Dean Martin sure ain't kidding

Baby, it's fucking cold outside.

The high today in DeKalb is -4. That's MINUS FOUR DEGREES, and I don't mean Celsius. Oh, and lest I forget, there's a Blizzard Warning, a Wind Chill Warning, and a Winter Weather Advisory. They're saying the wind chills, later tonight, will make it feel like 20 to 30 degrees below zero.

So we sent out for pizza delivery.

I can attest that it's cold out there today. I spent the night with Julie after seeing the DeKalb Madrigals concert. It was a nice experience...I rather liked it. Presented by the high school and held NIU, they're high school students who sing like angels. A great Christmas pageant concert...for the price of admission, you get dinner and a show.

Ah, but there was a twist with the dinner.

Julie and I got food poisoning.

They served bread pudding as a dessert, but it was sitting out on the table when we got there. Jessica had some and got a little sick from it, and Hailey and Brad didn't have any, so they were fine. Julie and I pretty much finished ours (I love a good bread pudding), and we got the worst of it.

Mind you, I've had food poisoning a few times, so I know how to deal with it and treat it. Julie's never had it before, so she let it go all night until it got to the point she felt her stomach was being used like a football, so I had to go back over to my place to get something to settle her upset tummy.

I got the chance to take care of my ladylove today. I think I did pretty good. Gotta feel sorry for whoever answers the phone at the high school tomorrow, though. I think there's gonna be some pissed off people calling in.

After letting her rest for the morning, we started making Christmas cookies. There's a family tradition: Julie buys a cookie recipe book and lets the kids pick out up to three cookies from it. Then they make the cookies, some of which they give away.

Well, most of the kids are out of the house right now (two of them unaccounted for, which is a slight concern, given the weather), so it's been the two of us, recovering from the night before, to make cookies.

It's been fun. My idea of "baking cookies" is to get the tube of pre-made sugar cookie dough and stick vanilla, butterscotch, or whatever's-not-chocolate chips inside, and toss 'em in the oven. Julie bakes from scratch, and from what I've sampled so far, she's damn good at it.

I think I'm gonna suggest to her to save the rest for another time (even though there's not too many days before Christmas, and she's gotta close at the store all week) and take it easy. Wait for the pizza...which has arrived even as I type this...and we go curl up on the couch, watch a little TV, and listen to the wind blow outside...