If I die in my sleep tonight, check my left foot's alibi

My left foot has decided it no longer wants to be part of my body. It's been playing kamikaze for the last few days - first, it tried to make me fall by twisting my ankle while walking across some soft earth in high-heeled boots. Then, that stick-out-y bony part just down from my big toe impaled itself on the corner of my desk. And just now, my middle toe tried to self-amputate on the coffee table.

But it makes for a good story; the last ten minutes are exactly like the entire week I've had. I came home after a long day and wanted to relax a bit - namely, drink a coffee and put on clean, comfortable clothes. So I grab a clean shirt and on the way to the kitchen I take off my outer shirt and throw it into the bathroom hamper. I put a cup of water into the micro to heat. I go back to the living room to get my clean shirt, remember that I had left it in the bathroom, can't find it in the bathroom, and go back to search the living room. As I'm searching I suddenly think that the coffee water'll overheat, spin around and whack my toe, which was sufficiently painful to make me fall down. Of course my bottom half is still dressed in school clothes - nice pants and nylons for warmth - so now I'm sitting on the floor watching my toe bleed through my nylons. I carefully maneuver my bloody foot out of the nylons and past the pants, and grab a tissue. And now I'm sitting on the floor half-naked, clutching a blood-soaked tissue to my foot, thinking about how the water in the microwave is getting hotter and hotter and I'm going to burn myself when I try to drink my coffee and for the love of god, what has my left foot got against me anyway?? Why is everyone on the planet and everything in the world (mechanical appliances and machines especially) against me???

So multiple those last 10 minutes by 6, then by 24, then by 5, and you've got my week. Nearly everything that could break, fail, annoy, disappoint or go wrong did in fact break, fail, annoy, disappoint, or go. But! TGIF, people, TGIF. I'm nothing if not optimistic. I plan on spending the next 48 hours sitting carefully at my desk, reading blogs and doing very little work. First order of business: I'm sewing myself some cushioned booties.

See, Mum, I do eat well!

So what has prompted me to finally write again? Please choose from the following answers:

- Jeremy taunted me with his "one month" comment.
- I actually have some new stories to tell.
- My students did/wrote/said something funny worth sharing.
- I was reading Jamie/Brigi/whoever's blog and became jealous of their continued posting ability.

Nope, trick question, none of the above. The real answer is, I cooked something both delicious-tasting and photogenic (ha ha, at least the delicious part was true), and I need a bit of a brag. So I present to you baked spaghetti a la Amy-and-Nancy*, my now-infamous "salad is the one dish no one can mess up" salad**, and oddly-positioned garlic bread. Tessék:


That's all for now. More pictures/stories/excuses next month :)

* Amy and Nancy, I think half of Szolnok still talks about the dinner you made...
** Well. The salad disaster was not entirely my fault; someone-who-shall-not-be-named put my green ingredients (cucumber, peas) in various hiding places; plus we were running low on lettuce..... so maybe 'salad' was the wrong word to use... whatever, it was delish