Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

It wasn't so much of a march... more like a mosey, I'd say. Actually it was more like standing around for a hella long time, punctuated by short busts of mosey. And when I say, "standing around," I mean standing as still and straight as a bottle of beer nestled firmly into a 550,000 pack. It was an amazing experience I wouldn't trade for even the most luxuriously non-claustrophobic conditions. Here's inside the metro subway car on the way into the city: Inside the metro train. Picture a medium sized room. Picture 250 people in that room. I had carpooled to DC with four friends, some of them brand new friends, staying with Casey's cousin and her husband-- two more brand new friends. Casey's cousin had bought a metro card for each of us earlier in the week. Luckily. Because the lines to the ticket machines were an hour long. And that didn't count the line down to the platform and the massive rabble in the station after we arrived downtown:

Tom and I bought a blender for ourselves for Christmas. Tom wasn’t as keen on the blender idea as I was. But don’t get me wrong, the blender still counts as a gift in the Tom column. That box is checked. Our new blender: http://amzn.to/2ioeDv1 I didn’t pick out one of the really really fancy blenders. We aren’t good enough chefs to warrant a blender that costs as much as an artificial leg. But our blender is good enough to have a smoothie setting that makes your cheeks vibrate when it gets going. The little wheel spins like a helicopter blade. The whole blender might go airborne if you don’t clamp your hands around the chassis. As soon as the new blender arrived on the scene, I got busy with it. Nothing has been safe from categoric pulverization. Early on, I had a broccoli moment. We had a lot of broccoli. I jammed a bunch into the blender and it was go time. Except not much happened.  The little wheel was spinning around like a champ but not connecting. It was a cla