Blah.

I have said before this is my favorite time of year. The holiday madness is over, and there's nothing to really do outside in the yard or gardens, the the pressure to Get Things Accomplished is next to nothing. I have gone into a state where I exist as minimally as possible.

It should feel good, but sometimes it doesn't.

TV and eating are pretty much the only things that really get me interested in living. Oh yeah, and sleep. Yep, I go to work and show up at church, but don't make me do anything more.

The good thing is I didn't feel the least bit guilty spending Valentine's Day morning in my bathrobe hugging a jar of Nutella and watching 'Return to Me'.

I have said before that I love gray crappy weather. I'm actually thinking a different color would be interesting right about now.

I wonder what the suicide statistics are for this time of year?

Saturday was sunny. That day was a spot of color in all the gray. We went to Ann Arbor and met up with Scott and Ann at Grizzly Peak for a couple of brews, and then walked a block or two to Miki for sushi. We must have bought 10 or 12 different rolls, and they brought out everything on a lacquered tray, and we dove in. Then we went to Zingerman's for some chocolate gelato and coffee. It was all so nice.

Sunday was more family visiting. A marathon, actually. We were gone basically 12 hours. We cut the grandparents' time as short as we could without looking unbelievably rude. There's not much for them to tell us, and they can't hear what we tell them. So we don't really tell them much of anything. The wall between us and them is getting so wearyingly high. They seem glad that we come to visit, but sometimes I wonder. Does it even matter? I feel guilty for not going more, but when I'm there I just want to cut and run. I hate it. I really think there will be funerals this year. At least one. Will it be a sad thing? I'm thinking not.

We celebrated Tim's dad's 78th birthday by going out to Famous Dave's , a barbecue restaurant in Saginaw . Perfect place for the Saginaw valley area. Meat and potatoes, and lots of it. Deep fried stuff, too. Copious amounts of barbecue sauce. Redneck, white man American food. Men can feel perfectly comfortable wearing ball caps indoors and all through their meal. Basically a few notches up from a truck stop. Don't get me wrong, the food was good. This is the kind of stuff we gather with good friends to make ourselves and enjoy, with much tribal annointing of spicy barbecue sauce. We've been wanting to try this place for ages. I predict it will do quite well in culinary wasteland.

Later at mom and dad's house, there was the ubiquitous angel food cake, freezer-burned fruit, and coffee made from salty well water. Actually the strawberries were good. Must have been the crop from the last year or three.

One last stop at my mom's. They don't live together, but Ron's there every time we stop in. They're just friends, but they hold hands the entire time we're there. They now are dating other people (according to mom's latest bulletin) but they go away together to Traverse City for weekends at motels with heart-shaped jacuzzis in the rooms. What. Ever.

Tim just left for a Cincinnati/Columbus. He'll be working down there this week, which means I get the computer all to myself until Saturday!! He tried to do this last week on Tuesday morning, but a half hour before he was supposed to go out the door, he felt a funny twinge in his back. He thought he'd feel better if he laid down on the floor for 5 minutes. Well, five *hours* later, after writhing in pain from back muscle spasms, he managed to get to his feet. That was his first (and hopefully only) experience with those. We got to the doctor's office and fixed him up with Flexeril and super-duper Ibuprofen. It's not quite back to normal yet, but he says it's improved every day. No slipped discs, the X-rays looked good. That was the first thing I thought of, that he'd slipped a disc. No, we simply cannot have two people in this house with *that* problem. I do have disc issues, and it's been 12 years and counting since the last time I've had the kind of hellish little episode he went through.

That's about it. In case anyone gives a rip.