Back on the chain gang

Survived the first week back in the classroom, but now John and I seem to be coming down with something. He's getting more and more congested, and I've got a bit of tummy trouble and headache. As I always say, stupid bodies. I'll be happy when humankind finally evolves to be a brain in a jar or a blob of pure energy, although I don't imagine I'll be around to see that.

Most people get up, drive to work, and drive home again at the end of the day, but for John and me, taking the car is a rather big event we have to talk ourselves into. John prefers to ride his bike, for both the physical and mental benefits to himself and the environmental benefits to our corner of Germany, but it has been raining pretty steadily (he got soaked through, coming and going, two days in a row, despite his rain gear) and he strained his knees biking against a head wind one day, so it wasn't too hard to talk him into the two of us driving yesterday. Nevertheless, we went back and forth about it several times before we even got in the car, and even after we had already left, but our decision was really only cinched as the best choice when we hit a horrible downpour a couple of miles from home in the evening. I could see John in the driver's seat, imagining what it would feel like to be out in that on a bike, and he was pretty thankful he had dodged that bullet. Later, lying on the couch in his warm, dry clothes under a warm, dry blanket, he looked really happy not to have to be drying off and warming up like on Monday and Tuesday.

Actually, he had it pretty good last night. It was my turn to cook dinner, and empty the dishwasher, and scoop the cat box (which I still need to do), so he could basically lie back and wait for the food to come to him. I tried out a recipe that is basically broccoli-rice casserole, with quinoa substituted for the rice, and then baked, and it was very tasty, even though the mini-muffin format was a flop. So I made a note on the recipe and will file it away to try again in a different form.

--Nee in Germany is dead boring at the moment