Val-isms: First cold of the season, apple picking & being supportive

My cold began Friday and escalated to full blown stuffy nose, coughing by Saturday. Not pretty for me or anyone around me!

I didn't let it get in the way of any of our plans, though. That doesn't mean that I didn't whine and drive the people around me crazy, but we managed to get out and about.

The meeting with our Cantor on Saturday morning was a lot of fun and very informative. We have minimal knowledge on Jewish weddings as Linda has never been to one and I've only been to 2 (my sister & one of my brothers), and obviously, with the gay slant, there will be some modifications done to prayers and traditions. Fun stuff!

We left there still having music to pick out, but knowing that we'd ask a friend of ours to be the pianist, who happily accepted our request and who's partner immediately asked to be a bridesmaid! (Oh, it's gonna be a great reception simply because we'll have a few gay men there!) I had to tell him that only family members will be in the procession!

The Shabbat experiment with Sophie went extremely well. It's amazing how much talking to one another can occur when TV and computers are removed from the environment. We played board games by candlelight, talked for an hour or so about our weeks and then read for awhile (by light!) before going to sleep.

After meeting with the Cantor, I got my haircut, and then headed out to a local farm for some apple picking. It was kind of drizzly rain at times, but it was still fun and the apples were good to snack on as we picked! It was a fun time that included a tractor-pulled wagon ride up into the orchard!

When we got home, we melted some chocolate and dipped a few apples in for Sophie to take over to her other home to share with her friend who she was having a play-date on Sunday.

Our dinner at our friends' home, with the wine flowing, my cold began to intensify with my head feeling even more clogged and needing to blow my nose more often. Fortunately, 2 of the guests were recent graduates from a local school where they became Homeopathic doctors and happened to have their Acupuncture needles with them.

So right at the dining room table, I became a pin cushion! 5 needles were painlessly put in strategically (1 on each hand between my thumb and index finger, 1 on each side of my nose and 1 on my forehead) and within minutes, I was feeling like I could breathe. Amazing. Then Linda's shoulder was treated with a few needles and another friend's hot flashes were treated with a few needles, as well! The 3 of us were on the couches, by now, relaxing with our 'treatment needles' doing their job! (So now you know what lesbians do on a Saturday night!!!)

Anyway, plans to go out dancing that evening were canceled due to the time that we were heading home (11:00pm), which was just as well. We passed on attending class Sunday morning, as it was still kind of raining out and I was feeling poorly.

But by late morning, the sun was shining and we headed out to clock a 9 mile course for Linda to run in Westport. She did amazing, finishing it in about 10 minutes shy of 2 hours! Her reward was a trip to the bookstore and then a DQ ice cream cone! I had a Blizzard for purely medicinal purposes, as my throat was very sore! Here's my impressive runner:

We headed home for hot showers (ahhh steam is so great for a stuffy nose!) and then watched the WNBA finals game between Phoenix & Indiana... We want Phoenix to win, but they ended up losing by 1!

We watched Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters and couldn't quite make it for Dexter. Something to watch tonight!

Tonight we're doing "Sushi in the Sukkah" at the Temple... interesting, no?!

Here's a cute pick of the boys (the first time we've seen them using 2 of the beds in this scratching thing we got them: (usually they fight to be the one to get the top bed)

Tommy is on top and that's Petey on the bottom! Sorry for the 'flash-bulb' eyes on them both!