It's an ill wind that blows nobody good

Or something like that.

For those of you not in Southern California, we're currently being fried by Santa Ana winds.

A Santa Ana wind feels like... well, you know when the oven's on "high" and you crack the door open and get that blast of hot air right in the face? That's what a Santa Ana feels like. The humidity plummets (I think it's at 16% right now), the temperature skyrockets (it's over 90 degrees), people get cranky and drive worse than usual - I've been riding my bike to work and I've been honked at, flipped off and had more near-misses than normal.

Right now, I'm very grateful to be working in the evenings - it cools off about 6 pm when we get back from dinner, and the rest of the night is really nice.

Although the Santa Ana winds are traditionally believed to be evil, they do have one big advantage:

As long as they're blowing, there's no way it's going to rain.

Ain't life a bitch?

So after years of lifting 100 lb coils of cable and not having back problems (knee and foot problems, yes, but the back's generally fine), what finally gives me a pain in the back?

Putting in fucking holiday lights, that's what.

It's the constant bending down and straightening up that's done it (stretch up to reach the top of the hedge, bend down to anchor the lights to the base, repeat for 10 hours). My lower back's killing me, but it's not bad enough to warrant my staying home so I'm just torturing my co-workers by bitching about it.

I've got an ice pack on it right now. Hopefully it'll feel better by morning for my next shift of bending and stretching.


"TUESDAY" AM UPDATE: It feels much better this morning - I figure if I put the ice pack on it during lunch, I should be fine.

It's Friday!

I think.

Well, today's the last day I work before having two days off, so I'm calling it Friday.

Yup, definitely Friday.