Safety Dance

I own a bike helmet even though I don’t own a bike. I use to wear wrist guards when I would rollerblade and I never pullout into traffic before I look twice. I am a bit of a safety nut. I think this comes from being a nurse and seeing how things can be perfectly normal and then get bad. Really bad. So to counteract all the crazy ways we can get hurt in the world I’ve become a bit more cautious. Steve never realized this about me until we were in Minnesota last week and we took a tour of a sand-mine.

Hard Hats Required!

Event though we were in a truck and never had to exit the truck we rode in on I wore my hard hat at all times and kept the respirator at my feet near me. “Don’t worry,” the miner/tour guide assured us, “we’ve never had a cave in.” As comforting as that was, I kept reminding myself that we were under 400 ft. of sand and dirt and all the recent mine cave-ins kept running through my mind.

We wound our way through the catacomb of the mine learning about mining sand and the types of bats that lived in the cave, my hardhat securely on and my hand gripping Steve’s until we emerged on the other side of the mine unhurt. Steve thinks it was silly to wear the hat the entire time we were in a mine in a truck but I see it as a necessary precaution to being so far underground. Besides, I think the hat looks cool.

Squirrelz4Girlz2

As I have mentioned before there is a park near my house that is filled with squirrels and one of my morning routines is to count the number of squirrels in the park. Despite what Steve says I don’t feel overly close with any of the squirrels and I don’t have names for them. It’s simply something to do to pass the time on my way to work. That being said last Friday I had two new squirrel encounters.

I left my house to go to work early in the morning and on the other side of my front door sat a squirrel on top of the railing of my front steps eating a curly fry it had gotten out of the trash. We both stared at each other for a moment then the squirrel slid down the railing and ran down the street.

I continued on my walk to work and saw all the squirrels in the park and began my usual count but then at the end I spotted, for the first time, an albino squirrel complete with red beady eyes. Even though this is the only squirrel that stands out from the park, I did not name him which makes me a perfectly sane non-squirrel lady.

On Vacation

I haven’t been writing because I’m on vacation in Minnesota and let me tell you, it is a really good vacation. I haven’t been home since Christmas and having an entire week of glorious weather near the lakes was just what I needed.

My first day home I woke up late and realized it wasn’t a big deal because I didn’t have anything to do. At home in Boston I usually try to get up and going around 9:30 so I can get laundry, groceries ect. done. Here I am able to relax and get up late and then go out to lunch with my mom. Steve came to Minnesota on Friday and he came to the cabin with my family and experienced the glory of Maiden Rock again. We then jetted off to Rochester where we spent some time with my friends from nursing school. We finished off his trip here with an afternoon in downtown Minneapolis walking along the falls and having drinks at the Guthrie.

Steve left today and I leave tomorrow. We go back to Boston and our jobs and the stress of trying to find an apartment and our lives but I enjoyed a few days off.

Just One Of the Girls

On my first date with Steve I remember making small talk with him about lots of things; like the type of music we like, the books we read, and the TV shows we watched. I remember I sheepishly admitted to him that I had just started to watch Gilmore Girls and that I was really enjoyed it. It was slightly embarrassing to admit to a guy that I enjoyed a show featured in a WB line up but it was the truth.

Fast foreward to now and I am beginning to end the era of new Gilmore Girls shows. The show ended this year and I had been netflixing past seasons to catch up on what was going on. On a day off I could easily watch half a season. I now have come full circle and have started to netflix shows that I have already watched on TV. It’s weird that I feel sad that I have seen all the episodes of this series.

When asked why I love this show I can’t really verbalize it. It makes me miss home and my family, it makes me feel like Boston is my home. When the Carol King songs comes on I just feel a bubble of happy come up inside of me and I am going to let it bubble even in reruns.

We Thought It Was A Start

As I have said before the entire finding an apartment process is really stressing me out, so yesterday I sat at my computer for three hours and started to make calls. I looked on craigslist as well as a few other websites and after three hours and countless phone calls and e-mail I only had two appointments made for us to check out today.

The first place we went to look at sounded great…the previous tenant had lived there for awhile (which I took to be a good sign, I mean who lives in a crappy place for five years?), it was in the location we wanted, and it was two stories. Once we pulled up to the house we pretty quickly realized how busy a street it was on and after walking up one narrow flight of stairs Steve had already ruled out any chance of living there. I tried to keep an open mind but after seeing the five foot-by-five-foot living room and the “upstairs” bed room that was really in an attic like area I was turned off. What sealed the deal for me was the fact that the ceiling was so low that I hit my head on the way out.

The second place, also on a very busy road, looked alright from the outside and we never got to see the inside due to the fact the realtor didn’t have the key for the house. He looked at us and shrugged his shoulders after a fifteen minute wrestling match with the lock on the door.

It was a discouraging start and being that Steve and I are both going to be out of town for the next two weeks it does not bode well for us finding a place anytime soon.

Water Water Everywhere

Today when I woke up I went to the bathroom, like I usually do, where I was greeted by a full tub of water left from the shower that my roommate had taken over two hours ago. Stagnant soapy water is not a way to start the day and it’s even worse to admit to yourself that your pluming is not working before you’ve even had a chance to have a cup of coffee.

I spent the next few hours bailing out the old water (first out the window while the neighbor’s cat looked at me as if he was judging me, then down the sink/toilet) and slowly pouring drain cleaner down the drain. Between the time when I could put more lye down the tub and worrying about lye burns I was trying to get dressed to go to an eye doctor appointment. I snuck downstairs and used our neighbor’s bathroom then ran upstairs and finished brushing my teeth and getting dressed.

Once ready I set out to see if I needed a new prescription of glasses I was stopped by pounding rain. I had a rain coat and umbrella with me but it didn’t make any difference. The bus that goes past my doctor’s office never came so I walked the mile and a half to the office where I became incredibly soaked. My shoes, sox, and pants up to the hips were drenched in water. Once at the office I left a wet mark wherever I sat. The eye appointment went quickly enough but once home I was once again stuck with a tub that wouldn’t drain and I was really cold from having worn wet clothes for the last two hours.

In the end I caved in and called a plumber to come snake the drain. Needless to say water has not been my friend today.

Call The Dream Doctor

I would love to hear what Freud would say about this dream, and feel free to put your two cents in about the dream that I had last night:

I was laying the bed in my room at my parents’ house when an electric pencil sharpener on my old desk started to sharpen a pencil that was just floating in the air. I got up and sat at the chair of my desk and a large rat ran across the floor and over the pile of clothes (including the pajama shirt that I wore to bed) and up the leg of the chair and then up the back of my shirt. I tried to scream but the scream got caught in my throat until it built up and I woke up screaming.

Slightly embarrassed that I had just woken up screaming there was nothing to do but call Steve (who is currently in Phoenix Arizona, four hours different to my time zone, so event though it was 3 am here I didn’t wake him up) to have him calm me down.