The crowd grows ugly......

Wow, people!

I thought working full time and being on the overnight shift for a week would give me a little grace with my readers, but all I get is the boo/hiss response as people grill me about updating my blog. Crickey. You're cannibals, all of you.

Since I don't fancy the thought of losing any more limbs to my 'adoring' public, here's your update for the week.

Started working midnights on Thursday. It's been overall a good experience. I also started working on higher-priority reports from the officers (usually things that happened twenty minutes to four hours ago), so that's more exciting and feels a bit more relevant to the things that the police do. Cool event of the week: working on a case that involved a police dog! I remember when I was a kid and my church's vacation Bible school one summer brought in some officers who demonstrated what police dogs do and had a Q & A session with the officers. That was one of the highlights of my childhood presentations. I thought it was so cool. As well as that, I also met a former canine officer last week in the lunch room. He'd been on the K-9 unit for I think around twenty years or so and had just retired his latest dog. I'm still that little wide-eyed kid inside when I think about working with police dogs and getting to pet them and go after bad guys. But I don't think I've missed my calling in life.......

In related news, it's been freaking prairie-level cold here all week. I suppose a factor in that is my sleeping during the day and going to work at 11PM in the bitter cold with windchills that have been between -25 and -30. And then leaving work all cozy to walk back into the wind, scrape the ice off my car, and wonder why it takes the entire trip home before my heater blows hot air. Although I noticed one of my co-workers coming in this morning with two of those rice packs that you microwave.....she had one snuggled around her neck and the other I don't know where she had it while driving, but that would be a good way to stay warm in the freezing car going either to or from work. I'm going to try that. Anything beats being cold.

Most days I arrive at work and my fingers are so cold that they're almost to the point of senselessness. And that stinks when I'm going to work to be typing for eight hours and it takes at least fifteen minutes before my fingers work normally. Tried switching to warmer gloves, but that was a failed effort last night. Just as cold, and they were even harder to put back on than my leather gloves. So I'll go hunting this afternoon for gloves that I can layer--layering always works for everything in the cold, I find.

Aside from work, I haven't done much else recently.

Oh yes, trip to my sister's: it was really amazingly awesome (besides getting sick for a day while we were there). My nephew Caleb is the sweetest chickpea in the universe and we took to each other right away. He's very expressive with his face--highly communicative although he isn't speaking yet. He was trying to walk all the while we were there, but didn't quite do it on his own. He doesn't even like to stand up without holding on to someone, although he has the balance to do it. We had a great time seeing my family and having a belated Christmas together. Jason got to see the Mall of America for the first time, which he thought was cool. We got through about 90% of the mall in about three hours, or maybe it was four. It was just good spending time with my siblings and parents. We played probably 600 games of Settlers in the week we were there, which was really fun with 6 of us playing. We are officially junkies.

Came home from Minneapolis and had the Indian ladies' night I've been meaning to do for about a year. Had a great turnout--17 of us in my tiny apartment. It was great fun and I think everyone enjoyed it. I would have loved to invite everyone I know, but space limitations, etc. For those of you who were wondering, here is the menu from our evening:
Samosas
Pakoras
Mango Lassi
Mango Chutney
Sweet Lime Chutney
Cilantro Chutney
Butter Chicken
Hyderabadi Biriyani
Some other sort of rice curry that Lori brought
Mutter Paneer
Tandoori Chicken
Dahl
Naan bread
Tomato & Cucumer Raitha
Curd
Anise candy & sugar cubes
Some other dessert I can't name that Barb brought from further south in India
Masala Chai
and if there was anything else, I've forgotten it and I can't find my menu that I told Jason I wanted to hang onto. Overall, it was a success and I want to do it again with my small group.

Speaking of small group, it's grown by about seven members lately. Two couples with a child each joined, and one of them is pregnant with number two! So that brings us up to a total of............carry the five......square root of seven........I believe fifteen adults and fourteen children. Obviously the children aren't usually a part of our discussions, although the very little ones get passed around from person to person. Usually they make it as far around the circle as Judy and then somehow get stuck there. Like a black hole, only warmer.

That's all I have to say. Need to get dinner in the crock pot so Jason will have something when he gets home that's been made with love. I think that will officially be the first supper I've made since starting nights--I'm so blessed to have a husband who can cook so I don't worry that he's slowly starving to death in my absence.

Night shift has been good. We did a build-your-own-salad night on Monday morning (each of us brought a few things to add), and last night I brought my wedding pictures to show everyone (we said we'd all bring ours, but I was the only one who remembered). There's a lot more interaction on the night shift, which I enjoy. But I don't enjoy hardly ever seeing my husband, and sleeping when he is home during the day. I'm looking forward to a week off and time to get reaquainted with Jason. Although I can already look forward to the next night block when we're doing Soup from a Stone for our food night. That was one of my favourite books as a child (along with But No Elephants). Should be fun.

Hasta luego!