Monday, January 31, 2005

It feels like I've been at school for a long, long time.. but really, it's only been about a week and a half. Here's the rundown...

Weds. The first day of classes. Of course, I didn't have any of my own classes, just the course I'm mentoring for (English 101). I brought my little hand-outs, and had my little explanation prepared about what SAW is & what my role as a mentor is. We played the name game & I only forgot one name (and that doesn't count because everyone forgets the newest name). Felt pretty good about everything as I left... Prof. Davis seems to have much faith in me, & I'm realizing that I really do have something to help these first years with. My first task will be an MLA workshop, because I think most of them are going to have problems with that!

Thurs. Ok, so Thursday is my "busy" day. As in, I have all of two classes. History of English Language was awesome -- I love the people in the class, I love the professor, & I love the subject. Ahh!

Afterwards, I went over to the library since I have a huge break before lunch even opens on Thursdays. I went up to the Stimson Room & ran into Hollin, so that was cool. I sat and read my Eagleton & we complained that the radiator is really unnecessarily loud. Then I was alone in the room for awhile, and as I was getting all bundled up, I circled around looking at all the poems, pictures, & letters associated with the Glascock Competition over the years. Letters from W. C. Williams, pictures of Mary Jo Salter, poems by Sylvia Plath... I rushed to Blanchard & to my room, and felt vibrantly and lucidly excited about poetry & theory & politics. I think it had something to do with the sudafed I took that morning for my stuffy nose. [Note: I have since taken one tablet, half a dose, before bed, & I was up half the night. This is alarming because 1. it was half a dose, and 2. I never have trouble falling asleep when I'm tired (which I was), not even if I've had caffeine. I have concluded that sudafed, even before it's gone through whatever process to become speed, is very potent.]

Anyway, I was hyper-awake for Verse Writing. I love this class, too -- Miranda & Sarah are in it, which makes me very happy.

Friday I went on a campus-wide flyering patrol of all the academic buildlings. For SAW. It was exhausting & I got so hungry! Ran into Ashley Brown, dropped in on Quillian (who alluded to PBK very mysteriously!), joined forces with Kathleen (who was also putting up flyers for a different cause), and concluded that mass advertising on campus is very difficult!

In the evening I went to dinner with Karuna & Kathleen & Sarah & friends. I love those Friday Thanksgiving menus. We decided it must be really cheap to serve mashed potatoes & stuffing!! Afterwards, Andrew called to say he was here. So we had a little time here before going over to Audra's room to play Trivial Pursuit with her & Julia. So fun! I love that game, even though I just can't seem to get the yellow & blue wedges!! Went on rounds with Audra, it brought back memories. Julia had an awesome idea for an English dept. t-shirt that I can't remember... ack! Must ask her again.

Saturday. Got up a bit late. We made a run to Dunkin' Donuts & the hardware store for hooks for my room. Andrew installed the hooks & shelves in my room, & in combination with the yaffa blocks that we organized Friday night... my room is great! I'm using the shelves for sweaters, since I can barely reach the one dirty shelf in my closet... & for scarves & hats & mittens, since I didn't have a convenient place for such things. The yaffa blocks are to organize the top of my fridge & my bookcase. I'm really enjoying things!

Later we went to Target & BN (I used my gift certificate for our yummy desserts & a supply of Tazo chai. Yeah, I know I'm an English major, but I have a stomach, too! And we all know I have QUITE the supply of books over here!!) Back at MHC, we ate dinner (yums, Andrew made it) and watched some Real World (I love watching that show). Then we watched The Village finally... I'd been wanting to see that. Scary but more psychological & twisty that I had expected. Pretty good one! Also watched the first two episodes of Desperate Housewives, which were awesome.

Sunday: Went to brunch at the Lone Wolf. I got yummy challah french toast. We decided to have a bit of a marathon watching Desp. Housewives. I'm now sooo addicted to that show... after dinner and my Verbosity meeting, we watched another two shows. It's like a dark comedy about suburbia & the horribly normal surface of things. Looking forward to fully catching up next time I see Andrew...

Monday: Has been good... Verbosity table [Note: BUY VALENTINES FROM US!], Tom Stoppard (yay for all the cool people taking that course!), hanging out at Blanchard, going to the modern lit. lecture on printing presses in the modern era & women... dinner with Claudia, Sarah, & Miranda... and now I think I'm joining the English dept. search committee for a prof specializing in the same era that I'm interested in. cool =)


Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Back at MHC!!

Had a great time in Boston with Andrew -- watched lots of movies: Saved, Dawn of the Dead, The Stepford Wives, etc. Very scary, that Dawn of the Dead remake. We got the director's cut, unedited... whew. Lots of blood, lots of biting. I was scared for the next twenty four hours -- trying to plan escape routes in case of a zombie attack, re-imagining various biting/ chainsaw scenes. Now we're planning to do an all out scary movie fest by renting the original Night of the Living Dead trilogy. (Let me know if you're interested in this venture! I think it'd be a cool movie night.)

Also took an evening to go used book hunting -- wasn't too successful. No one has used Tom Stoppard plays. Argh!

Weds. night we went to 9 Tastes in Harvard Square -- 15 month anniversary!!

Andrew started feeling sick Weds night, & stayed home from work Thurs. and Fri. with a yucky cold (which I think I now have). So we had an extended weekend, and left Boston for MHC on Saturday. Everyone was out in force with the snow storm warning, presumably stocking up on food. It was CRAZY. Traffic backed up & grocery store entrances jammed, entire lots completely full... Just goes to show you that, in case of a REAL emergency, we'd be woefully unprepared & disorganized. We can't even handle a couple feet of snow without getting worked up into a frenzy of buying and freaking out.

We didn't get to Amherst till around 3 pm, and the snow was starting. Places were closing up, so we got Fresh Side to go and made it back to MHC. Very pretty, the snow piled up fast! My room was pretty dusty, so Andrew & I set to work... I dusted and swept, he was in charge of rugs. Then I reorganized stuff & unpacked. Next weekend Andrew's going to live up to his "Handy Andy" middle school nickname (haha have I embarassed you yet?) by (we hope) putting up shelves & bringing yaffa blocks. Hoping to better organize sweaters & food (random, I know). So in the evening I unpacked my mailbox, and we watched The Shining & SNL. Andrew didn't think it was very scary, but at least now he knows where the "Heeeeere's Johnny!" expression came from.

And what's with the recurring character of Rachel Dratch as a single woman bringing her dates home to meet her "pets"? One week it was Jasper the parrot, this week it was Franklin the cat. Very strange, especially after Andrew ran across an ad about "furries" on Craig's list. Want to know more? Check out this link: http://pressedfur.coolfreepages.com/press/vanityfair/

Sunday was a bit sad... went to see Meet the Parents finally, very funny. Went used book shopping in Amherst, still couldn't find anything... Went to Pasta e Basta for dinner (my first time there, very good), and got more cheesecake from Rao's for dessert (the chocolate variety is sooo yummy). Played Trivial Pursuit in the evening -- Julia is amazing at that game. That cheered me up, I'd been getting sad about Andrew going.

In the morning, Andrew was all dressed and at the door with his work laptop in hand, when he got a phone call from Cheryl (who he works with). Apparently they were told to work from home, so we suddenly had an extra day together! We slept, got a parking pass, had some breakfast... I slept some more as I was starting to feel cold symptoms... then in the afternoon we had lunch, worked, ran some errands, and went into Noho. Very fun, going through used book stores. Found Eagleton's After Theory, which is great, it'll be my for fun reading. Then we went to the Haymarket, and I had lovely ginger lemon tea and started reading T.E. Afterwards, of course, we had to go to Herrell's... sundae!! My favorite food in the world... Burnt Sugar & Butter with hot fudge sauce. Yum.

Back at MHC we got some food from the Blanch & ate in the living room. I turned on a couple of chandeliers, it felt rather elegant. Watched Monster's Ball finally -- pretty good.

This morning 'Rew had to go back to Somerville for an eye appointment. As I was ordering my Tom Stoppard books online & signing up for their better-than-mine credit card, my internet suddenly blinked out and I had to re-request an IP address thingy. I was pissed... First of all, returning residents to the same rooms weren't supposed to have to do this. Secondly, why in the middle of the morning, when people are doing important stuff? Why not overnight so that you aren't in the middle of anything? Crazy. So I called up and complained, and then re-filled out the application on amazon. Bah!

It's awesome seeing everyone again... Kept running into people at Blanchard. Missing Dale though... & Andrew of course, but I'll get used to the whole weekend schedule. Cross your fingers that we get into at least one grad school together, with funding!!

Dinner time now, must go!


Tuesday, January 18, 2005

The reading by Sawyer-Laucanno on his new biography of E.E. Cummings was interesting, although I was wowed more by the content than his speaking... Appropriately, we focused on the early years, as Cummings grew up right here in Cambridge. I sneaked out afterwards, as I didn't want to buy the book there. In the evening I went over to Jen's for soup & talking & Carnivale. Great show -- some things became a bit more clear by the end. And it was fun just hanging out with Jen, usually it's with the boys in tow, but it seems like we have lots in common. They have the cutest apartment -- it makes me eager to be out on my own, too...

So Monday I was expecting that Andrew would get home around 9:30 in the evening. I got rather ambitious, & bought stuff to make fried rice... And I was sure to simulate "leftovers" with the rice -- combining some I'd made Sunday with a new batch, & keeping it all in the fridge. Somehow there is a huge difference between using fresh, warm rice, and leftover cold rice in fried rice. I think it has something to do with ridding the rice of excess liquid. Anyways, in the evening I realized that I had forgotten the frozen peas. Oops. Freezing trip out for said peas.

I figured I'd shower and then start dinner at around 8... everything in the kitchen takes me longer than normal because I'm OCD and have to wash all the time. [I'm only half-kidding.] It wasn't until 9:15 or so that dinner was sitting warm & waiting, and the dishes were done. I loved it, I so rarely cook, and I surprised Andrew by actually making something edible. We caught up over dinner, & Andrew showed me the fortune cookies he'd bought at a specialty shop (to which I said, cute, but not quite chocolate), and then the yummy cocoa mix he found for me =) He was very clever about not dropping any hints over dinner, even when I reminded him that LAST time he went to San Fran., he brought back a really good chocolate espresso bar. So of course we had to sample the hot chocolate, and it was yummy (you just can't recreate hot chocolate with "just add water" powders).

Today I've been reading, watching some MTV... and I saw something rather disturbing.

Has anyone else seen this commercial? The camera follows this young black man around school, playing sports, etc., and there's this little child in the background with a birthday hat on, and you're wondering, what's up with this child? Why is he stalking this guy? Then it flashes to a scene of the little boy at his birthday party, and you realize they're brothers, and their father is telling the older brother something about the little boy being disappointed if he (the older brother) doesn't stay at the party or something. And it closes with "Don't ever forget the people you hurt when you're high," and flashes "Regret, the anti-drug" up on the screen. So you might be like wow, profound. But it doesn't make any sense. First of all, no drug is named. And the most likely drug for teens to be using is pot, so you're trying to figure out how this fits together. It doesn't... Any number of things might make a teen miss his younger brother's birthday party -- prior plans, embarassment over spending time with the fam, being plain old inconsiderate, not caring, depression, hell even alcohol -- anything, basically. Seems that these people making commercials are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I'd just like to say, for like the millionth time, that alcoholism is way, way, way worse than smoking pot. Especially if you're living with one or both as a child. Alcohol is addictive (pot isn't), it impairs judgment in a totally different way... and how many times have you heard about someone driving while high and killing a family? Compare that to drunk driving statistics. Makes you wonder why one is legal and the other isn't... I wish we'd just make pot legal and tax the hell out of it & fund education/ social security/ medicare with it.

I'll stop ranting now... but I hate those commercials!

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Sooo...

Andrew's off in San Fran. for a cousin's wedding, & I'm here holding down the fort. Well, Kory's here too, but whatever. So yesterday was sad, seeing him off... Sad because I'm used to having him around, and because this was the only full weekend in January that we have here, and because he was going off to do something fun & I'm a brat & can't be happy for people. =)

Anywho, last night I decided to make something semi-healthy for dinner. I made pasta & a salad, and then discovered that I didn't know if we had any marinara sauce. Looking in the fridge produced one opened jar, and in the cupboard I found one full one... Luckily I didn't find the vodka sauce in the fridge till later (apparently it's old). The one in the cupboard was of the "roasted garlic," and upon a taste inspection I realized that there was no way in hell that I was eating anymore of that. So that left the one opened jar in the fridge that tasted better, but was of dubious background... I was pretty sure it was around a month old... Looking up online, could find nothing as to the durability (isn't that a funny word to use about pasta sauce?) of foodstuffs in the fridge after the initial opening. So... I decided that, since it tasted OK & there was no mold on the lid, I would eat it. Because I'm lazy and I didn't feel like going to the store.

Then... I realized that I had a full evening to do... what? in. Finally edited a story, watched episodes of the OC that I missed last month over ice cream, watched some Jay Leno, & slept... The OC is sooo good. I held out for awhile, with my attitude that it was just a dumb sitcom and that surely 4 years of college has taught me to appreciate more... well, more thought-provoking shows. Nope, can't deny it -- I love the soap opera drama elements.

This morning I woke up and knew that I had to do something interesting. This meant a trip to Harvard Square to locate White Noise, because the movie of the same title (but about something tooootally different) reminded me that I should read that sometime when I'm not bogged down with other work. And since I only read one other novel this break, it was about damn time I started a new one. Had a slow start, watched the news on TV & kids' Saturday morning 'toons. Trading Spaces Boys vs. Girls is actually really entertaining, I discovered.

I got directions online to Harvard Books, and set off for my little adventure. I passed Au Bon Pain & the Adidas store, and I was like, wow, so cool, I'm on the right track! I passed right by the store, thinking that it was just part of Harvard U.'s Coop & student bookstore, not realizing that it's the SAME THING as Harvard Books! Oops... So I walked... and walked... and saw another T stop off in the distance, a bit down Mass Ave. from the YMCA. So I turned around, and started walking back. Stepped into this old man's used bookstore (you know the type, totally deserted except for you and this bookish old man with white hair, so you HAVE to buy something or feel like a complete idiot suddenly walking out...) No White Noise. Did, however, find a Tom Stoppard play that I might possibly need for my course this semester. So I bought that and put back Waiting for Godot as the guy wanted 2.25$ for each old beat up play. Craazy. I was thinking maybe like, 1$... Guess I'm used to Oregon pricing still.

Back on my merry way up Mass Ave, I went up and down side streets, and examined every store front. Soon began to despair that I would not find Harvard Books. Finally saw the store, realized my mistake, and saw the Plymton St. sign that I had previously been searching for (as the directions told me to). How did I pass right by that sign without noticing?? Looked through used books, remainders... no White Noise. Went up to the new books section, resolving that if I had come this far, I had may as well just spend the money and get the damn thing...Couldn't find it among the D's... Then looked up into the highest shelves, realized that it was overflow or something, and saw one reddish spine with hard to see little letters... Saw that it was probably White Noise, dragged a footstool over, and grabbed it. Last one! Unfortunately it was $15.75 with tax (I'll figure I used Grammy's x-mas money on that one).

Felt good walking out of the store, and decided to find Peet's. Soon found it, but not before being harassed by a panhandler (is that an old-fashioned word?) This guy was right in front of me asking for change, and I made the mistake of looking right at him and thinking that, if my spare change wasn't in my wallet in my inner coat pocket, and if I wasn't planning to use it for T fare, that perhaps I could give him something... So, as always happens to me when I'm walking somewhere (esp. walking somewhere alone) in cities, he picked me out to yell at. Something like this: "Take me seriously! Don't just look at me with your big pretty eyes, I don't buy that lady..." As I walked as quickly as possible with the crowd across the street. Fled to Peet's... If I had money that felt like throwing away (which I don't, not with this wisdom tooth extraction coming up that will be expensive -- and I'm not going to launch into a defense of how I spend my money), I would rather give it to my parents & family than to some nameless guy bumming money and yelling at me in the street. Honestly, harassing me does NOT make me want to give you money! Do something nice if you want money. I have been known to drop change into collections when it's for people playing music that I like...

At Peet's I enjoyed the college student vibe, & got some not so special chai. Next time, the special teas are probably more worth the money. Then I realized that my plan to sit quietly and read in a coffeeshop would be difficult, since there was no where to sit. I pretended to look at the loose teas for sale, and then got up the guts to ask a girl sitting with her laptop if I might sit and read at her table. So I sat and read the first few chapters, and plotted how I might retrace my steps to the T station without encountering said panhandler again.

Upon arriving in Porter Square, I remembered that we have a relatively new bookstore right next to us in the shopping complex. I went in, to see if they had a cheaper copy of White Noise (and if I therefore should have gone there)... no copies! Saw a flyer for this Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno, who wrote a biography on Paul Bowles (a writer Quillian once assigned -- he wrote this cool story "A Distant Episode" that I wrote an essay on for Lit. Crit. & Theory). Apparently he's going to be at the store tomorrow, promoting his new biography of EE Cummings. I think I'll go -- hopefully he's going to actually read and not just sign books. If it sounds good, perhaps I'll use my gift certificates for that book & Terry Eagleton's new one...

I bought the most unhealthy thing for dinner ever -- Banquet fried chicken -- every once in awhile I feel the urge to eat really random/ unhealthy things. Like orange soda.

Also edited another story... wonder how many times I'll need to do that before it's "good enough"...

Last night I was getting really into revising & elaborating on some poetry fragments I'd written into my little purple notebook. Looking forward to having a verse writing class again this semester. Feel rather guilty about not taking a 5 college course yet, but there are always things here to take... no other college in the valley is offering a verse writing course this semester, except the intro/level one sorts, and I already had that so it seems silly to essentially retake it. I'm hoping for more freedom in the level 2, and less people in the course just to get rid of requirements.

I've become more addicted than ever to princetonreview.com's message boards for grad school. Keep hoping that I'll get an early acceptance letter so I don't keep worrying that I won't get in anywhere =(

That's all for now... Happy birthday to Merrers & Dale!

Monday, January 10, 2005

Something funny I found through oddtodd.com for Mer:

Here's the story: http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimesNEW/basket6st/basket6st1105014896.aspx

Here's the picture:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050106/photos_sc/mdf814516
I'm now in Boston, swimming in free time as Andrew is usually at work and will be gone this holiday weekend for a wedding in CA. I originally intended to work for Warm2Kids during the break, but they've been kind of unreliable with actually paying me, and I have plenty of my OWN volunteer work to do! (Because even though the grad school applications are done, you can imagine that fellowship applications are pretty damn similar.) So now I'm working on finding funding for grad school, catching up on sleep, and working on my thesis. I'd also like to read White Noise finally, as soon as I find a used copy. Oh, and there's no connection between the book and the movie, but seeing that movie title plastered on the TV everyday DID serve to remind me about needing to read the novel...

Here's what I've been doing...

Before leaving Oregon, I hung out with Mum, visited Dad once more (thanks to Tim driving me), went along on Mum's visit to her old piano teacher (Lois), visited Shannon at her apartment in Parkdale, & generally just enjoyed being at home. It was pretty sad leaving, and Tim was trying to get me to change my plane ticket and stay longer! Although I'll be in great pain, I'll enjoy being at home after my wisdom tooth removal ordeal in June. On that front, I've discovered a great food that I can eat even while my mouth is "laid up" -- cream of wheat!! Mum hates it, but after having some at a restaurant I told Andrew that we must try to recreate it for our own home use. Yesterday morning we made a yummy batch -- when it's made with milk and supplemented with sugar and cinnamon, it's SO GOOD.

Ok so the plane ride now. I had a short leg up into Seattle. This was on an airbus. It was literally the size of a bus with wings. I did not feel safe. In fact, I felt pretty damn UNsafe in that rickety little swaying contraption. I managed to eat lunch, however, and it was nice having the whole row to myself since the plane was not even half full. After walking freaking half a mile in the Seattle airport, and searching in vain for an AA worker to confirm that I was at the right terminal, I settled down to waiting for an hour till the plane started boarding. Boo!

The flight was OK, they even fed us (although it was gross pasta and marinara sauce, how do you screw up marinara sauce? worse than MHC's!!!). We were even half an hour early into Boston. I was happy. Then the bad news hit, because we all know that there is no such thing as an uncomplicated airplane ride. The pilot came on to say that we'd be stuck sitting on the runway for 20 minutes as they were waiting for a terminal to slip into. I was sitting there like, BS, it's 9:30 PM, the snow/rain was supposed to be done by early evening in Boston, they've had plenty of time to plan for this expected weather and clean up afterwards. I've flown in worse with no problems, what's going on? I accepted this, however, as there is nothing else for a passenger to do but protest and be thrown in jail (according to one obscure passage in the Patriot Act or another). So I sat there for twenty minutes, after being on the plane for over 5 hours while it was in flight. In "compensation," the pilot put on the radio. That did not make me happy. You know that loud underlying hiss noise of airplanes? Well the radio wasn't much louder, and just sounded fuzzy. I was getting a headache from all the noise and the canned air. Then the pilot came back on. His first word was "unfortunately." We all groaned. Another thirty minutes sitting on the f*&#ing runway.

Again, I sat there for the full time. Around 10:30 the pilot came on again. We'd been sitting there for an hour already. He said it'd be "five minutes, and we'll be in shortly." 15 to 20 minutes later the plane actually started moving. The air steward people were no where to be found, so I finally called one out for a cup of water. Hint for airlines: If you keep passengers sitting in an unmoving aircraft for over an hour, you need to AT LEAST offer them water or beverage service to keep them calm. To keep them happy, you should offer free alcohol. In fact, you should always offer free alcohol in case of mishaps. This is what I'm used to when flying, and I was sorely disappointed that I wasn't compensated for my wasted time by the chance to put myself into a fuzzy stupor.

By the time we got off the f*&%ing plane, everyone was practically running to the baggage claim. More bad news there! I could see piles of luggage in roped off areas. That is never a good sign. It means someone screwed up, because that luggage is not with its rightful owner! I waited 15 minutes as the same old luggage that wasn't our plane's floated by, round and round. Andrew magically appeared with Dunkin' Donuts and I whined loudly to him about the horrid state of affairs with AA. After waiting another 15 minutes, and sharing notes of the mishaps witnessed on both our sides, we were convinced that my luggage was not going to appear. Asking an attendant, we found that they already had a freaking form letter and hotline set up to deal with the luggage issue. The lady was uncertain about my using it, however, saying that I hadn't yet waited "30 minutes." I informed her that I had just waited an hour and a f*#$ing half out on the runway, and nearly 30 minutes in baggage claim, and that we needed to catch the T asap. She shut up and handed me the paper with the info. A few minutes later they announced that our luggage was actually coming out for flight 2270, so we headed back over and (miracle of miracles) my bags soon appeared.

Moving on from my American Airlines debaucle... We got home pretty late after all that hassle, and I ate chicken soup and advil to counteract my headache. Slept till about 1:30 the next day (but that'd be 10:30 am Oregon time). Watched Garden State with Andrew in the afternoon, and joined Jon & Jen for dinner, an impromptu viewing of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (to get us psyched up for the new one), and the first Carnivale of the new season.

Tonight we're going to Sugar & Spice for Thai, and doing some food shopping to get ready for the rest of the week. I need to get string cheese and TV dinners for while Andrew's gone this weekend.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Today I slept in, read, about finished my grad school apps (must just read everything over, print, choose writing samples, and send off), took Bosun on a walk, and relaxed. Bosun ran away from me when I was trying to walk him. He barked at me when I called to him, encouraging him to hurry his ass up and catch up. He sniffed a moment longer and ran back down the trail to the house, so I ran after him. I tackled him halfway back, and he lost his balance and fell. Then I tried to herd him back up to the ditch, and resorted to walking him on his leash. He insisted on going down to the frozen ditch for a drink, so I tried to break the ice for him. Then he went out on the ice himself, and his back legs kind of splayed out like he was trying to do the splits. He looked mighty confused, and then got the hell off the ice. When we got home, I gave him one of those chewing ears that Mer bought for him, and he grunted and walked away from me. Crazy old basset.

Check this out Mer: http://postgazette.com/pg/04363/433410.stm
Ahh I can't believe Andrew & Mer are gone already! Had such fun... Going to taco night with the girls (and Andrew), staying up late New Year's Eve playing Trivial Pursuit (Lindsey & I won!! yay us!!), watching the illegal fireworks, trying to make ice cream out of snow, going to dinner at the Crazy Pepper (thanks Mer for the gift certificate -- Andrew understood why I love that place after taking just one bite), watching cheesy 80s movies...

Saturday afternoon we were lazing around on our last unplanned day, watching videos of the house being built, and Mum suggested a hike. Luckily Andrew & I didn't wimp out -- Tamanawas was beautiful with the layer of snow over everything. We rushed to the falls, and it was sooo worth the 2 miles of slippery snow. I didn't remember what it looked like -- very impressive... a sheer drop off with water pouring over. Andrew took 70 pictures along that hike!!

Afterwards, at home, we warmed up by the fire and drank hot chocolate. Yums. I made mine from scratch (as in baker's chocolate, sugar, some of a chocolate bar, and milk). Helped Mum make scalloped potatoes, and Andrew & I made the sugary & marshmallowy sweet potatoes. Our efforts at a fancy dinner were thwarted by the sudden break down of the oven. The range top worked, so we finished dinner by frying up ham and microwaving potatoes. Ack!! [This problem is due to be fixed next Tuesday, so it looks like me and Mum won't be doing the twice-baked potatoes.] In the evening we watched Spaceballs (so cheesy).

Sunday was taking Mer back to Corvallis day. Saw her lilac room, hunted about for a certain pair of shoes, helped Mer change her sheets and make the bed while Andrew put her cushy chair together. We kept forgetting things for Mer in the car, so I made two trips up to her room after our goodbyes (and she still forgot her gum! But don't worry Mer, I won't chew it, I promise!) Then Mum started honking and we yelled at Mer's window from the street to get her attention, as a particularly cute basset was going by. Are we the most embarrassing family members a first year college student could get stuck with? Yes.

Coming back I slept, using Andrew as a pillow. Then in the middle of the night we brought him to the airport. Going back to bed in the half empty house was tres sad =( I miss you, Schmoopy! And me and the Dtub can't get used to Mer being gone! Luckily I worked with Mum today so I didn't mope around the house. I worked a bit on applications and read some more of my book... Tim's worried about the pipes freezing.

I found liquorice altoids today. SO GOOD!