steve the 'puter guy took my poor baby away to run diagnostics on the workbench at home. <sniffle> He does think he can get it back up and running – enough to install two new drives in the 'puter and image the dying one onto one of the new drives. And then I can just image a backup every week. Works for me.
But now I’m on Lapin Blanc’s borrowed 'puter – technically it’s still hers, but she’s moving and leaving it behind so you know what they say about possession and the law. Anyway, I’m back up and working for the nonce. Kind of; I have 20 zillion shortcuts and macros that I use that I’m having to rebuild from scratch. Definitely slows me down!
But I scared the whole family for a bit – when I moved the borrowed 'puter in and hooked all my stuff up to it, all of a sudden IT started crashing on boot! Ack! We figured, however, out it hated my mouse, for no known reason, so a new mouse and voilà! Working 'puter. But Lapin Blanc was crying out, “YOU KILLED MY COMPUTER!” and the first thing Papa Tigs said when I told him was, “Don’t touch MY computer!” Don’t you love the support my family gives me in times of crisis?
That team-building sounds more like boredom-building to me, MBG!
We don’t have team building stuff at work, but our mandatory training for August includes a really poorly executed crossword puzzle that can’t be completed unless you do the training, and you have to turn in the crossword puzzle to get credit for the training. Yeah. Very professional. :rolleyes:
The guy who sits next to me made up a bunch of bogus answers (like “strip club”) but he shredded it when he was done. I told him he should have put someone else’s name on it - like one of the guys who just quit.
Yeah, we’re a real professional outfit…