Because of the rain today, several of my patients cancelled their appointments, which resulted in me being done for the day a good hour earlier than usual. I took advantage of that and boogied out of work, with a quick stop at the grocery store for dinner stuff.

The original plan had been chicken, but we scrapped that in favor of ham and au gratin potatoes. I had to call my mom for ham cooking advice, since the only instructions on the ham (it was one of those fully cooked portions of honey ham, like a mini half ham) were "Cook all meat thoroughly."

Um, yeah. Thanks.

Anyway, between my mom and my Good Housekeeping cookbook (a godsend, I tell you!), we got the ham under control. I was cooking the potatoes, and something didn't quite look right. I couldn't figure it out until I went over the instructions again and discovered that I'd forgotten to add the au gratin sauce mix, which meant I just had a bunch of dehydrated potato slices boiling in water, milk and a little butter.

Aack!

Then I couldn't find the sauce mix packet. Is it still in the box? No. Did I throw it away? I went madly digging through the trash, but it wasn't there. Gah!

Oh yeah, found it under a pot holder.

Stirred it in, with a couple of minutes left to cook.

Amazingly, dinner still managed to turn out well, but I think maybe Bryan should do the cooking for the next few days.

Bryan came home from patrol today. He grabbed the TV remote, nonchalantly flipped open a secret compartment and showed me the button marked "CC".

And snickered rudely at me.

I said "Well, at least I know you're reading my blog."

Stupid hidden compartment. Who puts hidden compartments in remotes?

Sharp, apparently.

How rude.

It's raining again, and Bailey has apparently decided she's not in the mood to get her paws wet. She refuses to go out and pee. I'm not going to be happy when she can't hold it anymore and wakes me up at 3 am to go out.

Bryan's dog continues her reign of terror with yesterday's counter cruising incident. I came home to find a ripped plastic bag, a twist tie and some crumbs lying in the hallway. Missing were three large kaiser rolls. Either we had a roll burglar or Bailey took it upon herself to get a snack. She must have really had to work for them - they were on the back of the counter. We're going to have to crate her for a while when we go out, if this is what she's doing. Bryan suggested she needed something to soak up the butter from a few weeks ago.

In other news, I'm watching the Wild/Avs game...in silence. Apparently someone forgot to hook up the audio for this particular game's Center Ice feed. It's very annoying, and I can't even figure out how to turn on the closed captioning on the new TV. Darn technology! I wish there was a button on the remote that said "CC".

Whew, the Wild barely managed to hang onto the lead and squeak out a (badly needed) win tonight. Next up, Edmonton. Hopefully with audio.

So the latest installment in the NHL's "Just Like Me and You" series is "Road Trip," filmed during the All-Star competition in Dallas.

It's freaking hilarious, even if you're not a hockey freak like I am.

The original can be found at NHL.com under "Video", but it takes forever to download (even the 300K version). The video quality is better, but if you want a quicker download, check out the You Tube broadcast.

According to NHL.com, it features the following:

• Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals orders enough room service for an entire team and has it delivered to Pittsburgh Penguins forward Sidney Crosby’s room
  
• New York Rangers forward Brendan Shanahan and Montreal Canadiens defenseman Sheldon Souray throw water balloons off their hotel balcony
  
• San Jose Sharks forward Joe Thornton raids a maid’s cart of complimentary chocolates
  
• Goaltenders Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks and Ryan Miller of the Buffalo Sabres pester a sleeping Marty Turco of the Dallas Stars
  
• Brothers Eric Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes and Jordan Staal of the Pittsburgh Penguins have a pillow fight
  
• Calgary Flames defenseman Dion Phaneuf, Chicago Blackhawks forward Martin Havlat, Ottawa Senators forward Patrick Eaves and Boston Bruins forward Phil Kessel race luggage carts on a hotel floor.
  
• An extended version developed for the internet includes scenes with forwards Justin Williams of the Carolina Hurricanes, Martin St. Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Dany Heatley of the Ottawa Senators and Brian Rolston of the Minnesota Wild playing floor hockey in a hotel room.

I think the funniest part is either Marty Turco and the shaving cream or the way Sidney Crosby says "Ovechkin" at the end.

Hee, hee, I'm going to go watch it again.

Yesterday was one of those rare, rainy days in San Diego. Thankfully most people had the day off for President's Day - I can't imagine how much worse the accidents would have been if it was a regular workday.

Typically in San Diego, you have rain showers that last about ten to thirty minutes. It rained pretty much all day yesterday, at a rate of 0.25 - 0.5" per hour, according to the creepy weather guy. So it was pretty significant. We had some flooding in the garage (as we do almost every time it rains - the landlords' solution to this was to caulk the side door to the garage shut. We uncaulked it, but are giving serious thought to recaulking it), and the yard had puddles.

Bryan was supposed to be underway, carting around some dignitaries in the harbor, but that was cancelled due to weather, and he got to come home yesterday afternoon. That worked out particularly well for me, since he'd been able to drop Bailey at dog daycare on his way to work yesterday morning, and was also able to pick her up in the afternoon on his way home, saving me what would have been a fairly unpleasant trip in the pouring rain!

I spent the day reading, baking banana bread (Amy's mom's recipe, since Grandma's called for cream of tartar and ground cloves, and I had neither in the house), cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry and paying bills, which I forgot to mail today (I'd better go put them by my purse right now...).

It was a good, low key ending to a busy weekend. On Friday, Bryan (who was originally supposed to work, but the schedule changed at the last minute, as usual) and I went up to Disneyland to meet up with Gavin and Elaine who were in town for the weekend, and Tony and Andrea. We had a really fun day, but it was a long day, and I was pretty whipped on Saturday. Bryan had to work Saturday, and we went to Benihana for Jasmine's birthday with Jasmine, Jordan and Courtney. I haven't been to Benihana in about a hundred years, so it was fun to watch the chef guy flipping shrimp around and speed-cutting veggies. We were kind of a sad group - Jasmine's been sick, Courtney's verypregnant and Bryan and I were tired, so we called it a night early after dinner. I think it's safe to say a good time was had by all, though. Sunday was...pajamas all day, I think. I did venture out with Bailey to get bagels around 8 am and then Bryan and I took Bailey to the grocery store to get ice cream, bananas, whipped cream, etc. around 7 that night.

My boss will be on medical leave for six to eight weeks, starting next week, so there's a lot of stuff to get squared away before she goes, especially since she's leaving me in charge (gulp!). Dunno what we have planned for next weekend. Probably working on cleaning the house, since Bryan's mom is coming to visit in a couple of weeks. I'm not even sure if Bryan'll be home or underway. Hmm, should probably figure that out so I know how many dinners I need to plan...

Boogaard was back in the lineup tonight, which I was glad to see. I'd been wondering if Lemaire was unhappy with him (since Lemaire seems to bench guys when he thinks they should be working harder), and the Star Tribune seemed to bear that out.

But...Derek got his first point of the season tonight with a beautiful assist to Todd White!

Let's hope there's more of those (and maybe some goals) to come!

Well, when I've seen the Wild play in person, they're 9 and 2. When it comes to meeting Derek Boogaard, I'm 0 for 11.

Bryan and I made a last minute decision (Thursday night) to head to Phoenix for the weekend to see the Wild play the Coyotes. We booked a pet-friendly hotel (thank you Best Western!), looked up the addresses of the Phoenix Three Dog Bakery, Lush and Dog Park and headed off Friday afternoon. Saturday morning we slept in a little, then hit Lush in Scottsdale and took Bailey to the Three Dog Bakery in Phoenix. We relaxed at the hotel for a little while, then took Bailey to the dog park so we could tire her out before the game. We popped her in her crate at the hotel, and went to Jobing.com Arena (formerly Glendale Arena).

Unfortunately Boogaard was a healthy scratch for the night, so I didn't even get to see him play. And tragically he wasn't just standing around waiting for me on the concourse between periods, so I was out of luck once again. Thankfully the Wild won, and it was a fun game.

Bryan's (half) brother lives in Phoenix, and Jeff had some friends in town from Minnesota for the game, so we met up with them after the game and had some drinks at the Yard House in the plaza near the arena. His friends are hilarious, especially Rusty, who was doing the explanation of penalties from Slap Shot, and telling us about the time he ran a marathon hung over and was struggling until about the 20 mile mark when some college kids gave him a Bud Ice Light, which got him through the last 6 miles. Too funny!

Sunday morning we headed home and got back in time to get laundry started before the Super Bowl. Now Bryan's underway for the next few days, and Bailey's tuckered out from her Arizona Adventures. Since we had a 5-6 hour drive each way, we kept track of the license plates we saw and managed to "collect" 35 US states, 5 Canadian provinces and 3 Mexican states. We also played the "I'm going on a picnic" game, which featured exciting things like an auger, frypan, Mick McGeough, an NHL rules book for McGeough, a penalty box for McGeough to sit in while he reads the rule book and a referee instructor for McGeough. And a ukelele.

It was a good trip, but I'm afraid this means the end of my pursuit of Boogaard. It's highly unlikely that we'll make it to any more games this season, so I guess I may just have to be content with having ambushed his dad for a photo!