Insulated

After successfully avoiding Home Depot for several months, I made a quick trip there today to pick up insulation and various items to cover body parts that might potentially be touched by itchy fiberglass. Bill, Linda, Joe, Jill, and I spent the afternoon in the basement, insulating the areas under our living room and office, plasticking over windows, and caulking various cracks, all in hopes of thawing out the nigh unlivable tundra that our first floor apartment has become. The result was an immediate temperature hike, and at the very least, the psychological advantage of having taken action to prevent our freezification.

Despite its lack of home improvements, yesterday was an enjoyable Saturday. Brad and Byron came into town with significant others to celebrate our winter birthdays with Apples to Apples, dinner at Pepperoncini's, a surprise cake with "103" written in candles (had Jersey shown up, the four of us would have been celebrating 103 years worth of birthdays; we had to settle for 77), and a big Pats win at night.

Speaking of football, it took me a long time to get into it this year, but the uber-exciting Rose Bowl and my genuine rooting interest in each of this weekend's wild card games have given me a mild bout of football fever. While it's never a good thing to watch a team from Texas win at anything, the NFL has unfolded perfectly so far. Washington kept Jon Gruden from seeing the second round, Carolina sent Eli Manning and Jeremy Shockey (football's ARod and Sheffield?) packing, and the Pats were victorious as usual. Being a Patriots fan has become a little too easy (perhaps bordering on soulless), but it's nice to get together with friends and root for a football team that's practically guaranteed to win. And the best part- if they lose, who cares? They haven't lost a playoff game since I was in high school. Let's hope Jon Kitna's Bengals can send the Steelers home and make it a clean sweep.