hot sauce and other adventures

We had a great time in Leavenworth!  Unfortunately, we missed what ended up being a pretty sweet windstorm here in Bellingham, but I'm sure we will survive the loss somehow.  As it happened, we had lovely clear weather our whole trip.  It was cold, but sunshiney.  It was fun to play for a few days, and to celebrate our first year together.

In case any of you should happen to visit the above-mentioned Bavarian village, and you happen to go into a shop called A Matter of Taste -- do not, I repeat, DO NOT, try the 357 Mad Dog Hot Sauce.  It tastes like burning.



You can't see it in the pic, but they advise you not to try this if you have respiratory problems.

I hesitated, walked around the shop to stall a bit, and finally had to prove my stupidity.  I'm bad at backing down from these kinds of things.  Tiny drop on the end of a pretzel.  Nothing big, right?  I said to Justin, "Meh.  It's not all that bad."

Ten seconds later...

Eyes watering, nose running, skin flushed red, sweating, etc.  Ten minutes later, the cheese shop next door caught me using their handwashing sink to shovel water in my face.  "Ah.  Tried the hot sauce?"

I think Justin married me mostly for the amusement factor.  He gets to watch all this.

In school news, I'm officially a Creative Writing major... finally.  And, I got my first A in five years yesterday, so I'm feeling encouraged.  We have about four weeks left in the quarter, and I'm throwing myself into it hard, trying to stay on top of everything.  My motto for this next few quarters:  Die trying.  Yes.  These papers scare the shit out of me.  Yes.  I'm afraid of failure.  I'm going to do it anyway.  (I may need to go back and read this soon, when I get some other papers back, so I'm putting it out there, out loud).

Anyway, hope you all are doing well and drinking lots of coffee.  More soon.