thankfully, it is supposed to warm up this weekend in chicago, after a few bitter days in below-freezing weather. we should climb above the freezing point tomorrow. by sunday, the snow will melt, and we’ll hopefully go back to our regularly scheduled december in chicago, which is cold, but not this cold (the brutal weather doesn’t usually hit until january or february).

meanwhile, the next 10 days in paris are forecasted to be in the upper 40s. assuming that pattern remains for the week following that 10 day period, we should be relatively comfortable while we’re there. we’ll see.

nicole commented last night to friends jen and shannon that she doesn’t feel like we’re leaving in two weeks. well, i think it’s because we’ve packed so many plans between now and then. there are a lot of social events, a lot of work-related things, and lots of things that need to be done to prepare for my parents’ visit, for sheila’s arrival, for the trip, and for new year’s eve. trust me, there’s so much more i could list right now, but i’ll spare our select readers the minutiae. for me, however, paris is on my mind all the time. there’s so much i want to learn before we go. yesterday my eyes were crossing themselves, as i stared at maps of the convoluted parisian metro train system, trying to decipher the best route from the airport to the hotel. there are 14 train lines with various branches, plus a few more lines of a high speed train. i have come to believe that the original map of the metro system was drawn in crayon by a 2 year old a century ago. the small child drew a series of completely random lines on a piece of paper. then, a group of sadist engineers superimposed the drawing onto a map of paris, and then designed their train system accordingly. i’ve seen many city train route maps, and never have i seen one quite like this.

the downside is the utter confusion that will surely ensue. the upside is that it seems like there’s a train station near pretty much anywhere we’ll want to go.

the six of us have been discussing plans via e-mail today. personally, i’m really getting excited. meh, i’ll figure out the trains. we may not even take the train from the airport all the way to the hotel.  it depends partially on how much luggage we’re dragging along. we may have to take a shuttle or taxi. we’ll make that decision then.

anyway, as i mentioned, we had drinks last nite with jen and shannon. as always, it was great to have a few drinks with them and learn about the latest gossip at our last hotel. of course, after a while, i couldn’t keep up with the three girls. even so, it was certainly a pleasant evening.

tomorrow morning we’re going to a jeweler (H’s cousin) to begin searching for options for our wedding bands. that’ll be interesting. we’ll go to lunch, then she’ll have to go to work. tomorrow will be her fourteenth day without a day off. after tomorrow, she’ll have sunday off before working another six days.

i’m going to do what it takes to make sure that she relaxes for at least *some* of her day off. she needs to decompress. the trouble is that i usually have to force her to relax. always trying to take on the whole world, she is. i figure that a good starting goal is to make sure she spends the majority of her day in slippers. i think that’ll help a little. it’s a good foundation of easy-going behavior to build upon.