I was getting a drink of water at the gym when an elderly lady walked in. At first I thought she'd suffered a terrible fall, but at second look I realized, she's just been to church.

Monstro and I went to the gym for the first time in FOREVER today — I kept myself away while I had the cough, for fear my workout neighbors might catch consumption. I rode the recumbent bike for 20 minutes. Then I came home and napped for two hours. I'm wondering which activity burned more calories.

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.