Friday: The J Crew bottom came!! We got home a bit late, but did end up finishing Hamlet finally. And taking a late night supermarket run…

Saturday: We had hoped to get up really early and get to the beach before the rush, but we didn't get out of the house quite as early as we had hoped. The traffic was disastrous -- I was starting to get worried as to whether or not we'd even find a patch of sand to sit on with all the people headed toward beaches!! It was a pretty hot and humid, and we somehow always managed to be in the slowest lanes of traffic! I kept telling Andrew to switch lanes and he'd say "They're ALL going slow, if we switch it'll just start going slow, too." I kept pestering though, and once we switched lanes he had to admit we had been in the slowest of them all!

Anyway, we finally reached York Beach, and it was swamped with people. The outbound lane was slow moving and bumper to bumper with people looking for the parallel parking spots on that side of the street. We were feeling pretty disheartened -- no places to park, a crowded beach, and lines of traffic. We turned around into the slow lane of traffic looking for parking spots, and miraculously got one when some girl climbed into her car and drove away! It was a great spot by the sandy part of the beach, too.

It was a great day to just relax on the beach. We lazed in the sun, read, and went swimming. It was the first time I really got all the way in ocean water and paddled around. It was funny because we kept getting more and more wet as each wave crashed on us and splashed us. The water was clear and not so cold once you'd gotten all the way in. Lots of fun!! Must obtain floaties for next time we go. I like traveling on the waves best.

Things we saw: a horrible father and little boy who spit on Andrew's chair (Andrew handled it well, in a WARM way, you might say), boys on surf-board-like-things picking up girls, packed beaches, a wandering golden retriever/dachsund mix, etc.

We had lunch on the beach, and I dozed awhile. Toward evening we decided to drive to Rockport for dinner. Saw York Harbor and got the scenic tour as we twisted our way down the backroads to the north shore. We got there pretty late, and didn't make the best choice for dinner... It was nice, with a view out onto the water, but for about the same price we realized that we could have gone to this fancy schmancy sort of place right out near the beach with outside seating and lots of twinkly lights and tablecloths. Next time though! And we had fun wandering around the streets -- violin players, great danes, candy shops...

The ride home was fun, listening to music and keeping Andrew awake. And we had time to watch a little of the rerun of SNL with Al Sharpton (which was not originally aired in Boston).

Sunday: Not the best weather, but we made the best use of the day! While it was overcast and cloudy, we slept in and then headed to the New England Aquarium. We saw EVERYTHING -- the sea lion show (roaring, dancing, waving, saluting, kissing, etc), seals, puffer fish, huge turtles (Myrtle the old turtle), feeding time at the big tank and for the penguins (some of which were molting), the northwest tank, lots of jellies, dragon fish things and sea horses (like at the Oregon aquarium)... We tried to see everything before we left.

We carried dinner over to Boston Common from Fanueil Hall -- found something akin to what Jeanne called "yaki noodles." Yum. We got to the park just in time to get a good spot for the last performance of Much Ado About Nothing. It was soooo lovely ... the weather cleared up marvelously and we had blue skies and sunshine. Gorgeous costumes, plenty of physical comedy to bring out the vulgar parts and the "groundling" humor," and well-practiced actors. Being so close some parts seemed over-acted, but I enjoyed it. And it's so amazing to see Shakespeare's plays acted out, while you're in an outdoors setting, surrounded by other people enjoying the show. Feels more authentic somehow.

Got home not too late, and had time to watch TV a little and eat dessert.

Monday: Busy busy day! Andrew's dentist appointment set everything back a bit, but we ended up watching Six Feet Under with Kory, which was cool.

Just read Mer's blog... must respond:

Merrie do you realize that I already have Simon & Garfunkel's The Graduate soundtrack CD? I hope you do! It's somewhere at home I bet. I agree with you on all your music selections, yay our tastes have merged =) Did you know that Franz Ferdinand was playing in Boston last month for like $15/ticket? And that Andrew was tired so we skipped it? And now I'm kicking myself for not dragging him to the concert? Hell, that's cheaper than when we saw Badley Drawn Boy!! Agree on Bright Eyes... And all I remember of Weezer is that muppet music video... And Mer! Did you know that Andrew, Jon, Jen, and me are going to a Modest Mouse concert next Saturday?? We've all got hooked on them. I love that music video for "Float On"... sheep! Genius! The rest of the CD is not so happy... like the lyrics "Are you dead or are you sleeping... God I sure hope you are dead!"

Ahh... Wahtum Lake and Black Lake in 100 degree weather... wish I had been there. It was so cold today I had to wear pants and a sweater. F*#%ing weather!!!!

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!

It's been SUCH a long time since I last posted. But I did write my blog out, longhand:

Thursday (that'd be a week and a day ago): Highlight of the day: watching Living in Oblivion.

Friday: After work Andrew and I drove directly to Jon & Jen's. We walked in the door right on time for dinner, which was good, as always. Around 8 we finally left for the NY weekend adventure. Andrew & Jon dropped me off at Dale's house before continuing on to their father's house.

Dale & I talked for awhile although it was late, and I got reacquainted with the cats. Dunlop and Theseus put on a little show for me -- Theseus hid under a rug while Dunlop attacked him. Eventually Dale went back to her housesitting job about a mile away, and I showered and went to bed. I took over Dale's room -- it was fun =) I like her room's pink and mauve color scheme.

In the morning Dale came to wake me up, and we ended up helping out their neighbors with pool party preparations. They have a big mastiff (200 lbs), and a somewhat senile black lab. After setting up in the hot sun we just had to swim around in Dale's above ground pool -- we sat in the water and talked awhile until Dale's mother warned us that we were going to fry out there!!

I also met Dale's house-sitting pets: Leo the white lion dog, 2 cats, 2 rabbits, 2 aquatic turtles, and a gerbil! Beautiful newly renovated house, lots of gross garbage and crap lying around. Not cool... Dale and I agreed to never treat a nice house like a pig pen!

We snacked on the food Dale's mother was making, and then proceeded to the party. Dale and I swam around for awhile until the "evil kids" started capsizing, splashing, and in general terrorizing us. It was fun though -- we paddled around on "floating noodles" and got some sun. It started thundering later, which prompted everyone to get food and eat! Jenny's hot sauce chicken was good, and I ate a lot! Jenny took pictures of us, too. After Dale and I got tired of hanging out in our damp swimsuits, we went to change and visit the pets again. We of course made it back to the party for dessert!! We stuffed ourselves for a sugar high... cheesecake, Neapolitan cake, chocolate raspberry cake, fruit salad, brownies, and tea. Yummy! Not any one thing was too good (except perhaps for the brownies) but all mixed together it was much improved.

After the party Dale and I showered, and then I went to the house for TV and talking. We caught up on our current issues, watched some "I love the '90s," and planned the next day out. We also watched "Coupling," the British version, and laughed uproariously. Amazing show! "Oh, Jeffrey!"

Sunday: I slept in, as it was an overcast day. Zoo plans and historic house tours were rejected in favor of a movie... I wanted (being me) to see King Arthur despite the bad reviews. Poor Dale... but I liked seeing it, if only to see how it was adapted for the 2004 US audience =) Very different... my short analysis: King Arthur was TRYING to be more historically accurate than the legend (e.g. using the Baldon's Hill battle, the 1st hint of Arthur in English lit.). Considering our society's obsession with science and "the facts," this seemed appropriate. (Although nothing else seemed to be based on fact.) Guenevere (particularly her rather political stances on land and home and her participation in battles) is very much in line with the Power Puff/ girl power/ women's empowerment views. Girls are supposed to be as tough as the boys -- and from those straps on Guenevere's chest, TOUGHER!

P.S. Hadrian's Wall, as a fellow movie-goer pointed out -- was awfully recreated... And at one point was Arthur wearing a black fleece pull-over and leather pants? He looked like he stepped out of a Banana Republic ad! And the question on everyone's mind... who wears next to nothing when going into a hand-to-hand combat situation?

After apologizing for the movie, we headed back to Dale's. We talked some more and I packed... Andrew was a bit late as they made the same wrong turn as the first night!!! On the way back we made the mistake of stopping in Waterbury, hoping for a mall food court. It was closed, so we waited half an hour (after being told ten minutes) at Ruby Tuesday's. And they were out of "chicken tenders" and some type of fish, meaning that half the menu wasn't available. Some people simply got up and left at this news (and rightly so, who runs out of freaking chicken tenders at a chain restaurant? COME ON PEOPLE!) But what I ened up with had a redeeming spicy sauce. Long drive, rather late night... but it was a great weekend!

So this week the big project over at Andrew's office is pretty much over. they have shorter hours and no work to take home (yeah, kind of like a normal job now). So Tuesday night we watched Shattered Glass (about Stephen Glass, the New Republic writer who wrote entirely fictitious articles).

Wed. night was tres exciting. We ate a quick dinner after work, and headed over to the Museum of Fine Arts. Art museums are SO much better post-Art History 100! We saw paintings by Degas, Van Gogh (hold up in the V.G. corner, with the art students meticulously examining every square inch of the canvases and looking as if they were trying to smell the paint), Manet, Monet, Turner ("Slave Ship," Quillian and John Ruskin's fave, I knew I had seen it before...), and Picasso (a mother was asking her little boy: "what's Cubism?" and the boy said "it's when artists use shapes in their paintings!")

We also saw a cool drawing "class" around a couple of models (not nude). We liked the exhibit with the flashing lights (one of a "picture" of a fountain capturing the sleaziness of Las Vegas) and the silhouettes (one of the NY skyline with Coke and beer bottles and cans, another of two people sitting, obtained from an arrangement of random crap). Afterwards we walked to the cheesecake Factory. We ate so much buffalo wrap appetizers that we couldn't finish dessert. Ahh yum... cheesecake... kahlua cocoa coffee cheesecake...

So tired when we got home!

Thursday: I felt kind of nauseous all day (maybe the buffalo wrap/cheesecake combination?), it was distracting and irritating. We pretty much went straight from work to Andrew's "Goodbye, Dave" get together. We went to Red Bones for dinner (they accidentally gave me half a chicken -- too much fowl! I couldn't finish the drumstick and had a guilty moment imagining a ghost chicken asking for his leg back since it was going to waste). They all told funny stories about work, and Dave had plenty of horror stories. Then we went to this freezing bar. I was huddled up by Andrew the whole time, covered in goosebumps and longing for a hot shower and hot chocolate. When we went home I took the hottest shower and boiled myself to a pinkish hue.

Today we had great hopes for a picnic out on the esplanade, but as rain is predicted for EIGHT of the next TEN days (f#*&ing weather!!!!) we have decided against going. As the astute weatherman put it tonight: "The clouds are rolling in for the weekend, and below average temperatures are predicted!" Global warming my ass!

But instead we went to Target and bought a grill (which Andrew is now price comparing and considering returning) and myriad things we didn't particularly plan on buying. Such is the genius of Target: whole lot of junk under one roof, and you've got to pass most of the junk to find the junk you're looking for, resulting in seeing more junk and deciding to buy more junk.

GRE Fee Waivers: Designed to Discourage Use

Many colleges and testing services offer admission fee waivers to students who need them. In the case of a GRE test this can make a big difference, since it is $115 per test. If you’re applying to an English literature program, you will also probably need to take the English Literature Subject Test. That adds up to $230 in exchange for the privilege of taking a test. And they’re not even easy to use. First off, they’re released in the middle of the summer when students are not typically at college or able to get the proper signatures, forms, and seals necessary to fill out the waiver form. It is also nearly impossible to contact the GRE administrators, as they do not have a toll free number, nor a competent person answering emails [example: I had very simple questions (when and where can I obtain a 2004/05 fee waiver form? How am I supposed to fill that form out with school officials’ signatures when I’m home in Oregon for the summer and the signatures are in South Hadley, MA?). The emails I received in response were clearly answered by someone who did not understand my questions in the first place].

The result of this big mess? The office of financial assistance first gave me a 2003-04 fee waiver form, which I proceeded to fill out. Then I realized that in very fine print it restricted the time I had to take the test – if I didn’t take the test by June 2004, I was screwed and would have to pay for it. Kind of a problem since in my mind 2004 means Jan. 1st 2004 until Dec. 31st, 2004! So that fee waiver had to be returned to the office of F.A. (since they can only give out one form to each student). Luckily they took it back, and informed me that the 2004-2005 school year waiver wouldn’t be available until July 1st, 2004. The director assured me that she could send the completed form to me over the summer, and gave me her card.

So two weeks ago I emailed her, without a response. After emailing again yesterday, she claimed to have already sent the form to my Oregon address. (Still waiting for Mum to confirm that she’s gotten it.) The director also told me that she had not gotten the required registrar’s seal on the form, and that they would need my student ID to do so. Not able to just drive out to South Hadley during business hours to flash my MHC ID, I emailed the registrar to ask about how to obtain this seal. The solution (from a very helpful registrar, I might add) is for me to have Mum send in the fee waiver form with a SASE. Then it will be sent to me -- registrar’s seal and all. It might be a good idea to note at this point that none of this is MHC’s fault – they’re doing everything they can to help me, and it’s still a “conundrum”!

The next leg of this journey will be trying to actually register for the test. The GRE people make this difficult, too (of course). Fee waiver students can only use one fee waiver, so they must decide when they are taking the subject test and the general test ahead of time. We can only register by snail mail, so we’d better decide fast to book our seats in time. I have no idea what will happen if I try to register for a time and location that is filled up. Will they send my fee waiver form back and make me re-register altogether for both dates? What happens if they don’t send me the form back for a month and I have no idea if I’m even registered or not?

This story will surely be continued at a later date…

Quickie update before going to bed EARLY (yes, before 11 PM!!):

Friday: Andrew & I went to his "former abode" to visit Jon & Jen. We helped with dinner (I cut up avocados and mushed them). I once did that in 4-H, it was just as fun the second time around. Apparently there was talk at Andrew's work about guacamole: solid or liquid? (I say amorphic solid, or whatever it's called, I can't find it on google right now.) Jon made a good cilantro sauce for beef, it was surprisingly well matched. After dinner we pretty much sat and relaxed and chatted. Didn't get back till pretty late, luckily I didn't have to get up early the next day.

Saturday: Lots and lots and lots of vocab words. Got through I. I was inundated with new words, and most of them begin IN or IM. Very easy to confuse them all.

"All day Saturday -- 14 hours to be exact,
Andrew was at the office, with the whole pack,
Racing against the clock to finish Java work.
At the beck and call of Harvey -- that old jerk."

So toward evening, when it was clear that Andrew was not coming home for dinner (he ate two cold pieces of pizza left over from lunch). So, Kory and I went out to dinner. We thought Andrew would be joining us, but this clearly didn't happen. I met Kory's coworker, and we had drinks and dinner. Tried a cranberry bog martini, Kory enlightened me as to the alcohol content. Stopped drinking that one. Instead, had a "light red wine," Kory's tagged that as the sort I would like. I think I agree, it didn't make me cough. They have very good polenta, squash blossoms, and chocolate cake.

Saturday night Andrew got home around 11:30 PM. He was hungry, so we went to Red Bones. They have very sticky tables there. I noticed because I kept putting my elbows in a particularly sappy spot. We came home and fell right asleep, lights on, computer on, it was a mess.

I woke up Sunday morning, very early, and brushed my teeth.

The next day we had a very heavy brunch that wasn't conducive to feeling light and active the rest of the day. We sat on Revere beach, like beached whales. Andrew got burnt, again. Then we explored this "Building 19" with lots of leftover crap from other stores. Took a much needed visit to Wal-Mart and Target. The brita is working beautifully.

Today at lunch we discussed water quality. I think of the bunch, we had better water to start with. Stephanie's water in Clinton is brown. Charlene's well water is orange with iron. Ours is at least clear.

That brings us up to now!

Saturday: Andrew left work early so we could attend his friend Carlo's barbeque. Reunion with Kiwi the pug, who was very preoccupied with Shelley's dog. Weird uncomfortable conversation with Shelley (who lives in the apartment beneath Carlo's). At one point Andrew pointed out that I was the only female in the room besides Kiwi. The other end of the gender spectrum from MHC...

I also had a little American Eagle clearance saling to do -- thank God for AE clearance sales, because W2K isn't paying me much more than my bills cost (and whatever extra I'm sure will end up going to taxes. Ugh).

It was a good day for a barbeque, except for the ever-present mosquitoes.

Sunday: We slept in, because we knew we weren't into the whole extreme firework viewing (ie, get up at 5 am to claim a spot for the Boston Pops concert). Brunch was leisurely, I finally painted my toenails a bright red, and we sat about doing some work. In the afternoon we headed out wandering around Boston -- we had an "embryonic" plan to follow the Freedom Trail, eat somewhere in the North End, and see the fireworks. [Side note: I have reached G in my alphabetical quest to learn GRE vocab words. Watch out, I will be attempting to use these words in blogs as well as everyday speech. Luckily most of you do not have to live with me over the summer!] This plan "felled" as we became hungry almost as soon as we started walking. We had pad thai, and an interesting curry mango fried rice. An ideal setting -- we ate in a sort of park by the ocean.

Andrew & I then headed through Boston Common and the public gardens -- a rather "desultory" path toward the fireworks. I finally saw the Make Way for Ducklings statues. Mer, you would have liked them. I would have taken a picture except for the toddlers "gamboling" about and pretending to ride the ducks. We finally reached the esplanade, and after much walking about in the crowd, we found a place to put a towel and sit down. We were "quiescent" and read our books -- consumed some slush -- and basically waited for evening. A group of "loquacious" BU students were in front of us. We finally heard music off in the distance, and everyone stood for the national anthem. Some crazy woman knocked off a BU student's cap, spoke to him in "invective" (one might even say "vituperative") language, and stormed off with her off-kilter male-counterpart in tow. The BU students began to leave after the first round of fireworks that went with the 1812 Overture. They had "recondite" reasons for leaving so close to the show, esp. since the wait to leave after the fireworks was much less severe than we had expected...

The show was great, once it FINALLY got started at around 10:30 PM. Entire field of vision was filled with fireworks. Odd splotchy batches that kept flickering after detonating like big bulbous fireflies. Others that looked like gold rain. Some were even set off to look like smileys (Andrew got an excellent picture of this!) The show wasn't as long as I had thought it would be, though. Afterwards we were crushed together "like sardines" as Mum would say. After getting past one of the walkways that cross the highway at intervals, we headed for the T. The first leg of the journey was crowded, the second was not. Andrew found a seat for me on the first one though (miraculously). Very tired!

Luckily I didn't have work Monday -- wasn't feeling so great -- so I got a lot of GRE words onto flashcards, took a couple of practice verbal tests (I still suck), and finished off the Lit. GRE review. My head cannot hold all these words! Evening event: pad thai followed up by Jello cheesecake and frozen fruit. Food makes me happy =)

Most bizarre encounter with a CVS employee ever. And, he gave me $10.18 in the form of 2 5's, 3 nickels, and three pennies. I found that strange. The fives can be explained, but why would you give someone three nickels instead of a dime and a nickel? Any insight into this "abstruse" "conundrum" is much appreciated.

Being at work again -- a little disconcerting after 4 days off.

Merrie, how do I put pictures in my blog?

I forgot something -- I remembered because it's starting to thunderstorm again -- We've been having incredible storms --

Last night we had the most amazing thunder and lightening. For once I was glad that I always wake up during the middle of the night. We stayed up and watched it for awhile. Like natural fireworks, maybe.

Just read Mer's blog -- sounds like the Disneyland trip went well! =) I'm so glad Sassy Duck came home!! When the hell do I get to see that damned cat? Is she going to run away again when I come home in the winter??

Today ended up being a "mandatory day off." As in, the entire C-- family was going to be gone so they gave everyone the day off, too. I tried to work from home, but Charlene told me that wasn't going to work out. I needed the sleep though... doing chores around the house and catching up on things I've not had the time to do during the week. But we have had some fun, even on weeknights:

Weds. night: Buster needed a new bulb for his heat lamp, so we took our first visit to the pet store that's like, less than a block away. Ok so only Merrie is going to understand my next observation. Why is it that so many small, privately owned pet stores are run by somewhat overweight middle aged men? Anyway. This is a pretty cool pet store -- there was a brown frog that looked like a dead leaf, small water turtles (Andrew was about ready to bring one home -- seriously), a very large and primarily red parrot, one big adult bunny (guess that one isn't a best seller, I'm thinking it's a grown-up-left-over-Easter-bunny), a couple of guinea pigs, ferrets, and your typical assortment of fish and smaller birds. They didn't have a bulb for Buster, though.

Thursday night I was pretty damn tired. My eyes had felt dry all day. Charlene let us go an hour early, so I had extra time for the old GRE words and book reading. Luckily we had leftovers for dinner. Somerville had its own fireworks celebration (the first in 20 years), so we decided to check it out. As we were walking towards the park, the fireworks started, so we ran a bit. It was pretty fun, even though they didn't last longer than 20 minutes. At one point we thought we'd seen the "grand finale." A while later, we knew it was the grand finale when like 20 got shot up into the air at the same time. There were two sets of those high frequency displays -- it was getting ridiculous, like you couldn't blink or you'd miss them! Everyone was laughing and clapping (except for some little kids (and not so little kids) getting led away by their parents, crying and saying "I HATE the fourth of July!!").

We also took one of our many grocery trips -- highlight being the No Bake Jello Cookies and Cream Dessert. I made it last night -- Andrew said he was impressed by my use of a whisk as a blender (and I can even do speeds, low speed and high speed. kind of). But considering that I've made this stuff in a dorm kitchenette, with the aid of only bowls and forks, a whisk was an improvement!

Last week highlights:

One night Andrew & I went to JP for dinner and socializing with Andrew's brother and Jen. It was really fun and relaxing (although we got home a bit late). Kind of made it feel like it wasn't a weekday. We brought back yet more of Andrew's stuff.

Friday night we rented 50 First Dates which was surprisingly entertaining. I think that was due to Drew. I made some perfect popcorn. (As opposed to the last time Andrew tried, and it got completely burnt.)

Saturday I woke up pretty late -- recuperating from a crazy week. Then I did some more vocab words. Oh at some point I finished Madame Bovary. Started the Sound and the Fury. That's slower going. D. Becky came to pick me up and we went on a crazy adventure up to the North Shore -- it was good that she saw Greg again before he goes abroad! I saw tons and tons of beach, fog and mist, marshes, an idyllic path that let out onto a quarry (with lots of mosquitoes), and we went to a restaurant with amazing onion rings (that look like how I make them, as in, not frozen and dipped in oil). We got back pretty late, after going through Salem (satanic church), Rockport, Nahat, etc. etc. Then we got Andrew out of the apartment. I wore the perfect outfit that D. Becky picked out! We went to this cool bar that we can walk to in about 5 minutes, and I had a beer that I actually liked the taste of (belgian white or something? Andrew ordered it). Live music, it was good. D. Becky headed off and I was a bit tipsy so we ate buffalo wings and then I fell right asleep.

Sunday we somehow got up early, after a late night (2ish I think?). But it was so pretty out we HAD to wake up early. Brunch and then last minute items from the supermarket (including poisonous deet repellent). We got out of the apartment early though, and headed up to Ipswich River. We had the most amazing canoe trip. The Foote Brothers canoe rental place dropped us off upstream (but it's such a very very weak current the stream means nothing except for which way the weeds grow underwater). We had a 4 hour paddle at least, and a quick stop at the island the rental place owns. We saw many cool water turtles (and we tried to pick them up with our paddles). I saw one big frog. We saw multiple egrets and herons. I was constantly taking pictures. The geese and ducks had goslings and ducklings, respectively. Andrew spotted a beaver carting some vegetation around. A tail splashed so we're assuming beaver (Andrew insists it was the tail of a beaver). Merrie, any advice?

It was completely gorgeous, the sun was back and forth behind clouds and it wasn't terribly hot. We often had trouble paddling around between obstacles. My arms were sore by the end of the run. It was kind of like the old computer game Oregon Trail. Luckily neither Andrew nor Becky fell off the canoe or caught typhoid fever.

We were so hungry by the time we got home!! I tried the saute sauce (or however you spell it) that Andrew brought back from Amsterdam. It's like thick peanut butter, basically. It was good on chicken, surprisingly. Not the sort of things you'd normally put together. Andrew insists that in Amsterdam people eat french fries with peanut butter and mayo on them. I think that's disgusting, by the way.

Today at work we had Blue Cross Blue Shield come in, so I was at the front desk playing receptionist. It was an out of the ordinary day (which made it exciting). Plus, I ate a leftover veggie sandwich with good hummus (as opposed to MHC hummus (except the black bean, which is good)). And, I took some of the sweets -- cheesecake bites. Should have taken more of the sweets before other people got them =/ Poor me!!

Last night we started an off-beat movie, Human Nature.

Dinner was good tonight -- Mum would be proud -- shrimp and linguini and a white wine sauce and tomatoes...

That's enough rambling for now, I'm so tired!

Last week went by so quickly -- Friday half the office (or more) was out, so I was able to work in a cubicle. That was cool, very quiet and peaceful day. Andrew & I had a hell of a shopping trip (not good to go shopping when you're hungry), but a really good dinner. In the evening we watched Runaway Jury, which was awesome. We took advantage of this free movie offer over the cable.

Saturday I kept busy with my scholarship application, laundry, GRE studying, and packing for the weekend trip. Andrew & I got a fairly early start off to D. Becky's for the rest of the weekend. I made a "Just Beachy" CD mix for the ride down =) Becky already had dinner going, and we had a lovely meal out on the porch. Very quiet and green there! We took an evening walk down to the lake, and looked through lots of Becky's pictures, documenting her South America adventures. It tempted me into considering a vacation destination outside of Europe...

Sunday we ate brunch and then headed out to the beach. I finally figured out why everyone goes to Cape Cod =) Very beautiful ocean, although it was a tad windy on the beach. We explored these marshy areas that Mer would love (and D. Becky says you could get a job there, Mer!) and saw crabs and fishes. This cool dog, Dakota, was fetching rocks out of the water. Very passionate about the fetching, that dog. We drove to the bridge and watched people jump off, it looked scary. It wasn't quite hot enough for me to take the plunge!

In the afternoon we went to the lake by Becky's house. It was like the best day -- Becky laughed while Andrew and I tried to row across the lake in the raft, and then Becky & I really laughed while Andrew tried to paddle around alone! (He ended up bailing out and just pulling the raft to shore, which I of course documented in photos.) Then I decided to get in the water and swim a little, so Becky took pictures of us playing around in the water. I'm not a very good swimmer, we discovered!! Especially compared to Becky, who swam all the way across the lake twice!

In the evening we had dinner and watched a bit of TV. Sad saying goodbye to Becky and Pawsy (the soccer ball cat with extra toes). Being outdoors again was awesome =)

Ahh and now we're back at work! Yesterday I was rather sick, and last night/this morning. I think I'm getting a bit better though. My nose and the back of my knees are burnt (curious, isn't it?)

By the by: I'm officially into Six Feet Under now.

AndyG321: harvey just told us over the phone that it's apparently the mating season for chipmunks
Pink Poodledog: hahahahaha

(Harvey is the jefe over at Andrew's office)

Sunday: Andrew & I fixed another great brunch, and then got ready to go on an adventure. We went to Middlesex Fells, which is a cool place for people to bring their dogs. We started walking and kept going in circles on the VERY UNORGANIZED TRAILS. And we couldn't get NEAR the water because it's a reservoir or something. AND we were getting EATEN ALIVE by BIG mosquitoes. At some point I said "I'm miserable!" We sat in a sunny patch of fir needs for a bit, and I continued my campaign to kill as many mosquitoes as possible. Soon, we could stand it no longer, and we left. Vowing never again to go on a hike in the summer without bug spray.

Back in the open meadow we "picnicked" a bit. The dry Italian sausage sold in the supermarket we live next to is both more expensive and not as good tasting as the kind back home. On the way home we did some grocery shopping, and bought some lovely pompom daisies (or something like that) for $2.

I don't really remember what else we did on Sunday. That's the danger, I supppose, of writing blogs so late in the week.

Monday: Uhm... it was weird starting out a new work week. The song "Manic Monday" suddenly has so much more meaning than every before. Let's skip on to Weds. I've been getting encouragement from ML, Mike, and Janine on my writing here. And my first article is up! I used Merrie in my scenario. And yesterday was my first paycheck, very exciting. And Andrew & I have been having some lovely dinners (the stress ends once we start eating), complete with red wine (often when it doesn't go with the meal, but I don't know the different much, so I don't care). Although our mango fried rice with shrimp came out a LITTLE mushy.

Working on an obesity glossary at work these last few days. It's about 36 pages right now. Madame Bovary is going well, Kate noticed it by my desk and we talked about majoring in English & understanding history...

Well I should go now, I guess -- it's 5!

Finally, it's the weekend!

Time goes by so slowly sometimes at work. And one day Andrew had to work till a little after 7 so we basically came home and ate dinner and didn't have time for much else! Friday I was so, so bored at times. I began entertaining myself by reading stuff on the internet that was related to work, but not really necessary... Tues. Andrew at work (not my Andrew, one of the marketing people Andrew) gave me a "special assignment" right before I left... Basically to research and report on how other websites with message boards monitored the posts. So that was cool to have something new to do on Weds. And Thursday it was back to the old grind, writing about tourette syndrome (for parent and kid articles). Friday I finished those up, and my next "special assignment" (I say this with sarcasm) was to photocopy some articles. But that was ok, I enjoyed taking a break from the computer...

So the big happy part of the day came when Michael came in to tell me that the editor has been pleased with what I've been writing. That I skipped over the whole learning curve thing. So that made me happy, because I've been curious about how I'm doing in comparison to everyone else and if I'm writing things that aren't in need of lots of edits.

Anyway... Friday night Andrew & I took an evening walk to Harvard Square, watched some street acts (crazy college percussion players, a spray paint artist, and a band complete with breath-operated hand-held piano -- and side shows of intense chess players laughing at successful game moves that no one else understands). We had another pad thai night, we've got that dinner routine down now so that it's not so hectic.

Today (Saturday) I almost went to Walden Pond while Andrew was at work. But I ended up staying here, as I thought it would be insufferably crowded at a lake on a nice Saturday. I woke up with Andrew, and this time I actually stayed awake. For those of you interested in the mundane details of my day (ok, now that only Mum and Merrie are reading on), I did a diagnostic GRE test (and I think I definitely need some practice), got all the laundry done, finished The French Lieutenant's Woman (strongly recommended by Quillian, and now by me as well), sat out on the porch for awhile hoping to a.) get highlights in my hair and b.) get a "healthy" tan (which I define as not frying myself to a deep brown. or in my case, a deep red), made a new mix CD with Andrew's burner for Monday's ride to work, and fed Buster (who yawned and blinked today and look funny eating because he couldn't get his mouth around a piece of lettuce).

When Andrew finally got home from work, we picked up some burritos from the taqueria and headed to the esplanade (I guess that's how you spell it?) for a picnic dinner. It was really lovely, although a little chilly with the wind and a little strange with the kids playing frisbee around us. We felt a little weird like lying on a blanket together, but we later saw couples totally making out in the middle of crowds, so I guess we could have gotten away with way more PDA. There was a concert of some sort, so it was more crowded than usual...

Side note on Buster: Most mornings I turn on the heat lamp for Buster (that would be Andrew's Russian tortoise, who isn't really Russian at all, as I'm sure he was born in a NY petshop). And Andrew is in charge of feeding and watering. So one morning on the way to work we realize that neither of us had turned on the heat lamp. So I said (and I'm really proud of this because it's rare that I think of something semi-witty to say on the spot and not an hour later when it's completely out of context): Wow, I'm glad we don't have kids!

Right now Andrew's taking the diagnostic GRE test that I took earlier today. I hope he doesn't do as well on the verbal as me. But he probably will, he has a better vocabulary. I'm completely letting him take me on the math section though, when I got frustrated with questions I just didn't answer them, as I know that math won't matter for grad. school English programs. Ok signing off now, as I've been typing away to kill time and I haven't anything left to say...!

Since Andrew had worked 6 days, we tried to cram a lot of activity into Sunday. We made a big brunch (with hash browns, homemade!) and then did a little more work. In the afternoon we went to the mall since it was raining. I finally bought the tote bag/purse and wallet (it took awhile to pick out the wallet) at AE that I had been eyeing for the last month or so. Dinner was yummy -- Andrew made pad thai.

Saturday evening we went out to JP for the sunset -- took a walk at the pond, saw the albino squirrel yet again (even after Andrew pretended to see it and pointed at a white plastic bag and totally disappointed me), and acquired a corkboard from yard sale leftovers. So we have yet more stuff in the new apartment. But it's cool, it's like home now. We made brownies which were really good with frosting and ice cream. "My Boss's Daughter" is a frightful patchwork of past comedies that weren't successful the first time around. The only highlight was the owl that the boss owns as a "pet."

So the weekend was relaxing overall, even though I wasn't ready for Monday morning... Luckily Andrew hooked his cd burner up to my computer and we made a new song mix for the way to work. Also luckily, I usually have about an hour after work to sit by the lake and read before it's time to go home. Last night we even ate on our porch for the first time, which was cool... Odd thing of late: we haven't seen our roommate in a few days!

My first week of work is over!

Thursday: Emily worked by me all day, which was kinda cool. I think of everyone I've met at work she's the most likely potential friend. Andrew had a very quick lunch break, so I decided to take an extra break later with Stephanie (who first showed me around when I arrived at warm2kids my first day). We took a walk around the whole complex and chatted. It was kind of cool, I guess she does this most days. Since it was pouring later, I was glad I'd gotten outside to enjoy the sunshine.

We made tamale pie for dinner and it was excellent. Andrew likes it, too. =)

Friday: The day went by rather slowly it seemed. I finished my third (count them, three in four days!) article. I may change it a bit though when I get back, because it focused more on girls than boys. I thought that was justified with all the current literature on girls and cliques, but, Andrew thinks guys deal with that stuff just as much. This one was from the parent perspective. I'll have to look at the teen perspective one to see if it was inclusive enough or not...

Had a great lunch break, me and Andrew went out to sit by the pond. We watched the one white duck that inhabits the pond. He stuck around us for awhile (maybe because I was feeding him bread from my sandwich). I think I'm going to get a tan if I keep eating lunch outside in the sun. After work I went back to the pond to read for awhile.

After work we had leftover tamale pie in order to get an early start on the evening. We took the T into Boston and watched a juggling act outside of Fanueil Hall. And we got more chocolate mousse =) Yum, moose. Sat for awhile by the harbor until the wind became too chilly. It was a quick ride back, and then we got a movie from Blockbuster (thanks to Mum and her free coupons -- we live like a block away from a Blockbuster so it's perfect. I really like this place, close to everything and lots of young people around).

Weird sighting of the evening: Two 50-something identical twins, sitting at the T stop we got off at. These women were wearing identical clothes (and white hair ribbons, it was kind of trippy) and rather dour expressions. Andrew wished he had his camera.

Today! I initially got up with Andrew when he woke up to go to work. And I felt ok with getting up that early, but then I felt like sleeping in just because I could. I read from one of my skanky magazines for awhile, then I couldn't fall back asleep. Finally I did, but I didn't get up till 1! Then I was super hungry so I had to do lunch... I've been bad and haven't gotten started on reading more of my book yet today =/

I had a dream that Andrew had colon cancer. I think this may be as a result of the fact that the next topic I'm doing at warm2kids is colon cancer.

And... I'm back in MA! It's been a very, very long what? 5 days? It seems like much longer because I've done so much! Let's go day by day...

Friday night: I got about 4 and a half hours of sleep, and Pensy conveniently sprawled himself across the middle of my bed so I couldn't even sleep as comfortably. But I didn't want to throw him off because I was a little sad... It was the last night I slept in my old bedroom, as the new house will be done by the next time I get out west. Kind of got sentimental and took old Corlath the stuffed lion to hug.

Very early Saturday morning (or very late Friday night): I woke up and rushed everyone out of the house to go to the airport. We made it, but I got through some of the luggage check-in line fast since an attendant was asking for people on my flight to go through first. Sad to say good-bye to Mum & Mer =(

The first leg of my journey I sat next to a young couple that previously lived in the Boston area. I ended up following them for awhile through the Chicago airport trying to get to the next gate. They make you walk about a mile and claim it's in the same terminal. But to make you feel better about it (and perhaps to disguise what they're doing), they've set up those moving walkways with crazy neon flashing tube lights overhead. And they play carnival music. We had a good laugh over that, as they weren't fooling us...(I finished One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next the morning after I flew into Boston. Kesey mentions Hood River on the last page. I loved it.)

The second flight took off soon after I got on the plane (thank God, minimal waiting all around that day. Very smooth traveling.) The middle seat was empty so I was able to do my leg contortions. My luggage was one of the first things on the carousel, literally waited less than two minutes. I found a spot to wait by the pick-up area, & I had waited less than two minutes when I saw Andrew driving up. It was lovely to see him again =) It was also lovely that it was a sunny day -- after driving through rain in Oregon to get to the airport, and going through cloudy skies over Chicago.

SIDE NOTE: United airlines are wonderful with being on time but HORRIBLE with food. They make you PAY for a stupid sandwich and literally starve you with tiny ass bags of pretzels (they claim to have nuts in them, too, but I only found one half of one cashew in my bag. liars.)

After taking a look at the new apartment and moving some of my stuff in, we made a quick supermarket stop, & went back to Andrew's apartment. We had yummy pad thai (Andrew did it from scratch this time instead of using the sauce kits) and watched Kill Bill (which was really good as far as fight scenes and special effects). And I introduced Andrew to the wonders of Oregon candy: Cherry Mountain bars and Big Hunks (he didn't find them so wonderful though, I'm afraid).

Sunday: Moving day! We moved the rest of my stuff and some of Andrew's stuff into the new apartment. Same yellow walls in the kitchen that will be in my room (white ceiling, too). And odd green color of tile in the kitchen. But the room is great, we've inherited a dresser, night table, and queen size bed. We cleaned out the room and began setting up house. Emergency run to Target for a mattress pad & other necessary supplies. A very busy day... in the evening we took a walk to Anna's Taqueria for yummy burritos (it was about a five minute walk from our apartment... oh the wonders of living in the city!) In the evening we walked to Davis Square to get ice cream at JP Licks. Yum, Oatmeal Cookie... So many young people out and about, it's like being on a big college campus.

Monday: We took another load of Andrew's stuff over to the apartment, did our grocery shopping, and finished setting up our things. In the evening we had our first real meal in the apartment (I think it was a chicken and pasta with Andrew's pesto night). So we officially moved in! And I ran into Sarah from Eng. 280 at the grocery store, which was really crazy. I heard someone say my name and was totally confused for a minute and didn't think it was for me!

In the evening we took a walk towards Harvard Square to see what sort of stores and restaurants we're near. I was nervous for work the next morning.

Tuesday: I was the second or third person into work in the morning, so I had the tour of the place and then got settled in to looking at the site. All morning I read stuff on the site. Finally before lunch we had an assignments meeting so I picked out my first subjects to tackle. Started right in with "productive summers" for teens. Researched and wrote after lunch, left around 5:30, read some while I waited for Andrew, and then we were off. We made dinner and ate after a quick supermarket trip. It was good, too... Mum's recipe for porcupine meatballs (not made with actual porcupine, I might note). Dessert was our own pineapple/winter blend juice popsicles.

At some point I realized how glad I was that I didn't have any big responsibilities (ie, a kid). It would really suck to have a kid right now, I'm realizing how little time people have when they work full time...

Wednesday: Second day at work went smoothly, and I had a lovely lunch break with Andrew, eating out by the lake together (the rain cleared up for us, luckily). Finished with the productive summer topic, now I'm onto cliques and popularity. Wowee.

After lunch we had a going away party for one of the high school interns, great excuse to take a break and eat cake!

Andrew suddenly appeared with Mr. Johnson while I was working, as he learned that he will in fact be coming into the office tomorrow so I won't need to carpool with one of the other women that work at warm2kids. Then I sneaked into Andrew's office with the help of Cheryl (one of his co-workers). I read a bit and distracted him until it was time to go. But we didn't get to go straight home -- we had business at Kitchen Etc and Trader Joe's. Had an easy to prepare dinner (fried rice packet from Trader Joe's, walnut and dried apricot salad thanks to a bit of inspiration -- Mum you would have been proud).

So now, well, it's nearly 10 pm here and Andrew's still finishing up some work. Poor Andrew, pobrecito, trabajando todo el tiempo!

I guess I should go shower now, signing off from this internet connection Andrew figured out for me!

Wednesday Night: Mer really wanted to do something, so we went to Laurance Lake before dinner. It was raining, I think that sums up most of the scenery. Spring everywhere and rain constantly. We wandered around eating the snacks Mum packed us (fruit and cheese), and laughing at how ridiculous the situation was. No one was up there, except one kid fishing and a gold van with people honking and yelling (kind of freaked me out, I was extra sneaky while picking bear grass for Mum on account of them driving around and making so much noise). I picked a lovely bouquet, although Mer complains that the bear grass smells like salty playdough. We walked along the gravel road (the lake kind of looked like pictures of Loch Ness, all misty and raining and gray). We were lucky and saw a pika scampering between rock hideouts.

Thursday: Mum & I visited Mary Marker, and then headed off to clean. Mrs. Marker was interested in my England plans, and suggested January as a better deal. We also visited to see Mrs. Marker's yellow room, to see if I'd like the color. I've decided that my room in the new house should be a golden yellow color. I think it'll look nice with the skylight and a white ceiling.

Anyways, I helped clean with Mum, and then we headed off to town. We visited Arlene for awhile (she seems to think May for England for better weather). Also got some yummy cheesecake (ahh lovely cheesecake...)

After dinner (lasagna, as Mum thought we should have that before I left), we watched Moulin Rouge. I'd never seen it before. Rather enjoyed it.

Today: Crazy that I'm leaving at like 4 am for the airport tomorrow morning. Packed all morning. Damned weight limits! Airlines are such a damned hassle with all these regulations. Honestly, the job description to work in the Mount Holyoke College Mail services requires us student workers to be capable of lifting 70 pounds. Surely people working for airlines can lift more than 50 (because I can, and I'm not a very muscular person). Anyways. That took a long time.

Went up to Whistlestop for ice cream. Me and Mer had bubble gum for old time's sake. Mer says, "the ice cream that keeps on giving" (as you get gum after you finish the ice cream, provided you set the gum aside and do not try to eat and chew at the same time (which is really tricky and not worth the trouble)). Saw Shannon, who's lucky and gets to work there! I'd love to work around ice cream... yum. It was still raining, naturally. So the Lost Lake idea was temporarily abandoned.

Once we got back home, it was sunny for a bit, and we reconsidered the lake idea. We did it! And I'm glad we did, it was a blast. We hiked to the dock in the rain, and it started hailing. The lake is just as pretty in the rain as in the sun. And we had the trail all to ourselves. The dock was about flooded out the lake was so swollen. On the way back I decided that I had had enough of sidestepping puddles and taking detours straight through wet foliage, so I gave up. I ran through puddles, straight through the deepest parts. It was rather like wading in the lake on a sunny day. Only it was in puddles and it was raining.

On the way home I refused to sit in my completely soaked pants, so I traveled home sin los pantalones. Which was fine, until I wanted to run out of the car and pick some rhodedendrons (I'm too lazy to look up the correct spelling of that). Luckily no one came down the road.

Bright, full rainbow as we drove back. Saw a ringneck pheasant in an orchard. And of course the long horned cows were near enough the fence for us to stop and watch them for awhile. Mer couldn't take pictures: we were both out of batteries.

It's been a few days... I'm trying to remember...

Saturday: I don't think Saturday was very exciting, which is sad, because Saturdays should always be exciting, especially Saturday nights. But Mer and I did watch SNL, which was excellent. "I want more cowbell!"

Sunday: Mum and I went early to a windsurfing swap hoping to get rid of some windsurfing equipment we have "inherited" from some people we alpaca-sit for. Long story short, we got up at 6:30 am and paid 5$ for the priviledge of sitting in the wind all morning. At some point we offered everything we had for $50. There were no takers. We left. Luckily Tim found some people that wanted the stuff and just gave it away.

In the evening we had Mer's Elks banquet. The food was kind of like dorm food. Greasy scalloped potatoes, tough tasteless chicken, salad composed primarily of iceberg lettuce. Also like MHC food, the only redeeming point was dessert: cake. [It might be noted at this point that Jaime ate a brownie as big as her head the other day!!]

The other interesting thing about dinner: we sat at the same table as the Burton-Hendrickson family. This is interesting because I knew the older brother who is one of 3 people that I know from Hood River (yes that's counting myself) going to school in MA.

Monday: I went to town with Mum in order to be dropped of downtown to wander about on my own while she worked for 3 hours. I didn't really meet up with anyone, so it was kind of cool just doing whatever I felt like and spending some time alone. I walked first to Holstein's for something to drink because I was thirsty. [Raspberry Italian Soda, and here they ask you if you want cream in it, and whipped cream on top. I hate that they give you just plain club soda with a shot of flavor in it on the east coast, it's a rip off. If I wanted plain soda I could buy it from a vending machine!!] Anyways, after sitting for awhile and reading my book I ventured off to buy this bag I've been wanting to buy. That accomplished, I wandered around in the used book store for awhile, eventually picking out James's The Golden Bowl because it is highly recommended by Quillian as perhaps his favorite novel. And it's been awhile since I read James, since sophomore year, and maybe this will be useful for the GRE subject test...

Next stop was the library. I sat on the lawn for awhile to finish Zadie Smith's White Teeth, which was awesome and amazing and humorous. The end tied up perfectly, like a Dickens novel... But alas, I am not using it for my independent project next year.

I then went in the library and searched for Great Britain travel guides. Which made me think maybe I should go abroad right after graduating next spring, rather than during January. Due to the weather, you know. Then it was time for ice cream: sticky bun and chocolate brownie again at Carousel Candy!

That was the most interesting part of my Monday... On to Tuesday!

Tuesday: I unfortunately missed lunch with the relatives, but I did meet up with all three of my aunts at Grammy's house for a letter-writing marathon. Grammy needed help with thank-you notes for all the flowers. They enlisted me to write the model letter with prompts. We ended up writing over 35 letters I think. At some point Mum came back and helped a little, too. Sitting with everyone was definitely a highlight.

In the evening we again met up with Grammy (and Aunt Donna) for Mer's scholarship night. She received two (interestingly, they were two of the same ones I got as a senior). I was about to scream with frustration as W.T.E. [acronym of code name] gathered up like, eight. She also took the Parkdale one I wanted Mer to get. The problem with this is W.T.E. is not bright, or a star athlete. She's just unbearably average. And, my prediction is she will be partying like crazy at OSU and eventually drop out to get married. Sad, sad night it was...

But, we did get cake afterwards. And I managed to get a huge piece with LOTS of frosting. And we proceeded to go home, where I baked chocolate chip cookies. Yum, dough!

Speaking of cookies, Mer had better get me Otis Spunkmeyer cookies at school today.

Busy shopping day! After finding a work wardrobe here in Hood River, me and Mum went to the Dalles. There I decided on more sensible black shoes as opposed to red shoes, and a tube top (for fun, not work). Back home we decided at like, 8 pm, that we wanted to go down to The Crazy Pepper for dinner. It was a late dinner but excellent (of course, like always). Me and Mer had our regular fajita burritos, but it was the first time I was able to order an alcoholic drink there. A strawberry daquiri, that I definitely couldn't taste the rum in (thank God).

Big news: Two English dept. prizes, one of which means that I have $1000 to travel with! Now I must find a way to use that money without wiping out my own funds in the process. Mexico or England? I'm thinking during January... Which towns/cities? Any advice much appreciated!

Quotes:

Tim the other day after hearing one of my hospital stories: "Haha I sure get a kick out of you saying "f---." You really mean it!"

Mom tonight over dinner: "Do you ever see stars? Like when you shave your underarms?...I see stars when I shave."

Big news here lately: Merrie gave me her cold. Of course I'm using this to full advantage (haha poor Merrie!), but it's actually working. Sleeping around 12 hours per day will cure pretty much anything that ails you, I've decided. The Dub cat naps with me. So that meant that yesterday, I didn't really do much of anything. Going to Grammy's to help write thank you cards was simply not an option.

Tonight me and Mer went to Mr. HRV (which was my big project in ASB as a junior in high school). It was great -- pink checked suits for evening wear, "Victor's Secret," & the Denmark-Kangaroo-Orange trick. Prof. Brownlow was right -- comedy is the best way to forget you're sick.

Some highlights over the last few days:

Snooks was annoying us in the car on the way up to Laurance Lake. I did a funny voice reprimanding her, and then said "REDRUM!!" Mer said, "I was just thinking that!!"

Yesterday in the height of my illness, I came out to the living room and Mer was sitting on the couch watching tv eating a fudgsicle. I kind of glared at her, and she said: "What! There are 17 more popsicles left!!" (I was actually glaring because I was mad that I was sick, but, it was funny that the popsicle was the first explanation that came to her mind.)

Recounting all my romantic mistakes in high school to make Merrie laugh.

So I'm home now!! Yay! Here's how I got home and what I've been doing:

Thursday: Dale kept saying she wanted to go out Thursday night, as I'd been done with my finals since Tuesday and I really wanted to go out and celebrate. But I ended up chasing after her and Miranda and going to dinner (at Prospect), instead of going with Korisha and Beth to Amherst to see Korisha's presentation. So then I was rather depressed because Dale didn't want to go out at night either. So I was sitting in my completely bare room, when Korisha and Beth came by. They completely rescued me from end-of-the-semester-blahs. We went out to the ABC and tried some kind of beer (Beth's exact words were, I think, "This tastes like ASS"). We also ran into Korisha's boss, who was wandering around in the streets of Amherst. That was definitely bizarre...Then we drove to pick up Beth's parents. Korisha and I got lost in the Bradley loops, but luckily we didn't end up on the freeway!

That night, since my room was really bare, I slept in Dale and Miranda's room. In the morning we scrounged around for breakfast, and I printed out and turned in The Blackstick Review. Thank God that's over!! But then it was nearly 11 am, and Dale was still packing her stuff and getting it out of the hall. So I was understandably getting worried, as I'd hoped to leave at 11 am. I ran some errands for us, but she still wasn't ready by 11:15. So she told me to start packing her stuff out with her so we could go sooner, so I helped, but it wasn't getting done very quickly. 11:30 am, and I ran into Beth, who could tell I was nervous. Long story short, Beth and her family rescued me and got me to the airport in time to catch my flight without much worrying! They completely calmed me down, and I think I had the most nerve-free flight ever.

The flights were good, except for delays. The first leg was 20 minutes delayed at least, as they were throwing a circuit breaker or something technical like that (which should have been taken care of BEFORE they boarded the plane, but...that's NWA for you). I had a window seat, and no one sat in the middle, so it was nice... i was able to do my weird leg contortions and stay comfortable. Then I spent about 3 hours in the midwest, as we sat on the next plane for a full hour while a "mechanical problem" was taken care of (which also should have been taken care of BEFORE boarding the plane). So our flight was definitely late...But again no one sat in the middle and I was in the aisle, so it was fairly comfortable. They gave us free alcohol (the first one, anyway), but I had tea instead.

At the airport Mum, Mer, & Grammy found me. It was wonderful seeing everyone again. Visited at Grammy's house a little while, then I pushed my awake time to like 21 hours staying up talking with everyone at home.

Saturday: I slept till ONE PM. That's like, four o'clock eastern time. Crazy. So I ended up seeing my Dad, and going out to see Troy. Also took a trip to Northwest Lake, feeding some weird ass looking geese...Played checkers with Margy's niece and nephew. I saw like 4 people from high school at the theatre which was kind of eerie. Troy was entertaining, lots of fighting scenes. Somehow I even had merlot without getting carded. Dad throughout the movie pointed out deviations from The Iliad, as I haven't read it. SNL was surprisingly funny with the Olsen twins. Jimmy's last show =(

Sunday: Slept in again, but after a couple of tours of the new house (one for Mary Marker, one for Scott and Linda), we decided to go hiking. We took a trail up by Laurance Lake and it was beautiful. Got to love those pines and evergreens. Such a different looking forest from those out east... Lots of pictures, Mum & Mer were constantly looking for photo ops. And Merrie found lots of frogs in a bog.

Sunday night we all went out to Pietro's -- I was in ecstasy over taco pizza. Amazing.

Today! I woke up early, saw Merrie off, and then waited till Mum got home. Luckily didn't have an exam at the clinic... Then I found lots of books at Artifacts. Lots of cute things at Second Thought, too... I want a new bag of some sort... And they had a little swim skirt that would match my kind of tiny bikini...

Then me and Mum had ice cream... Yummy, sticky bun and chocolate brownie!

That's about it up till now! I love being home.

Yesterday was the Smith College library adventure (with a side trip to Flayvors). I've been packing a lot. My room is all packed up. I'll be sleeping in Dale's room tonight, and she's bringing me to the airport... I hope I don't get too nervous...

Talked with Prof. Mosby and Prof. Demas today. Things are good, I think. I'm bringing in the magazine to copycat tomorrow morning. Now I just hope everything works as planned...

I was SO productive today it's disgusting. I worked on my Spanish essay in the morning, walked Kobe, and had lunch with Dale (Old Yeller was there in a little green miniskirt with black polka dots. Something contradictory about that...polka dots are so HAPPY. She kept WATCHING me, too). Had my last real shift at the mail center -- the one "not slow" computer that we do forwarding on has the virus and no one has fixed it, and the other computer's printer wasn't working, so it was rather frustrating not being able to do forwarding. I love forwarding, it's completely mindless and repetitive. But, since I couldn't, I left on time and was able to finish my Spanish essay before dinner time.

Dinner with Dale & Miranda was crazy tonight. First me and Miranda picked out a table out on the patio at Ham/MacG, which was in the direct line of cigarette smoke. Two women were just sitting and smoking, totally oblivious to their smoke wafting into everyone's faces as they tried to eat. Disgusting. So we moved. But we moved right by this big group of "Mohos" talking about very racy topics (at some point I caught a line that I can't even repeat here). Dale was completely annoyed by this and couldn't stand it any longer, so we moved back to where the smoke had been, but no longer was, since the smokers had left. So then we got to eavesdrop on a conversation between friends exchanging gifts, which was a definite improvement. At some point it became known that I was done with my finals. So after the congratulations, Dale picked up a glass of water and held it over my head. I laughed and was like "ok maybe a drop or two?" and Dale proceeded to dump the whole (well ok, half) glass of water over my head. It was so hot out today it didn't really bother me (even though it WAS ice water). Miranda was in shock, and Dale and I were laughing. Miranda couldn't figure out what had happened and why Dale had dumped water on me and why I wasn't pissed. We've decided to make this a new tradition (at least while the warm weather holds out).

After dinner I was basically dry again, so I went to the library to work on the paper copy of The Blackstick Review. Stealing some of Verbosity's formatting, I was able to finish that up in around 2, 2.5 hours. Yay! I'm usually not the one actually handling the mouse while we do verbosity, so it was cool to do everything on my own. Yay complete editorial control!

This evening I also started packing in earnest. Two storage bins in the trunk room so far!

I have a feeling I must have made all sorts of spelling and grammer mistakes, as it's around 2 am. Oh well. Reading this is voluntary =) Speaking of reading, now I can start doing PLEASURE READING!! wow.

Um... I'm not a fan of this new blog style, AT ALL. Note to whoever the hell designs blogger: GO BACK! NO ONE LIKES CHANGE!!

Anyways, now that I have THAT out of my system... I haven't updated in awhile, so I'm going to try to remember things:

Did I ever mention that me and Dale watched The Big Easy & endured Dennis Quaid's horrible southern accent that often sounded more like an Italian accent? Well, we did!

Saturday Jaime & I took an adventure to Northampton -- the bus was like an existentialist play. We saw a man with one huge dreadlock (just one), carrying a world globe and a beaded curtain. And yes, he did get on the bus, although we were lucky in that he didn't sit next to us. But the way back was the worse... the bus driver put on some sort of show tune soundtrack that involved children singing. Then some blonde girl with a cell phone got on the bus and started insulting her mother (and keep in mind, this is the day before mother's day), saying "you should be happy we're coming to see you at ALL!" And we have pictures of ourselves with crazy sunglasses to prove we were in Noho. (PS the vintage clothing store is not as cool as it looks from the outside. You'll realize this when you see the glittery ninja masks.)

Late Saturday night Andrew arrived, which was muy muy exciting because I hadn't seen him for... two weeks? something like that, it seemed like a long time! Sunday was pretty busy... Andrew was still half in Amsterdam time so he kept trying to wake me up and I kept falling back asleep. We went to brunch with Dale, Miranda, & Kate -- Dale made a lovely ketchup and water art piece on her plate. Spotted Old Yeller and pointed her out to everyone. In the afternoon it cleared up (it was raining all morning), so Andrew & I went to Amherst. I almost bought a purse/tote thingy and a wallet, but then decided to hold off a little longer to make sure I get a set that I really like... Had Rao's chai and walked around, bought some candy at Hastings... then I insisted on Fresh Side for dinner =) We ate mostly at the Notch which was lovely (the puddles were perfectly reflective and bugs kept hitting on the water and making ripples). Then back at MHC we took a walk around Lower Lake. Saw the ducks and the bully goose, and we heard a splash that Andrew thought was a duck diving. Really though, it was a beaver! I was excited. We walked around most of Lower Lake with it swimming right by us. Very cute. It chewed on a twig and then turned back away from us.

After packing some of my stuff for the summer into Andrew's car, we watched the last two episodes of The OC. I hadn't ever seen it before. It was pretty good, I think...of course in my TV deprived state anything seems entertaining =)

It was sad saying goodbye to Andrew this morning, because this was the last time he could visit me this school year...next year I'll have a different dorm, a different room... crazy. Yes, very nostalgic...

It was another beautiful sunny day, but today it was actually WARM. I turned in my papers, worked longer than I normally do on Fridays at the mail center, and came to the conclusion that I should do a creative writing thesis. After dinner, Dale, Miranda & I had an adventure in finding storage boxes. We went to grocery stores, liquor stores, and a BJ's looking for boxes for summer storage. Miranda pointed out that there was a distinct majority of men in the liquor stores. We found a lot of boxes that used to hold flowers at BJ's, but they were so large they took up all the trunk and backseat. Miranda & I squished into the front for the ride home. Dale found a cemetary on the way home and decided that we should stop, so we did. Studying names, we found lots of French names, many sharing Dale's last name (spooky). But not Smiths or Richardsons. The sunset was gorgeous, clouds at a slant, blue sky to one side, yellow to the other... At some point it became too chilly to wander about, and we squished back into the car.

We had a hell of a time getting the boxes into Pearsons. Once we got inside we let them all fall around the entry way... Somehow we got upstairs, I ended up dropping all but three boxes because I was laughing so hard. Somehow Dale picked up the slack. So on our floor, in the hallway, we played the annoying kids having fun during finals. We built a fort, took pictures of ourselves in the fort, and fought over who would get to keep which boxes.

After, I read some, but mostly didn't work. Oh well! I only have one Spanish essay left and I don't think I could get less than a 98% on it if I tried...

I had an awesome day! I got up kind of late (it was nice sleeping with the sun shining out my window), and then went to lunch with Dale. [aside for Jaime's benefit: I had a truly lackluster lunch, it was Thanksgiving/Mexican food.] We then went on a Kobe walk, on a different route than I normally take. Kobe about killed me when Dale rescued a bird trapped in the garage area. That dog is a beast. It was a perfect, warm day -- twice some guys working initiated conversations with me and Dale. Luckily we were together so it didn't seem so sketchy and we could joke about it. Like what are they going to do? Ask what kind of dog Kobe is, and then ask for our phone numbers? So we acted really close and stuff so people would leave us be...

Anywho, we then waited for Miranda for awhile, thinking she wanted to go to Flayvors with us. Ends up she didn't want to go, but me and Dale forged ahead with the plan. It was lovely ... ice cream, cows, and working out on the grass in the sun. I got a few pages written, and we napped a bit. The cows strangely connected to what I was writing about... think camel udder boxes (and cows definitely have udders).

After a really relaxing afternoon, me and Dale headed back to MHC. We had dinner at MacG and listened to some truly disgusting conversations while we ate. Like, about really long fingernails, and guys "vacuuming faces." We were basically exposed to waaayy too much information from the next table over, which seemed to be TRYING to be VERY loud in advertising their private info. that me and Dale definitely didn't want to hear. Ick.

Then it was off to the dessert banquet for graduating SAW seniors and us incoming kids (yay!) Yummy chocolate cake and strawberries and cream. Cool shirts. Emily Mack's hilarious mentoring drawings.

And some cool news -- I got a reply from Pearsons Education about an internship. They pay 12$/hour, so if it's full time and 40 hours a week, I'd end up making 400$ more in the space of two months than I would make at warm2kids for the full three months. Going to do a phone interview and see what happens.

Finished my essay for Quillian! So now I just should proofread (but some things aren't fixable, ie, my essay for Siraj).

Oh! And I found out that Miranda and I have a Christopher Pike connection!

Awesome thing that Mer wrote in her blog:
"Possibly the tackiest way to hydrate: "Nylon patriotic water bottle holder necklaces: These adjustable 36" cords will keep your water bottle handy."
You read right. Oriental Trading Co. claims that wearing a water bottle around your neck is ok."

Advice for the day: Whenever you sign on to a job or internship, make sure you get a contract with the salary on it. Because yeah, it sucks when the people in charge randomly decide to change the salary. Yes, I'm getting ready to launch into the story that you have all probably heard, but oh well, if you've heard it you can skip over this:

So I went into Boston late March or early April for an interview at this new company that basically is an online resource for parents and teens on all topics that teens face, etc. etc. And it seemed pretty cool, they offered me the position, said it'd be full-time and $10/hour, and I was sold. About a week, a week and a half later, after I'd totally stopped looking into the other positions I had applied for, I get an email confirming that they want me and that they can offer me $50/day. I figure for an 8-hour workday that's a loss of about $30/day. That seems like kinda a lot. So I give them a call, am assured that they're willing to work with me, blah blah blah. They say maybe I can get a scholarship at the end of the summer guaranteed to help me pay for school books. Problem with this? They'll probably later take that back, too! So I ask for some more time to think about it, and to have them call me again soon. Two weeks go by. I'm wondering what the hell is going on, so I give them another call. Finally talk to the woman in charge of interns. My phone card goes out but I hear something about "not sure about adding another person," "there have been some changes..." So I call back frantically (f$&#!!!! phone wouldn't work!!), and basically just get a confirmation that they'll contact me again ASAP. Of course I'm worried like crazy, thinking I'm going to end up living in a cardboard box (although a very nice cardboard box) on Newbury St. I worry all night, write some emails in response to job offers on Craig's List, send off my resume, and research more job/internship opportunities on the CDC website. I wake up with a fluttery stomach wondering wtf I'm going to do, check new job listings on Craig's List. FINALLY this afternoon, after telling Thomasena and Prof. Pesola about it at the Spanish dept. picnic, I get an email. Good news: They offered me $60/day instead. Bad news: The scholarship isn't guaranteed. But I think I'm going to just do it, and make sure I only work 8 hours a day. The leftover hours will be spent outside the office complex, reading and waiting for Andrew to be done with his job. Wow. And I just finished my essay for Siraj's class. So it's like, all is well with the world again. Except for the damn literary magazine for Eng. 303!!

Ok if you skipped over all that, good news for you because that was long and boring. On to my snippets:

Good news today:
-Jaime's excellent mix CD which sustained me through the last three pages and the works cited list of my paper. Yeah Apollonian and Dionysian music! Take that, Adrianne! (I saw her at dinner, btw.)
-Refreshments at the English theses talk.
-Mum & Mer sent me a care package!
-Siraj's essay is pretty much done.
-Did well on peer mentoring assignments.
-It didn't rain today.
-Last night watching Center Stage. (Officially, it was very early in the morning today.)
-The ice cream at dinner. Yum.

Bad news today:
-I saw Old Yeller at the Spanish dept. picnic.
-I again saw Old Yeller at dinner and she gave me the "I'm a scary bitch but I'm going to smile like I'm really happy to see you because I'm not going to confront you when people might overhear me" smile.
-The let down of a cinco de mayo gracious dinner. Just because we've got candles doesn't mean it's gracious!! I've had better refried beans out of a CAN for CHRIST'S SAKE!
-Weather kinda sucked.

Hmmmmm..... more later!

First of all, thanks to Mer for the correction: Moose are not herd animals. I bet no one else who read my blog of April 27th stopped to think about that, but Merrie did.

Important news, stolen from Mer's blog, but arrived at in a conversation together: Be thankful that you're not a whale with triangular eyebrows.

Big news in dining services: "Sweet dreams" herbal tea has been replaced with "Cozy chamomile."

Update on the end of the year: I've done all the classwork, the last day of classes is tuesday, and I have two papers due on friday which I have already done the research for. Well only one really involved research, but whatever, it makes me feel better to think of them as both being done with preliminaries. Then I just have a Spanish paper, which I'm not too worried about. And, perhaps, the paper version of the literary mag. for my creative writing class.

Verbosity update!! We have the magazines (1200 of them) and will begin distributing them at lunch tomorrow!!

Hmmm... So it's been a really quiet weekend. Andrew's off in Amsterdam, and I was catching up on sleep and homework. One great exception to that was Saturday night and Miranda's birthday party. Amazing! We watched Harold and Maude (Mer you'd enjoy it, very absurd), ate strawberries and brownies, and took funny pictures. Yay for Miranda for throwing a real old fashioned birthday party!!

I've had a couple of amazing days, and sad news. Butr let's start with the good news (it's in chronological order that way):

Yesterday: A really beautiful day. Warm and sunny, I was running around, walking Kobe, skipping lunch, to go to Prof. Demas's house. I'd eaten, well, not much -- a banana and milk, some juice and a little cereal -- and we ate cookies, fruit, and cake at Corinne's. Really yummy, but talk about a sugar high. Corinne's house is beautiful, too, and her dog was awesome, as were the donkeys. A really lovely class, with the breeze going through the house, and everyone there...

But in the evening, work set in on the online journal. 8 pm till after 11:30 ... crazy! Luckily Ije and Heather are fun to work with =)

Today: Another pretty warm day! And I slept in! Turned in English department award applications, ate at the picnic with Laura and Dorothy, distributed the first of our verbosities... lots of misdelivered periodicals today! My last peer mentoring class went well -- we had a little discussion of everything that was helpful in the class and we were all bonding like crazy and feeling totally thrilled with ourselves. It was a bubble moment.

Had a long conversation with Mum and Mer tonight... and we're dealing with things =(

Another happy weekend to report on!

Friday night was the student reading for the Glascock poetry competition-- I got there rather early, & sat next to Jamie (half of our eng. 280 class was in the audience). I wasn't expecting Andrew to get to MHC in time for the readings, so I was super suprised and happy when Miranda pointed and asked "Isn't that your boyfriend?" The readings were... well, some were really good, some were rather strange, and others were plain funny. I think we all laughed when the guy from Columbia started singing "A-hunting we will go, a-hunting we will go!" The reception afterwards was good EXCEPT for the fact that the raspberry cream cheese chocolate bars were no where to be found. AND the fact that I forgot my ID so I couldn't have wine (not that I particularly like wine, but still). Finally met Merry, a friend of Andrew's that graduated from MHC last year.

After, we went dogsitting and watched some tv. Saturday morning we took Windy on a long walk and then packed up for the day. I wanted to find some place fun to bring Andrew to since I'm going to miss his birthday (as he'll be vacationing while I'm doing finals, ick). So we went to Mt. Tom state park, which was pretty with a lake (but a bit muddy still). I was really enjoying the peaceful woodland setting, until we spotted these men dressed in crazy bright striped outfits, running through the woods like a bear was after them. Me and Andrew thought the same thing: escaped mental patients. But no, it turns out, it was just a sprint orienteering event. As in, people sprint between hints (rather like a running scavenger hunt) that tell them which way to run with their little compass and stuff. Yeah, you have to be pretty damn dorky, right? So we left and looked at the dinosaur prints in the rocks along the Connecticut River =) I remembered the site pretty well as we had to draw pictures of it for physical geology last year.

After another Windy walk we decided to eat dinner. I finally experienced The Hanger in Amherst, and cheese fries (surprisingly good). Then we went to The Black Sheep for some sort of birthday dessert. Andrew introduced me to the best cake ever, and I tried out the chocolate mousse (which gets extra points for sounding like the large antlered herd animal). Back home we ate dessert and watched Pulp Fiction. Or rather, Andrew fell asleep, and I watched Pulp Fiction. It was my first time seeing it I think, and it was awesome. Very very exciting for me. And Andrew slept right through it =)

Sunday we got a fairly early start out -- ate brunch with Ashley at Blanchard -- and started on our way to Lee. I'd been outlet shopping there once before, so I vaguely remembered the layout. I bought a summery halter top, it reminds me of something Mum would pick out. Then we went into "Lee proper" and found this cute bakery/tea/coffee place. I had some really yummy fruity tea, and we shared a peanut butter brownie. I'm very focused on what I eat, aren't I? I'm just realizing that I vividly remember what I eat during all of my weekend adventures...

Anyway! After Lee & toiletries shopping, we had to set aside a few hours for work. Lots of Spanish, and it took me forever to write one damn little paragraph on the movie for Postcolonial lit! As a reward for actually doing work, we ate some pizza at blanchard and then finished off Andrew's cake. Also watched the first episode of Six Feet Under which I found incredibly disturbing. All the talk about fixing up dead bodies really worried me. It reminded me of conversations had with Mum and Mer on the possibility of being cremated. Ack. I think after that show I'm more convinced that I'd rather be dusty than embalmed =/ (and yes I do worry about these things).

That's all for now! It was quite sunny out and DIDN'T RAIN! Take that, weatherpeople!!

And the story of Old Yeller continues, long after I thought the book was done and closed. =/

Oh! P.S. I am SO pink and sunburnt!

Ahh such a lovely weekend. But I haven't updated in awhile! Last weekend I was dogsitting Kobe, but me and Andrew sneaked in a visit anyways -- he came over Sunday afternoon and we enjoyed the spring weather and watched the sunset... we drove all over! Ended up at Dairy Queen!

So after that brief recap of the last week that I haven't updated, here's more about this last weekend =)

Friday: I met up with Andrew at the mall (after I bought the first version of his birthday present -- a real picnic basket) and we shopped a little, ate, it was fun =) I found some cheap summer and work clothes, yay! Then I was on duty but the dorm was quiet (thank god).

Saturday: A perfect day! Warm finally, and sunny! We took a picnic lunch up to this lake (Wyola or something? Andrew knows, but I'm bad with names), and it was so quiet and calm. Just people fishing, but we had the park area to ourselves. I forgot napkins (which made things rather sticky since we were eating peanut butter sandwiches). Then we continued on the road trip and found this great lookout point over Quabbin reservoir, which Andrew spotted last weekend on his way to work. It's this circle of stones just off the highway, and I found a nice stone to sunbathe on. A couple of other cars pulled over but I think they just stopped because they saw other people there and were curious what the fuss was about. The sun was so bright, you forget in the winter how blinding it can be... So that's now on my list of cool places to go with a picnic.

Afterwards, we continued on our way to Brattleboro, VT. We got lost -- Andrew somehow got us unlost. We got to VT, and Andrew claims you can see the difference (more hilly? woodsy? more church steeples?). Anyway, it was the first time I'd been in Vermont (and we passed through NH, also a new state for me). In Brattleboro we explored the local stores -- a bead store, an antique store, a used stuff store, a record store... and of course Mocha Joe's for coffee (and yummy mango tea).

After walking around and people watching, and exhausting the cool store possibilities, we were pretty tired of walking. So we got back on the road =) Ended up in Northampton, where we ate bagels and walked across that old train bridge. Found a place to sit below the bridge and read for awhile. It was a cool place to sit and read, a little out of context, but a great view. Shopped a bit in Noho, and then Korisha called us as I was right across the street from where they were going to dinner. Also met Netta at this point, we always run into some of Andrew's college friends while wandering around in the valley! So I had my first real sushi experience, Andrew says I handled it pretty well =) Some of the actual raw fish tasted good, but it was hard to get past the fact that it was like raw flesh. I kind of set myself up for failure thinking about what I'm eating... But I think I'll get over that. It was fun to be out with everyone for dinner, too, post-Julia's-MCAT's.

We tried to get ice cream after dinner but the line at Herrell's was SO long. So me and Andrew got some ben and jerry's at the supermarket instead. Yum and convenient! I was on duty again so I was pretty stuck to my room. We started Pulp Fiction but Andrew was too tired to pay attention! Anywho, it was a more eventful night in the dorm but things didn't get out of control.

Sunday was another outdoorsy day. After breakfast/brunch at blanchard, we hiked up Mt. Holyoke. We took the straight up the mountain side trail on the way up, but then took the trail I've always taken on Mountain Day down. Saw lots of cool dogs! We sat for awhile at the top and just enjoyed the view and the sun... I'm finally getting an idea of the geography of the valley... Some views of the park up there really should be in postcards (so I can send them home to mum =) Oh, and I finally discovered why we always end up in someone's backyard, walking around by some old barn. There are now signs posted up -- "PRIVATE PROPERTY" and such -- and signs back to the real trail. Which is much more direct and doesn't drop you off on the highway. So that mystery is finally solved, I always wondered where the correct trail breaks off from the trail I've taken before.

Then we drove to Amherst, returned the picnic basket (after realizing that it wasn't going to be good for our hiking adventures, trying to lug that unwieldy thing around with us -- instead we found a backpack picnic thingy which should be perfect and encourage us to actually hike before sitting down for a picnic =), got food, and wandered around the Holyoke mall looking for said backpack. Said backpack isn't sold in stores, but we found it on ebay! Or rather, Andrew found it. And we won it which was exciting =) I hope next weekend is good weather so we can use it!!

Back in my room we ate Fresh Side (yum), then headed over to Dwight so I could take this dreamweaver course (Andrew sat and read for awhile -- adding to the population of "taken guys" in our library that Dale always complains of). I learned how to do stuff to my webspace which was muy muy exciting =) Then we had a snack/dessert from Blanchard (I got the hugest piece of fried dough ever), and I finished some reading... Which I should get back to now =) But it's so hard to work after having such an amazing weekend... ahh pobrecita =)

Signing off for now!

Pink Poodledog: so cool, merrie on a date! :-)
MuskratFan: woohoo

yay merrie! I'll be thinking of you tonight while I dogsit Kobe and do my homework! =/ poor me!

Crazy busy days. Unfortunately didn't get to the student meeting on dining service cutbacks and cutbacks in general. Next one, I promise... Yesterday I did make it to the forum on "Opting Out" -- women choosing to quit jobs in order to be home with the kids. That was totally different from what I expected...talking to Thomasena afterwards, we agreed on that... we also agreed that we didn't really know what we had expected in the first place. Bottom line: by the time you get out of grad/law/medical school, you have about five years to get your career going and then you may just give it all up. Things to remember.

It was balmy this morning. Then it became overcast (but not rainy). I climbed on top of my desk to get to my window, and proceeded to "wrassle" with my window. I managed to get the storm window up, and I secured it with the putty FacMan put all around my window to keep the cold air out (because I distinctly remember an incident last fall... sleeping and waking up at 3 am to a loud crash -- it was my storm window falling down from its upright position. F-ing ridiculous. Someone's going to have a hell of a time getting that storm window down again. GOOD LUCK!!) I then finally, after much personal injury (aka getting my hands filthy with window grime), managed to get my screen down. So now I can get air AND keep bugs out. What genius!

Oh yes. Advising is next week. Here's what I want to take, must pick four out of the proceding five:

American Lit III: because I really should take some, and I'd love to read some more recent literature...

Independent: because I hope it'll turn into a thesis.

Spanish seminar -- Sex and the City or the Witches and Utopia: because I need a Spanish seminar and I should take it immediately upon returning to campus as the longer I go without Spanish, the worse I become at speaking/reading/hearing/writing it.

Criminology: because I still need a damn social science! And because Prof. Moran is teaching it and my one line in Junior Show was spoken as him (even though I didn't know who he was).

Existentialism: because I've always wanted to take this and it wasn't offered for a full year and a half...

It's been sooo long since my last entry, I'm going to resort to vague updates:

1. Saw The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Mystic River (both highly awesome).

2. Partially climbed Mt. Holyoke with Andrew and explored the halfway house.

3. Went to Boston with Andrew and did some rushed apartment looking and job applying.

4. Had an interview that went really well and it looks like I have a job for this summer! The same day (almost the same exact time) Andrew found out that we do, indeed, have a sublet! So I have a room and a way to pay for it!

5. Andrew drove me back and stayed Monday night with me at MHC. We had a celebratory dinner and finally just sat and relaxed =)