Noche Buena! Sorta.

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! My parents are in from Indiana and in a little bit I'm going to swaddle myself in 345 layers of flannel and stagger blindly through the snow to my brother's house for a little celebration. I am glad to chill with the 'rents and once again grateful for the Spanish influence in our family, because it means we celebrate Noche Buena, which is like regular Christmas Eve except it has darker hair and eyes, a very sexy accent, and is married to Melanie Griffith.

But holy snowballs, this weather! Yes, as of yesterday in Chicago, we went from "Oh, isn't winter charming? Look at those drifting snowflakes." to "OmiGODIcan'tfeelmyface OWiciclesinmyNOSEthisisgoingtoKILLME." Nellie and I ran around last night looking for parking in various neighborhoods and ended up doing a lot of panicked screaming as the subzero Chicago wind smacked us across the face, as if to say "Do you really want to leave your house? Do you really want to do the comedy thing tonight? Really?" Yeah, bitter lakeshore breeze, we really want to get out and see our friends being funny. Step off.

A side note: two years ago, when I was still living in my old apartment, I was experiencing some side effects of my building's tendency to have our heat totally cranked or totally off. At that time, my big whine was frozen shampoo in my bathroom. This year, it's hot toothpaste in the medicine cabinet in my bathroom. Hot toothpaste. That can't be a good thing.