Wouldn't you know that as soon as I make a goal of riding my bike once a week, the temperature drops below zero... and I mean WAY below. It was -17° last night. Yikes! But I did manage to log a few miles on the trainer in the basement, albeit with a little help from You-Know-Who.
Never let it be said that a little "cold" weather will keep Bruce inside. He was out there cleaning off the sidewalks and driveway. Luckily, the snow was so frozen that he was able to blow it off with the leaf blower. As you can see in the background, we were the only clean sidewalk on Monday.
The folks back in St Louis also had snow and single-digit temps, which caused several out-of-town teams to be reluctant to head to the robotics competition on Saturday. So at the last minute, the administrators set up a remote event on Zoom and I was back in business as a referee. I was a little nervous at first, as I haven't ref'd this particular game this season; but like most years, the game is basically the same - push something, pull something, or pickup something.
It's also very cold in Chicago, so Courtney and I signed up for an online painting class. This time, you were supposed to paint a northwest river scene using only 2 colors. It was really interesting seeing how the paint mixed together to make it look like we used a whole palette of different tones. I think I'm going to try painting the view out our windows, because right now everything looks very bleak.
I managed to go out to lunch with my new Ladies Out to Lunch group just before the snow hit (actually, it started snowing while we were in the restaurant). We went to the Perfect Landing restaurant out at Centennial Airport - a small airport for private planes. It was interesting looking out the window and watching all the wealthy skiers load up and take off before the snow got really bad.
Poor Charlie has had some bad luck health-wise. He's extremely curious and tends to put everything in his mouth. One day, he ate some plastic wrap that luckily worked its way through his system on its own. But a few days later, he started weaving around like he was drunk. We took him to the vet and they ran blood tests and gave him a shot. A few hours later, he snapped out of it. The vet said he acted like he'd ingested some marijuana, maybe from a walk past the construction sites. We also found a bite out of the bar of bath soap. We're still not sure what caused this, but he now wears a muzzle when he goes on his walks. He can sniff things, but not put them in his mouth.
A few days later, we took Charlie back to the vet to be neutered. He was a little loopy for a couple hours afterwards, but then he snapped right back to his crazy self. The vet put a cone on him to keep him from licking his stitches, but it didn't stop him from running around the house with his toys. The trouble was, he kept banging into walls, because the cone stuck so far past his face. The only way we could get a little peace was to put a donut pillow on him. I think the worst part was he wasn't allowed to go outside to play (only to use the bathroom). Thank goodness his quarantine week is over and he can get back outside... even if it is cold. He doesn't seem to care.
