WWW.

Tonight was an exciting night. WWW night is for wine, waffles and watching TV. After a long winter of no television we ushered in some of our favorite shows with this historic event. Our friend Jessie came over for the infamous "breakfast for supper" followed by some quality television of Grey's Anatomy, Lost and The Office. I chose the breakfast, Brandi chose to take the picture, and Jessie wanted wine........so we threw that in with the waffles. Since it was raining all day and is supposed to snow tomorrow, the wine was probably necessary.

In an effort to make this event a healthy one, we had turkey bacon at Brandi's request. A few comments on turkey bacon:

The pros: It's better for you. It's fully cooked, so you can rip open the package of 'bacon' and eat it raw for a dramatic visual effect.

The cons: It's not really bacon. I'm not sure it really comes from a turkey. I'm not sure it comes from an animal. It is creatively colored to resemble the tasty visual marriage of pork meat and pork fat intertwined into a pan fried delicious taste treat. This visual mirage, however, is about as believable as a hamburger made our of Legos. Cooking turkey bacon, if desired, does not provide much visual feedback. It takes between 4 seconds and 40 minutes to cook. I would like to know who the turkey bacon designer is that decides how much light colored turkey puree to mix with the darker, reddish colored, meat looking, turkey puree to best resemble regular bacon. This visual illusion can be very deceiving........from 100 yards, or farther, away. Gobble, Gobble health nuts and go get your turkey bacon. If you can't find any, just throw strips of an old baseball glove in the microwave for about thirty seconds and enjoy! Maybe tomorrow night I can rustle up some soy based, shrimp cocktail imitations! In other news, did you know that chicken McNuggets are not actually real chicken pieces? Wow, they are molded so realistically so. Who doesn't like chicken Mc Nuggets? Vote in the new poll.

Birthday #1......

This weekend was my nephew Conner's first birthday. We traveled back to Iowa to celebrate with him. Conner has lots of cousins, and a three year old brother. There were so many kids, eating so much sugar, that I never was actually able to confirm a count. There was a lot of yelling, some fighting and a lot of sugar consumed.

Opening packages was not really up to Conner. It was more like a pack of ravenous wolves attacking the wrapping paper after eating about two pounds of skittles each. Pretty intense stuff. I kind of lock up with all the action and cautiously step away like one would do when someone near your starts a chainsaw and is about to lay into and fell a tree. I think my sister enjoys watching me stand in amazement of the chaos as much as anybody.

The 1st birthday was not the only event that took place. After Conner opened his present, he had one more gift......a t-shirt from mom and dad. As you can see from the photo, he is going to be a big brother. Heather and Jeff are awesome parents with very fun, beautiful children. I am sure Grandma and Grandpa Hoffman are wondering how they will chase all three around when they babysit. They better start training! Lots of fun this weekend.

Birthday, Sushi, Surprise

A few weeks ago a good friend took my wife and I out for a "Sushi Orientation." I had wanted to try sushi for a while but really know nothing about it.

It seemed that me wandering into some sushi joint alone would be about as wise as negotiating for a car in a foreign language. Basically, I would be confused, broke and have a sore ass in the morning. Thankfully, my experience with Brian was far better. Sushi was interesting and very foreign. However, I really enjoyed it. So, last week for my birthday, I decided to meet some friends at a great sushi place in St. Paul. Saji Ya has a great happy hour on drinks and several good sushi rolls. Upon my arrival and looking for the group I was meeting I surprised to find my in-laws drove up from Iowa for the event. Sushi was a bold step in their food horizon, I think they enjoyed the experience, but likely we won't find them with a stool named after them at the local sushi bar in Kanawha, IA. It was pleasantly surprising to find the the small get together blossomed into about 8-10 of my friends and family. We had a great time even though we were gazing out the window in mid April at at blizzard of slush. The sushi was even better than the first time and seems to evolving into a meal that could easily become one of my favorites.

Next time you are up for some tasy food, I strongly recommend the raw fish taste of sushi and the ever so tasty wasabi! mmmmm.

The Break Up

This is never easy, but the Boot and I are going to have to part ways. It's so hard, because the Boot didn't do anything.....you know the story: "it's not you, it's me, Boot." We have been together a while now, and it's been good mostly. It seems that my (physical) therapist , just thinks that the Boot is unhealthy for me at this point in my life. I just don't need the kind of support that the Boot gives me anymore. We've been going to (physical) therapy for a few weeks together, and now I am going to start going alone. I feel like maybe the Boot is a little too controlling, and holding me back. Maybe we are just at different places in our lives. After all, I'm getting along o.k. without the Boot now. The Boot, quite frankly, makes me uncomfortable around others, self conscious, and it kind of smells. Relationships that limit what you can do are never healthy or natural.

Maybe it's time for us to see other people? After all, we haven't even been sleeping together for about two weeks now. We are different people than we were a few months ago. The Boot was suffocating in a plastic bag somewhere in an emergency room supply closet. Now, it's come out of it shell and it's seeing the world, exercising more, helping others. I used to be happy, somewhat fit and generally active. Now, I'm a 1.5 legged, partially disabled inactive ball of over 30 fury, but I'm changing. I don't know if that good or not, but it just feels right.

It was different back when we got together. I was stoned on painkillers, and the Boot was there for me at a difficult physical and emotional crossroads in my life. We slept together every night for nearly 5 weeks! Some nights I didn't get much sleep (if you know what I mean), other nights we went to bed and just lay wrapped around one and other on a cold winter's night.

When I look back on our relationship now, there were some weird times. The Boot really didn't want me to go anywhere without it. It seemed no matter where I would go or what I would do it was there, strapped to my foot like a ball and chain. Then, it started to get jealous of my wife. I tried to explain that this could get complicated, but we stayed together. Eventually, I got off the pain killers, we stopped hanging out with our friends, the Cruthes, and we wouldn't even watch TV together anymore. Getting away from the Cruthes were a big step. They slowed us down, and always wanted to be with us. When we finally stopped hanging out with them, they were just literally rubbing me the wrong way.

I hope the Boot and I can still be friends. I hope it's not weird when we see each other in the house or at the club. I hope we can still hang out and text each other when we need someone to talk to. We had some good times, but times change. Boot, thanks for the memories and stay in touch.

MOTM

MOTM? What in tarnation is this acronym.......Mitch on the move! Today was the 6 week post op check up. The doc said to start moving out of the boot. This means more mobility, eventually. The facts right now are that when I took the boot off for my re-introduction to walking I wasn't moving too fast. But after a few 'hot laps' around the PT office and 5 minutes on the treadmill going exactly 1mph, I was pretty much tapped for the day. I believe my pulse surged to 86bpm and I burned 13 calories. I'll probably be sore tomorrow. At this pace I might as well start going to coffee at 4am with the old men at the gas station every day.

It was nice to dig out and dust off all of my right shoes that have been stacked away for some time. I will spend the next week or so weaning myself off of the boot as if it were the teet of the mother cow, as I slowly gain my balance and strength like young Bambi taking her first steps.

I needed a temporary cane for the next day or two as the stability of my foot builds so that I don't look like I have a peg leg and ten beers in me when I walk. Hopefully this only takes a day or two. Should I show up with bruises or a cast, I probably fell down the steps of the house (since I haven't gotten the handrail replaced yet). In the mean time I found that my 3 iron serves me well as a cane. I use the club head as a handle, and the grip makes for a lovely no-slip tip on the ground. It also is fun because while holding a golf club I can pretend that a) it's golf season, and b) that I am ready to play golf. I decided to put on TWO shoes and dance a celebratory jig with my cane.

Fore!

The beauty of spring. Green grass, blue skies, sunshine and......golf. All of these are wonderful and refreshing after a loooong winter. Then, just as you are about to button up a Hawaiian shirt and sip that first Corona on the deck, you remember that you live in Minnesota. On this glorious last day of March we all received a swift kick in the stomach from Mother Nature in the form of a snow storm. As I write this it's still dumping snow and there is already 7 inches on the ground!!

When times are rough, you have to keep the PMA: Positive Mental Attitude. So I went out in the yard for some early season golf. It didn't go all that well. I lost a lot of balls in the snow, my glove left one hand terribly cold, and the greens were insanely slow. Not to mention that the giant boot that is still attached to my right foot has no cleats in it and my bare toes were chilly after the first couple of holes. To continue the defiance I put on a speedo and decided to blog while listening to Jimmy Buffet tunes. Lucky for all of you there were no photos taken of that. It's called cabin fever, but when there is a half a foot of snow on the ground in April, it changes to cabin plague.

While the snow is crappy, the beach is not always perfect. Thanks to my friend Pat, I got this article about A)why wearing a speedo can be good, B)why the beach can be bad and C)why naked Europeans scare the bejeezus out of me.Hmmmmmmm....................a few observations in reflection of the adventures of our now favorite Croatian: 1) Exactly how f@$#ing cold is that water that your balls get so cold that they fit through the slats in a beach chair? Maybe the term "cool sea" was a bit of an understatement. C) How many times did the staff play paper/rock/scissors to have to go cut the old naked dude out of the chair? 4) Which is worse: Trying to walk to get your phone with your jewels dragging a beach chair.....OR Having the beach maintenance boy show up with the DeWalt sawzall to tell you to "relax" as he demos the chair.

March Maddnes and Flattullence

What is it about this topic that just never gets old. Farting. You love it, it makes you laugh, and if you could, you would laugh and celebrate the joyous feeling you get turning one loose into the world. There are some classic and timeless terms in this video that we all should re-insert into the vocab: "pinching a loaf" and "dropping the kids off at the pool."

In other news, March Madness is upon us. Fill out your brackets and prepare the office for the ever popular under the table gambling at the workplace! I think it's important to remember just what March Madness is all about, because it's much, much more than college basketball. It's also about hockey. For some excellent info on how great hockey is, please visit the recent posts on the Monteith blog posted in the sidebar to the right.

This weekend is the WCHA college hockey tournament featuring your own Minnesota Gophers taking on St. Cloud State on Thursday at 7pm. We also have a heated race for the Minnesota Wild going on featuring games at San Jose, Vancouver and Calgary.

Back to basketball.....I have included a new poll for March Madness. Place your vote today!!