So, didja vote? I did. It was pouring down rain but I braved the wet for democracy. (Ron Paul! Ron Paul! Ron Paul!) I felt bad for the people waving candidate signs. What a miserable day to be a Hillary supporter. 🙂

Tonight we are going to a Fat Tuesday pancake dinner, complete with a pancake race! This is where you race around a course while wearing an apron, holding a frying pan, and flipping a pancake. If you drop your pancake on the ground, you're out of the running. Monstro is going to make some goopy, rich, lobster-egg-gratin thingy. Mmmm….

…guess we shoulda had Bible study, after all.

OK, so the Super Bowl is tonight, and I'm scared to watch it. See, ever since Monstro and I moved to Massachusetts, the sports teams in the area have broken records and won world championships. They have done this all without me; I have yet to watch a complete game of ANYTHING since we moved here, and Monstro would rather read a book. So now, if I tune in to the Super Bowl, will I jinx our hometown team?

I'd figured this point was moot; we'd planned to go to Bible study tonight — I'm facilitating it this year, we're doing Disciple III — but last night, those plans were derailed when our pastor called. And when your pastor calls at 8:00 Saturday night to ask, “are we having Disciple tomorrow, or cancelling it so we can all watch the Patriots?” it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what he's actually saying is “I won't be there, and neither will anyone else, so let's not have it.”

I'd planned to go to church this morning to do a straw poll of our study-group, to see if anyone wanted to have it, but after being up half the night, uh, burning the candle at both ends after eating something that didn't agree with me, I wasn't up for it. I called the office and spoke to a member of the choir, who said she'd announce the cancellation.

Monstro had to go to a post-church seminar, though, and while there one of the women from our group approached him, saying, “So… we've been pre-empted!”

The game I'm most excited about today is the Animal Planet Puppy Bowl, and particularly the Kitty Half-Time Show. Great stuff. Bark bark! Meow!!! It starts at 3:00 Eastern time and I think will be re-run for most of the day. Motormouth says, check it out.

Monstro's birthday is Thursday so he's walking around asking everybody if he's middle aged. We're not answering him. Our game group met last night — the woman who brought dinner included a homemade carrot cake (with homemade cream-cheese frosting) with the legend “All Hail the Game Master.” Then I brought out his birthday present from me (a new hard drive, specifically for gaming), from the boy (Crysis), and his Valentine's gift (two gigs of RAM), and his anniversary present (a new fast-as-lightening video card with another 512 MB of on-board RAM). Kind of stinks that now he won't have anything to open on his b'day, Valentine's Day, or our anniversary, but his buddy is a Dell consultant and offered to do the installs for free, and I couldn't see dragging Russ over three times.

So, happy early birthday, sweetheart. Of course, now I won't see him for a month, as he'll be holed up in his study, killing baddies.

So I was driving to the health center the other day to make sure my cough wasn't pneumonia (it's not), and when I pulled off the highway I was stopped at a light and surveyed the following scene: Hillary Clinton supporters standing in the median of Highway 9, waving their red-white-and-blue “Hillary” signs and smiling, smiling, smiling. Across the street from them stood another flock of Hillary followers, waving similar signage and wearing similar smiles.

And between the two groups of supporters, in the middle lane, was a guy in a car that had crapped out. He had his hazard lights on and was on his cell phone, presumably to Triple-A.

And not one of the Hillary supporters thought, “Hey, we should help that guy out, or at least push his car out of the road so that nobody rear-ends him.” They were all about the sign waving, and the smiling, but when it came to taking an action that would make a positive difference in somebody's life? Nada.

And I thought, If this isn't the perfect metaphor for Hillary Clinton's political career, I don't know what is.

…but now I'm found! It was 35 weeks ago until LAST NIGHT when we got a new episode of the best show on TV. Ahh, LOST. How I've missed you. SPOILERS AHEAD: Did you all notice that the guy in the rocking chair in the spooky cabin of spirits was played by the actor who played Jack's Dad? And that the guy who popped up in the window looked an awful lot like Unibomber Charlie? For that matter, the “rescuer” guy looked like Charlie, too. And Hurley, back in the mental hospital (say Hey to Britney for me, wouldja?), was so sad. The creepy “Oceanic” guy who came to visit him shared a name with the angel who brings on the destruction of the apocalypse. Hmmm.

Monstro now thinks that Lost Island is actually the Garden of Eden, and that's why the compasses don't work.

OK blogosphere, I'm sending this out to you: got any home remedies for cough? I've tried tea with honey, I'd like to try buckwheat honey but they don't sell it around here, and I can't drink Throat Coat tea. Other suggestions? My only other option has been Tylenol with Codeine and I can't take that during the day as it turns me into the living dead. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Yeah, I know, the new eppy's tonight, but I just haven't been able to muster the interest to post about last week's. This show is a fiasco — the producers OBVIOUSLY dictate who stays/who goes based on who makes the best “TV.” You know what? Crying does not necessarily equal good TV.

Speaking of crying, Ricky opens this episode by complaining that everyone's telling him he's not good enough to be there. Here's a news flash, buddy: You aren't.

Christian thanks the losing model “more than life.” And now it's Tim Gunn Field Trip time.

Our intrepid designers show up at an East River pier building with a big Port Authority sign. The doors open and the warehouse is shown to contain more than 500 pairs of Levi 501s. Their challenge: Create an iconic denim look using 501s and white cotton.

They get three minutes to grab materials after a sprint. Chris manages this run better than the one at the first episode, but Sweet P loses her shoe and gets a very dirty foot.

Back in the workroom, Tim tells them they have until midnight. Ricky tells us he MAKES HIS HATS. Off with his head!

Christian is driving everyone crazy. Off with his lopsided head!

Jillian is annoyed that Victorya is also making a coat; like a denim coat is the most original idea ever.

SP is making a wedding dress. How this translates to 501 iconic, I do not know.

Ricky, feeling insecure, rolls out his resume.

Christian wonders why Chris talks to himself. Everyone else wonders why Christian talks at all.

Rami's borrowing Jeffrey's zippers-as-detail idea from the season three finale. Heck, it worked for Jeffrey!

Tim thinks SP's wedding dress is “happy hands at home granny sewing circle.” SP looks horrified.

Jillian has cut herself and has a meltdown at her sewing machine. At midnight, nobody's done.

The next morning, everyone rushes to their glue guns. Oh, and Christian calls Tim Gunn “TimmyTim.”

Jillian thinks Victorya's outfit looks too similar to hers, though J's model consoles her that it's “Not cute.”

On the runway: Heidi's dress is uglier than anything we're gonna see on the models, and that's saying a lot.

Sweet P is always so excited when they introduce the guest judge; I think that's cute.

Speaking of cute, Rami's outfit is the only one that isn't butt-ugly. Jillian's isn't bad, but it looks like she threw it together in 15 minutes. SP shortened the wedding dress and will probably get to stay to sew another day. Victorya's coat looks like it would best be used to catch feral cats.

The judges love Christian's biker outfit. No love for Chris, though… ooh, “home sewn!” They love Ricky. He cries. Kors says the Amy Winehouse influence is evident. Apparently he means this as a good thing, but to me it construes “crack whore.” They love Rami. They think Jillian's is like flowers on Valentine's day: too much, yet not enough. Kors thinks SP's is “chic.” But Victorya's jacket is stupid and the judges say as much.

Kors says Chris's outfit is “Joan Cusack in Working Girl.”

OMG Ricky wins and his dress will be sold on Levi.com. The other designers look like they want to have a mass suicide right there on the runway.

I thought they'd bump Chris (“home sewn” is usually the kiss of death), but now I think it'll be Victorya. Yup, she's out. The girls hug, and neither ice queen shatters. Amazing.

I started teaching at the local women's college again yesterday and it is so good to be back! My writing class (Writing for the Media) has a whopping four students, so we'll be having more of a workshop than anything else. I had them write my typical go-to benchmark essay: 500 words about a time that something happened to you or a friend that made you laugh out loud. Also, they get to read Amy Hempel's “The Harvest” for the first time this week, and I'm terribly jealous that they get to have that experience.

The digital photography class also went well — I have a student in that class who took my writing class last year, so I already know her name. Then, at the end of class, one of the other students approached me and said, “We missed you in church on Sunday.” I'd been looking at her throughout the class session, trying to place her. Turns out she's one of the new nursery workers at our church! So I know her name, too. And then, earlier that day, I saw a young woman with streaked blue hair walking around campus and thought to myself, “I wonder if she'll be in my digital photo class?” Yup, she sure is. Not only that, but her mom is the one who wrote me an e-mail in December, asking for digital camera recommendations as a Christmas gift for her daughter. So, I already know the names of three students in the class. Only 17 more to go!

I wanted to introduce them to Photoshop so I had them download the “In the Snow” picture of my boy.

“Who can tell me what's not right about this picture?” I asked.

“He doesn't have any feet!” said my returning student.

“OK… besides that,” I said.

Oh yeah, it's good to be back. The only bummer was, I couldn't get my security badge, because a power surge took my record out of the system. No security badge means I couldn't check my mailbox, and also that I had to ask students to open my classroom door for me. But other than that, it was great.