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!