...and now, for something completely different.

Friday afternoon, I realized I had a lot of drawing to do on Pomme de Terre before their deadline next Friday, and I remembered that I had to do a site visit to Wheatlands on Thursday. I collapsed in my office chair with the sinking and overwhelming feeling that I was going to have to go into the office this weekend to pull overtime on a project on which I'm supposed to be part time. Occasional overtime isn't so bad, I suppose, but after pulling eight straight months of overtime on Wheatlands last year, I really try to avoid it.

I went home and informed Mile High Guy of the need to work Saturday. "Well, dang," was his reply. "Jeff and I were gonna go snowboarding on Sunday. When do you want to hang out?" I sighed and decided I'd work Sunday instead while he was gone and I'd stay home with him on Saturday.

Readers, I could not have made a better decision. I stirred early this morning to the orange glow of snowflakes catching the sodium streetlights outside. When it snows around here, the flakes catch and magnify streetlights, which makes it look really bright outside. It muffles the sound of the occasional car driving by, and I feel safe. Just then, my 13-pound cat Maddy hopped up on the bed next to me, curled up, and fell asleep. I followed suit and didn't get out of bed this morning until about 9:30. Evidently, Maddy and I needed the rest.

I should note that I have other interests than architecture. Some architects I know are architecture-crazy: they read architecture and design magazines and books, they only visit places with famous or historical architectural sites, and they even spend their weekends remodeling their houses or, even worse, at the office. I'd rather whack myself in the head with a ball-peen hammer about twenty times than live/eat/breathe/poop architecture; it sounds less painful. For starters, my interests include my two cats, Maddy and Hazel; stand-up and improvisational sketch comedy; and staying in shape, mostly through running and yoga. It's that last bit that's gotten me in need of rest, lately. I get up every morning at 6am and either do yoga and a little weightlifting, or I run about four and half or five miles in 50 minutes. I've been limping and feeling a dreadful, pinching pain deep in my left hip crease whenever I lift that leg for the past few weeks. It got to the point where I had to use my hand to lift my leg into the car or out of bed. My massage therapist diagnosed me with a strained psoas muscle, and my friend Vito said it sounded to him like a pulled groin muscle. I don't know if those are the same thing, but it hurts like hell, and I've had to cut back my running. This makes me a sad panda, for I love running like Tara Reid loves drinking too much Jagermeister and collapsing onto unsuspecting B-list celebrities. In order to burn the same amount of calories that I was burning through running, I've had to start lifting more weights, which in turn makes all my back and arm muscles sore. Between all the aches and pains and the weary state I've been in mentally at work, I've been, shall we say, burned out.

So today was the kind of day I would love to have given Wide Lawns Subservient Worker. I arose to make some coffee and whipped up some sausage and vanilla-nutmeg French toast for Guy and me, and we at breakfast while watching the snow fall in large, white-chocolate flakes. I curled up in the warmest room in the house and caught up on the stack of magazines I'd been neglecting. Maddy curled up on me and snored while Hazel would occasionally stand in the doorway and kvetch that we need more catnip in the TurboScratcher. The TV stayed off. I never even got out of my flannel pajamas and fleece robe, and I never left the house. And neither did Guy.

Tomorrow, I'll go to work and finish a bunch of drawings that make my head spin. But today, I'm at peace.