Hola!  Welcome to a new day!  Did everyone watch the inauguration this morning?  While I’ve never watched a full inauguration before, I did enjoy this one.  I decided to kill two birds with one stone and went to the gym, where I was able to watch everything while running on the treadmill.  I’m so smrt!

I have to say, I’m incredibly inspired by President Obama’s inaugural speech.  I freely admit that I’m an idealist, but I’m an idealist who never thinks the ideal can ever happen.  So I’m carried away by the kind of idealistic and hopeful rhetoric Obama spun early this afternoon.  I hope that he is able to fulfill the ideals he professes.  And, sadly, I’m just so frickin’ happy that, even if he never does, I still have a President who at least talks about such ideals.  The past eight years have been so painful to my psyche.  I’m glad that we have a President whom I actually voted for and who also can inspire so many people.

Considering I didn’t do much over the weekend that could be considered insiring, myself.  It started out promising enough.  Dice had to work all day Saturday and Saturday night.  I got up in the morning and scoured the kitchen within an inch of its life.  There’s now barely any paint left on the cabinet doors because I scrubbed them so hard.  Then I went for a delightful 5-mile run.  Then I did yoga for the first time in months, which felt fantastic.  After that I went grocery shopping and to the hardware store.  When I got home I made a lemon cake with lemon frosting and a bacon and broccoli quiche.  By the time I finished cooking it was time to meet the Canadians for dinner, so I ran across the street to meet them.  We went to Allegro, which is in midtown across from ONE Midtown Kitchen.  Allegro is a fancier Italian place, and I think all three of us enjoyed our food.  We shared the mussels to start, and I should note here that the plate of mussels was enormous!  There must have been 30 mussels on there.  Which was good because we all got to eat plenty.  I had an unremarkable salad and then the butternut squash risotto with Italian sausage.  The risotto was perfectly done, and it’s creaminess went very well with the saltier sausage.  Comparing it to the watery seafood risotto I had at Floataway Cafe back in November, it’s eons better.  Which is disappointing since I’ve had nothing but excellent dishes at Floataway.  For dessert I had a lemon cake (called Glinda’s cake, or somesuch name) which was quite tasty.  A delicious end to a busy day.

Sunday we went to Macon to visit with the other half of the Handitards.  We hadn’t seen them since the holidays so hanging out was in order.  Since nothing is open in Macon on Sundays we ended up having a late brunch at Moe’s.  Yes, that Moe’s.  I had a pretty good vegetarian quesadilla, actually.  We spent all afternoon there and then went home in time to go over to the Canadians for a dinner party with the Commune, which consists of us, the Canadians, T&R and K&M.  I brought over the lemon cake I’d made on Saturday.  We had a delightful meal and went home tired and stuffed.

Yesterday I woke up feeling lazy.  Dice and I lounged on the couch watching TV almost all day.  Then we gathered ourselves up and went to the Brick Store with Tim and the female half of the Canadians.  I had the grilled corned beef sandwich again, this is my new favorite thing to order there.  On the way home we stopped at Publix for some grocery shopping, then home again to, you guessed it, watch more TV.  All in all, a pretty good three-day weekend!