~~~
Day’?s Verse:
“Follow me,” he told him…
Matthew 9:9
~~~


_blank” title=”Photo Sharing”>Dirty Derailleur Side View
Winter in New England is hard on bikes. I put a couple pictures of my derailler up, showing the amazing accumulation of sand, salt, and road-grit that becomes embedded when riding in the snow. Not excited about a two-hour scrubbing process with soap and water, today I tried to scrape the worst off with a scrubber. Not too much success, but only commuting on it will show whether my scraping helped at all.

Yesterday, though, we had no snow. The temperature hovered around 16°F and a few little flakes fluttered down as Ian and I ventured outside to do our shopping early. We had already spent the evening before picking up the house and, on my part, cleaning the bathroom. Yesterday morning I found a popcorn popper Ian’?s relatives gave us for Christmas one year, so we popped some popcorn to see how it worked. It was such fun we vowed to continue popping occasionally just for the heck of it. Then we went out to buy a vacuum cleaner at Bed, Bath, & Beyond (what don’t they sell?) as a replacement for one that pooped out on us Friday night. We only picked that place because we received a $50 gift card to there for Christmas. Then we went to Barnes & Noble to spend the $50 gift card Ian received there for finishing his Six Sigma project at work. This translated into three DVDs — Gattaca for me, Cast Away for Ian, and A Knight’s Tale as a compromise — and one bad romance novel to read aloud during our romantic getaway in Newport next weekend. Then we visited every electronics/game store in Massachusetts searching unsuccessfully for a second Wiimote and Nunchuk. Once home, Ian checked the mail, where he found my Life Membership information from the Sierra Club. They sent me a personally-signed letter from the president of the club and a pin. I feel so official. Glowingly happy, I started baking Ian’?s cake while the man himself hunter-gathered.

With the spoils of his successful hunter-gathering expedition in hand, we finished the cake, then vacuumed (Ian actually got excited about that task, since it meant using our new “toy”), rearranged the furniture (a feat that required finding seating for nine people in a room that has spots intended for four), took a brief break, showered, talked to Colleen on the phone, and spent the entire afternoon baking a dozen twice-baked potatoes, preparing a Caesar salad, and setting up last-minute things. I also washed about five or six different sets of dishes over the course of the day, as well as the 28 pieces of silverware, nine plates, nine spoons, potato-baking sheet, and salad bowl from the dinner itself. My fingers may never depruneize.

People arrived starting at 6:00, although the latest arrived around 7:15, thanks to alleged car trouble. The potatoes proved a hit, as did the French Cafe background music, our freshly-made popcorn mixed with kettle corn, and (later) the cake and ice cream. Those came after Clue, which people seemed to enjoy based on the fact that they laughed at most of the right places, and some time to digest. I expect Ian has written a blog about this momentous 24th birthday celebration, too, so I won’?t go into too many details. People gave him nice (if weird) gifts, but mostly I think Ian enjoyed getting to hang out with the CBF people who became our primary friends last year. How depressing that our primary friends never really try to spend time with us anymore… Anyway, we all had a good time sitting around having awkward moments of silence, until at about 11 everybody spontaneously decided to skedaddle. This without Ian even showing of his brand-new Wii!

We slept well last night.

6 thoughts on “Saturday, Over At Last

  1. Well, if your primary friends are going to drop the ball, I guess I’ll take a stab at it again. Hey there! How ya doing? Remember me? Since I don’t have a blog to keep you updated on my life or my spouse’s (coincidentally, I also don’t have a spouse) I’ll try to fill you in on the most important bits. Let’s see, my latest endeavors include learning to play a djembe, debating whether or not I like Bob Dylan, breaking in my electric blanket, selecting an orange bridesmaid dress (you’ll have a friend by the name of Heather Fitch come July), and honing my Boggle skills. oh yeah, I’m also finishing up a master’s in social work. Fun stuff. I plan to peruse yours and Ian’s blogs until I’m at least somewhat satisfied that I know what goes on in your lives these days. Cheers!

  2. if it makes you feel any better, i dont attempt to hang out with anybody else either.

    im a loner, baby.

    except for other people sometimes pull me out of my cave of solitude, and for that, i am grateful.

  3. Attempts are difficult when thousands of items require your attention from opening your eyes to closing your eyes. One more weekend or friday night or something before I’m gone for the summer, hopefully!

  4. This is why I try to convince people I like to move to Washington. That way Washington is filled up with awesome people (thus making Washington an even better state) and when we move back all our friends will be there making it easier to hang out with people. College is just too transitory.

    (If I haven’t tried to convince you to move to Washington it’s not because I don’t like you, it’s more likely because it hasn’t come up in our conversations yet. A good way to tell would be to email me and ask if I think you should move to Washington. You can then figure it out based on my response).

  5. On a different note — I really like that picture of your bike gears Katie. It’s a great picture (even if the bike is in a bad way.)

    Gary

    PS WAX the frame after you clean it, with standard car wax, and the snow and crud won’t stick as bad. Won’t work for the gears though.

  6. Mom told me that she used to wash and wax her bike religiously when she was in college. I really would like to give my bike a good scrubbing, but so far the temperature has been below freezing every day, which makes washing difficult, not to mention drying. I’ll try the waxing trick when I get a chance, though — probably our car could use some of that wax, too! 🙂

Leave a Reply to nora Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.