Things that make me angry: the idea of naming winter storms.  I believe there was one nicknamed “Nemo” the other week (I’m not on the east coast and I just wasn’t paying attention, much like they aren’t paying attention to us today)…and then I saw on weather dot com that they were calling this storm “Q” and I just got…really angry.  WINTER STORMS ARE NOT HURRICANES.

(thanks to my student Adam for sending me that most excellent Grumpy Cat picture)

Anyway, yesterday everybody in St Louis was freaking out and canceling stuff in anticipation of today’s storm.  The report was something like, ice, snow, freezing rain, mixed bag, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE GET YOUR ORGANIC MILK AND EGGS.  I had the gym this morning—it was my triumphant return to the fitness wagon, and I figured I’d want to get my workout in before being homebound for what looked to be weeks.

View from my front door before going to the gym.

By the way, the gym was awesome.  I did back squats, front squats, incline chest press (with WEIGHTS on the bar, not JUST the bar!), some sort of shoulder or chest move, and pull ups.  We discussed a variety of things, but most notably our feet. 

So you all know I’ve lost a toenail, right?  But did I tell you about my other big toenail?  It’s loose on ONE side but I can’t remove it, but there’s like, this white gunk underneath.  I tried to pick at it with a nail file and I cut the nail really short to try to get at it, and I’ve been cleaning/soaking with rubbing alcohol…but nothing seems to be changing. 

(I would totally post a picture but that would be super gross. Even describing it is gross.)

I decided to ask Mike about it and he said, oh, yeah, I have that too.  So I asked him what he did to fix it and he said, what, fix it? I just leave it.  I told him that having pretty feet and being able to wear sandals was important to me, and he said, “eh, I figure my feet are the sacrifice I make for the rest of me to look like this” and motioned at his body.  (I originally told Chris the story, and embellished that I pretended to vomit at that comment, and he totally called me out.  No, I didn’t. I totally just looked.) 

(Some day I’ll be able to have pretty feet again…)

That being said, I know some of you readers are runners.  Does anybody have this toenail issue?  I tried to do a google image search but after about 30 seconds I just…couldn’t take it anymore.

Okay, so then I left the gym, and the roads already looked like this…

(I was stopped at a red light.)

It only took about five to ten extra minutes to get home, but this was before noon.  I understand things got far worse, and it ended up being a delightful snow day (that continues for me, now, as I would still be working.)  I practiced a couple hours for the concert tomorrow (Chamber Project St Louis), I made a serious dent in my email inbox, did dishes, laundry and cooked dinner with Chris, and dyed my hair.  It’s been a wonderful day! 

My wipers are up because evidently that’s the thing to do so they don’t get frozen to your windshield.  We’ll see how well that works and hopefully they don’t get knocked off overnight or something. 

I remember one night driving home in a ridiculous rainstorm (I actually think I was driving home to Cleveland from Rochester, New York after an audition, but it might just have been home from Erie, PA—some of those horrific I-90 drives blend together—).  I had been driving in the pouring rain for a couple of hours, the sort of rain where you are tense and hunched over your car and can’t talk because you are gripping the steering wheel so tightly, and every time somebody passes you you can’t see a thing and you are just sure you are going to die. 

Anyway, I was finally almost home and dropped off whoever I was driving with at their house…and a huge branch fell off a tree, hit my driver’s side windshield wiper, which popped right off.  So then I drove the REST of the way home (five to ten minutes?) leaning over to the passenger side to see out the window.  Why, yes, I WAS in my early 20’s! 

Oh, and hey, really super late, here’s a little write up of our wedding from the people who did our stationary.  I love paper products.  Have I mentioned that quite enough over the years?

If anybody is waiting for post audition thoughts, it’ll be awhile.  I had to lock that away.  Sometimes that’s the healthiest thing to do.  I’ll be happy to answer audition related questions from readers, so fire away. 

And somebody tell me how to fix my toe gunk…I prefer my health problems to be solved by crowd sourcing.