Cool Down

It’s the time of year again when it’s hot out and even hotter in my third story apartment. I came home last night to an empty steaming apartment, the tempter was over 90 outside and must have been over 100 inside; there was nothing for me to do but take a cold shower.

There is something I both love and hate about taking a really cold shower. The shock to your system when you first feel the cold water, telling your body to get under the shower head even though everything else in your body is yelling no, the feeling of the wind being knocked out of you by the coldness and willing yourself to just keep breathing. I stood under the water and let myself cool off from both the heat and the day for what seemed like a very long time but must have only been a few minutes.

I stepped out of the shower refreshed and feeling comfortable, a feeling that lasted for about fifteen minutes until I felt hot again.

A Grownup Noise

This last weekend I packed a suitcase and left rainy Boston for sunny Madison to watch my little sister graduate from college.

This picture coming to a Christmas Card near you!

I marvel at the fact that even though she has been in school for the last sixteen years of her life she has already signed up for two more by applying for grad school at Madison and getting in. In a few years she will be a social worker and maybe at that graduation she will seem like a grown up to me, but until then she will still be my little sister.

Wash Your Veggies

Last night I was making dinner and opened up the refrigerator to get some milk when a big black dot caught my eye. There, on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator was the biggest ant I had ever seen. It lay there motionless possibly dead from hypothermia so I called Steve in to take a look at it. He picked it up and we both we surprised that the ant was still alive. The frozen animation of the refrigerator had worn off and it began to stagger around the kitchen floor. Steve we to squash it but I protested so instead I opened our kitchen window and we through it out. We didn’t give it a parachute but I think ants have hard exo-skeletons so I’d like to believe he survived the fall from a third story window.

We went on cooking dinner speculating how an ant into the fridge in the first place. My stance is that it snuck in on some vegetables. So from now on I resolve to wash any veggies before putting them in fridge so as to prevent anymore insects from becoming suspended where I keep my food.

Traffic Jammed

I am completely terrified of driving in Boston. I don’t own a car and usually resort to taking the T everywhere. On the off chance that I will need a car I usually get a zip car or Steve will occasionally leave me his car while he is off on one of his multiple business trips. The only places I really know how to drive to in Boston are: the super-market, Paul and Beth’s house, and the airport. So any real amount of driving usually puts me on edge and I get even more nervous when I’m driving Steve’s car because it’s a manual car and I am afraid of doing something stupid and wrecking it.

This brings us to last Friday when Steve called me from the airport so he could get a ride home. We had worked out before his trip that I would have the car so I could pick him up, then we could enjoy the rest of our Friday together. I jumped in the car and headed to the airport, I noticed that the gas gauge was at a fourth of a tank but the airport is only fifteen minutes away so I figured I would be fine.

That was until half an hour later I was still on the highway stuck in traffic not moving. This was my first time in traffic in a standard car and let me tell you it was an awful experience. My legs were cramping from holding in the clutch so much, I was sweating from the heat, and I was watching the gas gauge go down to empty. I panicked, I had no idea where I was (other then on the highway), there were no exits around, and I didn’t know how to get to a gas station from any exit that might be near by (the tend not to put many gas stations in downtown Boston or in the North End). I called Steve panicky and with tears in my eyes. I could see myself breaking down in the Sumpner tunnel and getting hit by another car and dying a fiery death. “Uhhh, I don’t know what to tell you babe, except my phone is about to die” was all the comfort Steve could give. After the phone call I contemplated turning the car off then just like that the traffic lifted and I zoomed to the airport in less then five minutes. My knuckles white from holding the wheel I got out and turned the car over to Steve who drove us to a gas station then home where I took a nap and tried to forget about the ride to the airport until next week when I have to do it again.

Next time I’ll make sure there is plenty of gas though.

Scrunched

I’ve been very stressed the last few weeks. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get home to visit my family this summer then visit Steve’s family and somewhere in the span of a few months we’re also trying to figure out how to squeeze in time for a vacation for fun where we don’t visit family. Needless to say the time management aspect has fallen on me since Steve’s company doesn’t give him a time table as to when he can have time off.

On top of trying to find time for us to relax I’m also worried about finding a nice apartment for us. Steve and I both have requirements for our “perfect” apartment and unfortunately they are two very different ideas. Trying to find a balance between these two ideas and finding an apartment for our ideal move in date has been difficult (if not impossible, sometimes I feel we’re never going to find a place where we are both happy).

So if you see me and I have a large stress wrinkle across my forehead and my shoulders are scrunched near by body tell me to relax and count to ten.

Get Your Brew On

Yesterday I had the chance to go to the Sam Adams Brewery and find out all about beer. The brewery is located in a slightly shady part of Boston and getting there is no small feat. We got lost three times.

Cheers to free beer and not being lost!

I learned there are 4 main ingredients in beer: barley, hops, water, and yeast. Apparently Sam Adams closely guards their yeast because it’s the yeast that gives their beer the unique flavor. At the end of the tour we all got a free 7 oz. glass and samples of 3 beers they make. Between all that I learned about beer and free beer I count it as a well worth the drive to JP.

Outkast Was Right

It’s spring time and the trees are in full bloom in Boston. Yesterday my friend Joy and I had just emerged from the T when we were olfactorly assaulted by the awful smell what we described as “old crotch”. We were hopping the smell was coming from the T stop but as we stood and waited for the bus to come the smell seemed to be at an intolerable high. We were standing under a group of trees that had white flowers and after some investigation we had a consensus that the smell was coming from the trees. With all the rain in the last few days the trees smelled like they had grown yeast or maybe that’s the way the flowers smelled. Either way we had to stand very far away from the trees so we could breath. They might not be roses but they did smell like boo-boo.