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+---
+title: winter, pulling a miles, and the vitamin fight
+---
+
+Dear Journal,
+
+Good morning, everyone.  Happy Monday.  Hope you have something warm
+to wear and some hot coffee to sip on.
+
+It's no secret that I'm the kind of person to lean into the winter.
+If I had a favorite season, that would be it.  Here we are in October,
+and all it took was a small dusting of frost for me to let my Winter
+enthusiasm run hog wild.  Yesterday for dinner we celebrated the first
+frost with some beef and vegetable stew, a spicy bottle of malbec, and
+of course, curling on the couch to watch the movie _Frozen_.
+
+Going to make a painfully uncontroversial understatement here, but
+_Frozen_ is a pretty good movie, isn't it?  Each year we watch it, it
+seems to climb the ranks of my personal favorite Disney movies - not
+that that's a very big list anyway.  _Frozen_ has earned my respect.
+The opening score gives me chills.  I find the imagery and the
+characters compelling.  There's lots of little hidden jokes sprinkled
+around for the parents.  I'm as shocked as anyone that I've become so
+loyal to a Disney movie.  Maybe I just had to endure enough terrible
+kids media before that could ever become a possibility.  Helplessly
+sitting through the endless repeated punishment of _Trolls_, _Bolt_,
+and - _shudder_ - Blippi - might make you count your blessings and
+appreciate that narrow sliver of good movies you can watch with your
+kids.
+
+<figure>
+<a href="/images/2020-10-26-movie.jpg">
+<img alt="2020 10 26 movie" src="/images/2020-10-26-movie.jpg"/>
+</a>
+<figcaption>
+<p>Rodney and Marissa get cozy for a movie.</p>
+</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+"I'm so glad that they never made a sequel to this movie," said
+Marissa during the opening credits.
+
+"Yeah, isn't that great?" I replied.  "How cool that they just left it
+alone, it makes the movie even better."
+
+We're well aware they made a _Frozen 2_.  But Marissa and I have
+entered into a sacred pact where we don't mention it and just pretend
+it never happened.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the last time I'll
+ever mention it in this daily publication.
+
+Rodney is also excited for winter.  Putting him to bed, he started to
+ramble about all the fun winter activities he planned for the morning.
+"I'm going to make SNOW ANGELS," he said crawling into his blanket
+with wide eyes.  Needless to say, the small dusting last night wasn't
+quite enough to make that possible.  Rodney will have to be a little
+more patient.
+
+"I'm depressed about winter," said Marissa clutching her hoodie,
+staring out into the backyard.  "We've been talking about it like it
+was far off, but now that I can see snow, it's just so..."
+
+"Permanent?" I said finishing her phrase.
+
+Marissa nodded.  "Yeah.  I guess it feels a little permanent."
+
+"We'll have fun with it," I said.  "It might suck, but I'm prepared to
+gut through it and make it as fun as possible."
+
+_Sip_.  How's your Monday going?  How are you feeling today?  Did you
+wake up in bed with your head and legs switched around?  Around our
+house, we call that _pulling a Miles_.  Lately, each time we get him
+out of his crib, he's turned around the opposite way.  I'm sure it
+gradually happens throughout the night with incrementally small
+wiggles and squirms, but I'd like to imagine that he's instead figured
+out how to spin quickly on his butt, like a break dancing move.  Just
+picture it.  A baby who secretly break dances when his parents aren't
+watching.  I ought to pitch that to Disney - _that_ could be a movie.
+
+I'm feeling good today.  The stars are aligning for a great start to
+the week.  My on-call shift ended an hour ago.  We have good food and
+wine in the house.  And of course, the Bears play today.  Sitting here
+in my Bears jersey drinking coffee out of my jumbo sized Bears mug,
+I'm wondering if I'm laying on the enthusiasm a little thick.  In
+fact, if the Packers didn't have a nice little blowout over the Texans
+yesterday, I might have had to leave my laptop camera off today.  I
+don't want to be accused of rubbing in the fact that the Bears are the
+top playoff seed in the NFC right now.
+
+A weekend without football felt strange.  With all the exciting games
+happening yesterday, I felt a little left out.  But I'll take a Monday
+night game too - especially one during my first night off duty.
+Here's to shutting off my obnoxious phone and leaving it in the corner
+so I can nervously sit perched on the edge of my couch.
+
+In other news, make sure you remember to take your vitamins today.
+For us, that means four, soon to be five supplements - not counting
+the Flintstone vitamins.  Marissa and I got in a small quarrel over
+what I see as a growing problem.
+
+"Is it OK if I get some Calcium too?" said Marissa.  I slammed my beer
+on the counter and bit my lip.
+
+"Calcium?" I repeated.  "We gotta take Calcium too?  Who says?"
+
+"I remember a nutrition prof I had say that Calcium was good, and I
+don't drink a lot of dairy."
+
+"Well can you just start drinking milk?" I asked.
+
+"I don't like the texture," said Marissa.
+
+"What about our water, there isn't enough calcium in it?" I retorted.
+
+"I don't drink our water, I like bottled," said Marissa.  "You don't
+have to take it if you don't want to."
+
+"Yeah, but it's still another vitamin we have to add to our routine -
+I still gotta help arrange them all on the cutting board before we go
+to bed.  And they take up space on the window sill."  I said.  "I just
+think it's getting out of hand."
+
+"Do you have something against vitamins?" said Marissa.
+
+"I just..." I began to stumble over my words.  "I don't want to commit
+to taking like nine vitamins forever.  It's a little tedious.  Like,
+how many vitamins is enough"
+
+"Twenty six," said Marissa with a smirk.  "The whole alphabet.  What,
+are you picturing some kind of apothecary spilling over into the
+kitchen.
+
+"Sort of, yes," I laughed nervously.  A thought popped into my head.
+"What about multi vitamins," I said, snapping my fingers.  "Can we
+just switch to multis?  You know - consolidate."
+
+"I think those Flintstone gummies are technically multivitamins," said
+Marissa.  She picked up the colorful can to inspect the label.  "Oh,
+so it's got C and D.  You know if you want, we can probably stop
+taking those if we're just good about the gummmies."
+
+"That helps," I sighed.  "Sounds like a small thing, but that clears a
+little more room on the shelf."
+
+Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a great morning, everyone.