Christmas

Christmas has come and gone. I had a three day weekend with no work - including ShopKo - so I found some time to lounge around and do family things. The Schrag family Christmas celebration was on the 24th. It spanned two delicious meals and involved pass-around-while-music-is-playing gifts with an international theme. Everyone seemed so happy with their presents that only one or two people stole someone else's gift. One thing I found interesting about the Schrag gathering was how non competitive most of us are. Someone got out a few board games, but we ended up just sitting around the living room with all of us trying to answer the same questions, not even keeping score.

On the afternoon of the 25th Reed, Sue, Nick and I went to a movie in Sioux Falls. We saw The Family Stone. I would recommend. After the movie I dropped Mom and Dad off at the IHOP (one of the few restaurants we found to be open on Christmas) and filled the car up with gas at the station across the street. While I was filling up, Nick went up by the convenience store to smoke. After I filled up I moved the car up by him and went in to pay.
As I was leaving a strange man stopped me to tell me a man in a stocking cap was trying to break into my car. I thought about and realized that Nick was wearing a stocking cap and this guy probably didn't realize he was my brother. I laughed, but thanked the guy for looking out for me. Reallly, it was very nice of him.

I hope everyone reading this had a wonderful Christmas. I will be flying to Ohio tomorrow for the Suter/Wiebe wedding and I am looking foward to it. I bought some yarn for a new knitting project today. I wanted to knit during my flights, but now that I think about it, having knitting needles on a plane might be illegal. Hmmmm...

Friday

First and foremost I need to give a shout out to my good chum Phil Gratz from Bluffton, OH. Phil, welcome and I’m looking forward to spending some quality time in your hometown next week. Yeehaw … vacay!

Today Rachel Ries is the Noon Concert performer at the Old Courthouse Museum. I switched with Paavo so I could be over here today for her performance. I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing her. Her new CD is good driving-to-work-music for me because it calms me amongst the traffic.

Tomorrow I am heading to Freeman for some Schrag family Christmas and then on Sunday I think I will just hang out with my immediate family. Sue mentioned going to a movie. Any suggestions? All this Brokeback Mountain hullabaloo interests me. I also want to see Syriana and the Squid and the Whale. Are these even in theaters right now?

Sudafed

This may sound strange, but I do believe that taking Sudafed semi-regularly since the end of August made me mentally and emotionally unstable and irrational. I remember Polly complaining in college that she could not take too much Advil Cold & Sinus or just plain Sudafed because it made her crazy. I believed her, but I thought she was just a very rare and special case. Now I am not so sure.

It all started back in August at my yearly allergy and asthma check up. Dr. Smith stuck his little light up my nose and exclaimed to the intern beside him, "wow, you snould look at this!" He told me I could take periodic steroid regimens to reduce the swelling and inflamation or take Sudafed when I felt especially plugged up. I opted for the Sudafed because prednisone (a steroid) does weird things to me too.

I didn't notice any change at first, but by November I was irritable (easily annoyed and mean) and very emotional. One time I was sitting at the front desk of the Old Courthouse Museum and I could not stop crying. I wasn't even sad or upset about anything, but I kept crying. I even started to laugh at the situation and I still couldn't control it. I thought, what is wrong with me? I didn't have anything to be that depressed or stressed out about.

I did some research on the Internet (yeah, not very scholarly, I know) and found some other peoples' testimonies on how pseudoephedrine made them crazy, too. One girl had been taking decongestants daily since she was in junior high. It changed her disposition, but she did not realize it until ten years later. Now she is off pseudoephedrine and back to her "old self," if she can even remember what that was. Another source I found was a more scientific study that said pseudoephedrine had caused emotional instability in some of the people in the study.

These findings encouraged me to stop taking Sudafed for a while to see if it helped. I stopped right around Thanksgiving and have felt fine since. There are probably other variables involved so I will conduct this "trial" for a while longer, but still, what a crazy experience. I talked to a nurse at the allergy clinic to ask her about my suspicions. I told her I thought Sudafed was making me crazy and she laughed. I laughed too because it is kind of a funny and strange situation. Now I am congested at times, but a happier person.

Staff Meeting

This morning at the end of our staff meeting Bill had us each tell what our plans for the holidays were. It all took me back to elementary school when, after winter break, we went around the room and said what we did over break and what we got for Christmas. It was sort of funny, but it was also neat to hear what everyone was doing.

Mary Lou's Christmas tradition was interesting. She and her grandkids bake a birthday cake for baby Jesus on Christmas Eve. It sounds funny, but it is a neat idea. I wonder how many candles they put on the cake. Jesus is old.

I like Marty's Hanukkah plans, too. Her family rents out the fire hall in Mitchell (she hopes there aren't any fires in town that day) and plays rousing games of volleyball. I wouldn't associate volleyball and Hanukkah, but maybe it's a sacred Jewish tradition ... um, I doubt it.

Slippery Roads

Yesterday I dropped my car off at the downtown Firestone store to get a flattening tire fixed. After work I walked to Firestone to pick up the Malibu (by the way, it’s the opposite of Malibu here in SD right now) and on my walk I had a mishap. I was trucking along because it was so cold and I came upon the Duluth Ave. and 9th St. intersection. I needed to cross 9th Street and it was pretty busy at 5:05 pm. I saw an opening and figured if I trotted across the street I could make it. Well, I ended up falling flat on my ass right in the middle of the intersection. At first I just wanted to sit there for a bit, wallow in my pain and then slowly get up. Then I realized that the reason I was running across the intersection was to beat an oncoming car. The whole thing must have looked pretty comical because I was trying to get up and crawl across the intersection at the same time. It is a good thing the oncoming car noticed me a slowed down because I probably would have gotten hit. I really didn’t want to look at the driver because I knew he/she was probably laughing, maybe on the phone with a loved one sharing the bit of humor. Then I started to laugh and massage my sore butt because, really, it was quite a funny situation. Ha.

Brrrrrrrr

It's so c-c-c-cold at the Pettigrew Home & Museum. I found the electric blanket in storage and I now have it set on hi-warm and wrapped around my legs. This place needs an electric jacket to keep my arms warm too. The museum is trying to save money this winter so we have to keep it cool in the buildings. Julie said she would make me some coffee to thaw me out so I will have to go upstairs soon to get a cup. Oh, but I love it, I really do. Being cold makes me appreciate things that make me warm, just like being hot makes me appreciate things that cool me off.

New Towel

I just tried out my new towel this morning and I'm going to give it two thumbs up. It is so soft and luxurious compared to my other towels. My old bath towels are nice, but 6.5 years old and starting to lose their soft touch.

I figured it was time to add another bath towel to my stash because I want to change towels every few days for sanitation reasons. If I have one more towel I can go longer without doing laundry. Plus, when I have guests over toward the end of the towel cycle I only have my beach towel or the weird benzoyl peroxide dyed purple towel to offer them. Yeah, that's welcoming: "Here you go, here are my crap towels. Please, have your choice of the towels I never use and be sure to come again." If you come to visit me now I will let you use my wonderful new towel. It's tempting, I know.