my every day shoes

so, when ben left for his NOLS course, he couldn't find his pigs anywhere, and i told him to just take mine.  since then, there have been several occasions that i've missed them and thought about buying another set.  today, i finally finished unpacking the bag i packed in (which is actually ben's) and i found ben's pigs at the bottom of it.  here they are!

we borrowed a parking pass from a nearby friend and parked the car by his house a block or so away, and found out that that's not legal either.  now my car is a mile away in a friend's driveway.  hopefully on monday, i'll have a 21 day temporary pass.

Yesterday, the city of Somerville left me a birthday present.  How thoughtful of them! It's even orange.  It turns out that I can only use a visitor pass for two days a week.  Who knew?  

We all look pretty terrible in this picture, but anyway... we went for tapas at a close by place and it was really nice.  I was rather embarrassed, though, when they brought me a frog holding a candle and blew bubbles at us all while singing a strange kind of minor key (or possibly atonal) version of happy birthday.  The guy in back of us seemed pretty psyched that his food was getting coated in bubbles.  So yea. Thanks friends, for a fabulous birthday!

We had a friend from college (with whom I also went to high school) over for dinner, and we went for ice cream, which was actually disappointing.  We were all wearing very similar colored shirts and we asked a random person on the street to take our picture.  She was actually quite funny.  I'm pretty sure that that she told us that we look like we don't like each other in this picture, but it's the one in which I look least terrible:)

So, once again, there was a CRAZY storm on my drive home today. There had been no rain at all, and suddenly, the sky opened up. It wasn't as if there were many rain drops. It was as if a massive bucket was being poured over everything. It was dry everywhere, and a minute later, the whole road was flooded. I took this picture when it wasn't sooo bad anymore, because that's when I was stuck in traffic and couldn't really move my car anyway.  

today was stormy.  when i got home (and by home, i mean the home where i'm staying for these three weeks), i tried to take a picture of the rain, but it didn't really work.  anyway, this is the block i'm staying on.  notice my car on the right.  i was really scared to have to parallel park all the time, but it turns out that so far, there's always been an easy spot to pull into.  

So, I arrived today in Somerville, at my amazing friend's house where I'm staying for the next three weeks.  Just how amazing is she?  In addition to welcoming me into her house for the next few weeks and cooking a wonderful dinner tonight, she made two amazing posters that I had taken on as my responsibility for the first day of camp tomorrow.  I have the best friends ever.

So, have I mentioned that I'm marrying the sweetest man ever?  Ben is leaving for the NOLS course he's instructing tomorrow, and when I was about to come home today, I had asked him whether he had planted notes all over the house for me.  He responded with, "If I plant notes, will they grow into letters?"  Anyway, I got home and he reminded me that I won't actually be home to find planted notes, but he had sealed an envelope with a card in it for every day that he's away.  You can see them in the picture, starting with 6/23 and ending with 7/27.  (You can also see my toes, which accidently snuck into this picture.)  He has one extra, and I told him I'll probably need one for the night of 6/22, just after I drop him off at the airport..... 

I saw a friend today and he had on the best shirt ever.  I think I decided to take a picture just of his shirt and not his face because i was too close to get both, but who knows really.  In case you can't read the wording (because of the folds), the caption says Freud and the bubble says "Yo Mama." The end.

So, if you've been to our house and visited the bathroom, you've probably seen these decorative wooden ducks.  Ben got them as a present from one of his students from Korea a couple years ago, and they were just bizarre enough/cool enough to make their way into our bathroom.  Today, we had a new friend over (incoming grad student in Ben's program) and he said something about them being wedding ducks.  We looked it up, and sure enough, they represent a couple and you're supposed to position them according to the state of your relationship.  (i.e. if you're fighting, you can be passive aggressive and face the ducks away from each other)  Also, we found out that the string tied around one of the beaks is to represent the fact that a woman should keep her mouth shut and be obedient to her husband.  Interesting... 

The ropes course I manage just got a new gear shed and Ben and I (mostly Ben) bought wood and put up hooks and organized it yesterday.  By the time we were done, it was really dark, and there are no lights in there, so I waited until today to take a good picture.  Anyway, it's really exciting because we've been asking for a shed for years to replace the structurally unsound wooden boxes that we'd have to fight to lock, but that people managed to reach an arm into to steal ropes out of... Also, that pile in the bottom left corner is my stuff.  I took an accidental 3 minute nap on the floor in there today.  It's a lovely little home, really.

A couple days ago, Ben rediscovered his climber magnets and was setting them up on the fridge just as I was finishing dinner.  Apparently, I sounded angry when I asked him if he was ready for dinner, because he got the climbers up quickly.  It wasn't until the next day that I noticed the fact that the lower climber is tangled up in his rope, making it a rather dangerous situation for both climbers.  Now I feel bad!!!

we ate some amazing indian food out of cans today and then ben ate my face.

I took my good bike for its first outdoor bike ride today.  I've been riding it on the trainer since November, and after Ben spent the time to switch my clipless pedals for flats, I figured I really had to be brave and go.  Ben took this picture of me over his shoulder as he rode (notice the advertisement for "the breakfast of champions" on his jersey).  You really can't tell in this picture how utterly terrified I am to be riding my real bike for real.....

We need to do dishes. We REALLY need to do dishes.

Friday, June 13

Today we practiced cut-away rescues. Totally a good time. Many things to remember so that when you cut the "unconscious climber's" rope, you know that they'll be attached to your rope and that you'll be able to lower both of you the 20 or so feet to the ground. These are two of the fabulous people in my workshop. Hopefully later this week, I'll add a group picture of all the fabulous participants to this post.

Thursday, June 12

Four of us went out on Thursday evening, and we met another friend - Irish Bobby is the guy on the right. He came up to us and begged me to take my spot in the pool game, and I was happy to oblige.

I was going to post this picture for Thursday, but then I realized that gear rescue day was Wednesday, but I like the picture so much, I had to use it anyway....



After spending a day practicing gear rescues and talking about ropes course inspections, we went to the bowling alley next to our motel. On tap were three beers: Bud, Coors, and Magic Hat #9. Vermont. Anyway, this picture features the townie/DDR competitor who we came across and who was more than happy to perform for us all, showing off his ability to flawlessly use both sets of pads... The experience left me speechless.

Tuesday, June 10

Day 1 of workshop (I didn't take this picture, but I like it.) There's a sheer reduction device in the foreground and that's me checking a climber to the right of it.

New favorite drink (very closely related to old favorite drink, but more sick day appropriate) : VIRGIN MOJITO

Ben made me chicken soup in our new slow cooker today.  I'd like to be able to say that I feel all better now, but I'm still so sick!

Saturday, June 7 (sorry it's late)

First air conditioning day of the year.  So hot out!!  Also, I'm very sick.

We went to a graduation party at the school where I used to work.  It was a lovely evening and we got to see many amazing friends and former students.  In this picture, C is so shocked by the story being told that she's using a bottle of fairly warm blue moon to cool her face.  I'm pretty sure that E is trying to smile politely.

This picture, if it hadn't turned out so blurry, would show you a pretty small woman coming very close to kicking all the tall guys' butts at the Nalgene game.

I was outside facilitating high ropes in the pouring rain literally all day.  Then I came home and did this.

Someone at some point decided to be cute and tie a harness onto this person shaped part of a tree.  I kind of couldn't get over it the first few times I saw it.  A couple weeks ago, a kid leaned against it and knocked it over, and it took a couple very strong people to get it back up to its standing position.

I drove 2.5 hours there and 1.5 hours back to run a ropes course day which was pretty unstructured and kind of crazy.  When I got home, I plopped my bag down on the couch, and plopped myself down on the other end of the couch.  (Notice the Victoria's Secret catalogue - I order pants and sweaters from them sometimes and now they send us probably 3 catalogues a week on average, and twice that many emails.)  

This is Ben working on his thesis.  He worked on it for about 7 hours in the cafe today and then came home to work on it some more. That's my computer screen in the lower left hand corner.  When Ben does work, I take out my computer and pretend to do work.  It's kind of like how toddlers have fake phones and cars and things....