Finding myself in one of those rare pockets of free time, I thought I should update the old blog. Beginning with... last Friday!

Friday: We rented Hamlet from the Blockbuster and started watching it -- despite the fact that I haven't actually read the play (gasp! but I've heard the plot line so many times I may as well have read it). I do, however, have a copy of the play (in my 48-cent-at-the-Strand retro '70s Norton). And although this version of Hamlet (with Ethan Hawke, Julia Stiles, Bill Murray, etc.) is set in the modern day US and cuts out chunks of the original and rearranges others, it is all in Shakespeare's words. So I was following along at points in the Norton, and showed Andrew that the movie was being faithful to at least some parts of the play. He got pretty sleepy though so we had to stop the movie. I think we're finally going to finish it tonight (Weds).

Saturday: We slept in, and then had blueberry pancakes =) Blueberries are on sale at the supermarket, buy one get two free (containers, not individual berries!). As of Weds we're just starting on the third container. We got out of the apartment fairly early, and headed over to see the Bourne Supremacy. Unfortunately the night before Blockbuster was fresh out of the Bourne Identity (they really should keep movies a little longer instead of selling all their copies). But we were able to follow along just fine anyways. Pretty exciting stuff. This was at the theater in Harvard Square, which is kind of cool because it's older and unique on the inside, as it used to just have one big room I think, and now there are multiple screens.

After the movie we checked out the New Balance sale. It was a TAD crowded... And we were getting hungry. So we went back to Harvard Square and ate brunch at Fire & Ice. It was my first time there -- so exciting!! They have lots of food on ice that you pick from, kind of like a salad bar. You can put whatever kind of meat, pasta, veggies, etc. you want in a bowl, and then you pick out a sauce. It's cooked up right in front of you on a big round stove thingy. Sooo yummy... I had egg noodles (is that what yaki noodles are? they reminded me of the noodles Jeanne called yaki noodles at the bento restaurant back in Mt. Hood) and salmon and veggies first, then pasta and sausage and veggies. Sooo good... and cheap when you go before 4 pm on Saturday!! It's all you can eat for like $8. My new favorite restaurant! Well, that and Fresh Side.

After eating till we could have rolled out of Fire & Ice, we returned to the (less crowded) New Balance sale. We both found tennies for cheap. Now we need to go jogging or something. We picked up more of Andrew's stuff in JP, and he set things up in our apartment. We now have a TV that gets NBC (hey, all you need when SNL and Law & Order are on that channel!!) and a TV cart in the room. It looks nice =)

By about 11:30 PM we got hungry and took a drive in search of fast food. I wanted some really bad for you KFC, but we ended up at "Wingz." So we ate a really unhealthy, greasy snack over a rerun of SNL (seems like I only catch the SNLs I actually saw last season...) And Mary Kate really DID look skinnier than Ashley...

At some point Andrew made some sort of exclamation of surprise, and I glanced toward the kitchen just in time to see something running across the tiles. At first I thought it was a very large house centipede. But no, it was a freaking mouse!! Andrew & I ran off to the 24 hour CVS for traps (this is like 1 in the morning, the cashier was entertained, she'd had mouse problems, too). We did catch that mouse, by the way, as Andrew said: "Andrew: 1, Mouse: 0"! So luckily we won't be finding any nests of mouse crap (I hope). Rather baffling -- we don't leave food out and I'd just swept and cleaned the kitchen a bit the other day.

Sunday: We didn't get up so early, since we'd stayed up till like 3 am. But we got out of the house at a decent hour and headed up toward Maine. We did the whole outlet shopping thing. I saw way too many cute clothes that I liked... made me regret an American Eagle button up shirt I got, because I found one that was better than my striped one... white with blue bunches of flowers. Ahh so cute... Andrew thought it was too little girlish, but I would have gotten it if only I hadn't just bought a button up shirt. Stocked up on some basics for cheap, found cute J Crew shorts and swim top (because of course there were no more matching bottoms, but Andrew ordered it so any day now!!), and a clearance sale black skirt. So... no more clothes for me!! I now will have 3 bikinis (because I got an orange one for $5 at Target, isn't that crazy?) and I need to go swimming!!

After all that shopping we were SO hungry. We ended up at a very local seafood place that served us HUGE portions. It was fun, more greasy food! We vowed to find a beach before going home (or rather I vowed and Andrew drove), since the original plan was to be done with outlet shopping early and beach hop the rest of the afternoon away. So we ended up in York Beach/ York Harbor. The beach was incomparably better than Revere Beach! Clear water, waves, ice cream shops... kind of like Lincoln City's beaches but with less sand and more highway. I splashed around in the water and we walked ... it made my feet smoother! I love beaches! We saw two cute pugs, lots of dogs, and a gal on horseback.

On the way out we drove by the lighthouse, and it was super crowded and people had Christmas decorations out. We were understandably confused, until Andrew asked a policewoman what the fuss was all about. Apparently they were doing "Christmas in July" and lighting the nubble (that's what it sounded like, at least) of the lighthouse. Then I realized it was July 25th. We left before things got too crazy...

So big news of the work week is that Andrew's grill is up and running and he now has DISHES! I like that we don't have to use Kory's kitchen stuff as much now. And the grill has entertained Andrew immensely. He's grilled hot dogs, chicken, and veggies so far. Tres exciting. We tried s'mores last night but the marshmallows don't brown very well that far away from the heat source. We ended up doing it over the stovetop instead... kind of like how me and Mer did it last summer at the Fosters, except with gas this time.

Oh yeah and the whole DNC. Haven't really been following it. The traffic is actually better than normal lately. Sounds like Boston businesses haven't done very well. The manager of the Boston Fire & Ice said they normally have like 250 people in for dinners, and the other night there were like 56 customers. Crazy, huh? Everyone's evacuated the city, afraid of congestion and maybe terrorism or something. I guess we should be out taking advantage of all the famous people sightings (Andrew thinks we saw Al Frankton in Harvard Square the other day on the way to Crate & Barrel). But I don't really feel like it after work... Oh well.

More later!