"Dogs have masters. Cats have staff."

News bits:

Two months ago I had a crown come off one of my molars. Our pastor recommended a dentist who attends our church, that dentist saw me the next day, and successfully glued the crown back on.
While doing that work he commented that the tooth next to it had obvious decay that needed attention. That led to an appointment last week where I had a complete set of X-rays to find out how many other problems there are. A: a bunch.
I got a printed report a couple of days ago with prices for fixing each of the six bad teeth. I've bought cars for less money than this. And he says a couple of them shouldn't wait because I'm at risk of losing the tooth.

I got an email from our pastor this morning asking if I'd preach on New Year's Day. Pam told me to say yes.
It didn't occur to me until I was on my run that attendance that morning might be Pam and me.
Now I'm glad I delayed signing up for that race at 11:59 p.m. on New Year's Eve. I'll be skipping that now.

But the BIG NEWS: Ember gave birth to triplets this morning! Tomorrow morning we'll go pick up our kids, a goat born last Wednesday and one of the triplets born this morning. This is a pic of the older of the two, taken by Marta this morning.

He looks like he's wearing a yarmulke, so I think we'll name him Itzhak.

Yes, you can expect pics of our kids, starting tomorrow night.

I decided to do a fartlek today. That's a Swedish word that means "speed play" and is something like interval training, except not as structured. After going a short distance as a warm-up you pick a landmark in the distance - a telephone pole, mailbox, particular tree - and sprint to that mark. Then pick another mark and do an easy jog to that point as a recovery stage. Repeat for the entire run.

I should be stretching my hamstrings. Yep.
But it was sure nice to finally run with temps above freezing. The first day in over a week.

We're watching "The Hollow Crown." It's the current PBS Masterpiece Theater series on Sunday nights and is the dramatization of some Shakespeare play. This is THE bloodiest thing I've ever seen on TV. It's about the Wars of the Roses, the battle for the throne of England in the late 1400's. The two groups fight each other with big swords and the portrayals of these battles is gruesome! Heads cut off and waved around, then put on poles. Guys cut open and bleeding to death. Yikes! It's a little challenging to understand some of the dialogue because it's just as Shakespeare wrote it, but sometimes you have to let a line go and just try to get the gist of things. It works. But man, is it bloody!

We also watched Mr. Stink, also on PBS. It's a Christmas special, British, and very, VERY good.  You should look to see if they're showing it again in your area. You'll laugh and be touched, too. I'm a pretty Bah Humbug guy when it comes to Christmas kitsch but I like this one. Look for it!

When your wife starts by saying, "I'd like to talk to you about...." it's over. Raise the white flag, because whatever comes next is already decided.