Personal Record (maybe even WORLD record)

Marilee and I went to a theater Saturday to see Why We Fight (a great movie by the way). We took the bus/subway so that we could get a feel for the system before we have guests stay with us that may need to use it. After paying and arm and a leg for movie tickets, we decided we really wanted popcorn and soda, so we bought the largest size of each so we could get free refills.

After draining the entire 5 gallon bucket of soda during the movie, on principle I still had to get a refill on the way out the door. I found that I already had to pee pretty bad when we got on the subway, so in an act of moderation I threw away the pop with a few drinks still lingering at the bottom of the cup. By the time we got off the subway I was already feeling a pee emergency, but we had to rush out of the station to see what time the bus came. It turned out that we had another 20 minutes to wait, so I went back into the station to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately, I found that I would have to pay another subway fare to get back in to use the bathroom, so I decided to wait it out.

On the bus ride home, It was all I could do to stop myself from screaming in pain from trying to hold back. The ride took about 20 minutes, so I was literally about to explode upon getting off, and we still had half a mile to walk. Bravely, I staggerred toward home. Halfway home, however, I decided that it was physically impossible for me to hold it any longer, and so I shuffled my way off the main road onto a dead end side street. Just as I was about to unzip and let it all out on someones bush, a man appeared on the opposite side of the road. My plans foiled, I rushed back to the road and started shuffle hopping as fast as I could towards the house.

By the time I got home my stomach was cramping and I knew this pee would be a record-breaker. So as I made my way to the bathroom I brought out my watch for timing the upcoming event.

SO here's the breakdown. Seriously, no exagerrations here. I peed for 1 minute and 15 seconds. Then my stomach cramped up and stopped the flow for about a minute. Then I peed for another 30 seconds.

If anyone can beat that, let me know.

New House Pictures!

Okay, the place is still too much of a pigsty to show much of it. But here are the two rooms in the best shape. More to come as we get ourselves figured out:

The Kitchen
(the bar is our own addition, thank you Ikea. We LOVE it.)
(And the white unit underneath is our new portable dishwasher which we also LOVE)

The Bathroom
(it's small but it's home)

More pictures to come...

NEW HOUSE

Yeah, as if we didn't have enough going on. We moved to our new apartment on Saturday (2/11). It was quite a venture. We were completely blessed by the help offered us by our downstairs neighbors and our friends from WPI. At the end of the day it took 3 hours to load up, 45 minutes to unload and we came away with only a severly bruised elbow, twisted hip, scraped knuckles and REALLY REALLY sore quads (thank you three flights of stairs).

We are gloriously happy to be living on the first floor (and our quads are already flabbing up). We LOVE our neighborhood and the family who live upstairs are GREAT.

Perhaps the best part, so far, is the dog park we found about five minutes away. Dakota and I have gone there every day this week and we stay for as much as two hours each time. We just love it. Weekdays there are up to 15 different dogs there at a time. They are all very well-behaved and Dakota gets a long great with all of them. Today we met a border collie that is the only dog I have seen that can outrun her. Dakota and this dog, named Emma, just did laps chasing each other for so long. It's also a fun place for me because I can just stand around and talk to the other dog owners who are also very well-behaved. :)

We'll post some pictures of the apartment as soon as we get settled in a bit more. Since we both had to work this week, we've pretty much just been surviving rather than unpacking. So if we took any pictures now they would be less pictures of our house and more pictures of piles of boxes and furniture.

Happy Valentines Day Dakota!

Ah, Valentine's Day. Not my favorite holiday, though a fun one since it involves chocolate. This year Matt fulfilled my deepest desires by buying me a one pound box of chocolates. What a husband, huh? So we watched a romantic-ey movie and nibbled on the chocolates, eating maybe 1/4 of the box between us.

The next morning I decided to go for a slightly guilt-induced run. It was a lovely run and I came back happy and sweaty and sat down at the computer. After a few minutes in the computer room, I noticed that Dakota wasn't in the room. This is not typical. Normally, Dakota MUST be in the same room with us at all times. Then I noticed a sort of crinkling, scratching sound from the living room. On my way to investigate, Dakota came out of the living room, tail between her legs, licking her chops.

Yup, you guessed it. Dakota told me later she was only trying to help me out by removing the temptation. I asked her if she really needed to remove ALL the tempation. I freaked out at first (because we all know chocolate is poisonous for dogs) but found out that she would have had to eat about twice as much to do any real damage.

So we all had a happy Valentine's day this year, including - or perhaps, espcially - Dakota.