Beard Today, Gone Tomorrow

Here are a few pictures from our excursion to the crangberry bog. Sadly the bog was all dried up so we did not get to go wading in trash bags as we had planned. It did make picking a lot easier. As I mentioned before, it was dear hunting season so we're sporting the brightest orange from our closets, or in my case Aaron's closet. I realized I really do not have enough prison jumpsuit orange in my closet. I'll have to work on that.

OH, and since it was around fall break Aaron was humoring me by avoiding his razor. Isn't he cute?

Nike Run

I'm in love with the Nike Run Training Log. You can select a training program and then track your progress on the calendar. It gives you a distance to run and even some helpful coaching. I'm the type of person that needs to be told to do intervals (even if its only inanimate software) because I won't come up with it myself. I'm training for a 10k at the end of this year and maybe a half marathon in spring. Having the log is really helpful.

Minority Report

This week at the UVA Soccer game the ticket seller asked me if I was under 18. Sigh... I told them, No, I was over the age of 18 and had been for quite a while. And then I started to think about just how long it has been since I was eighteen. That was SIX years ago.

That made me feel old, like I was watching my oh so finite life slip away before my eyes. Then I started to think about what some of the people I respect and admire had done by the time they were my age. Zadie Smith had published White Teeth. Orson Wells was making Citizen Cane, it came out when he was 25. Beatrix Potter had built a reputation as an expert mycologist. I have ...gotten a job. Which is good, I guess.

Christmas Means Carnage

As the holiday season rolls around the tension builds. Then we have a spat, then another, then an argument and finally a full on FIGHT. My family? Or His Family? For which holiday? For how long? But what about last year? What about the coming year? It makes me agree with Ferdinand, the anorexic duck, from the movie Babe* "Christmas Means Carnage!"

*Babe is one of my all time favorite movie. Ferdinand's whole speech goes:"Christmas? Christmas means dinner, dinner means death! Death means carnage; Christmas means carnage!"

In the Company of Stars

Randal, Theresa, Aaron and I were lucky enough to attend the Star's show at the 9:30 club this past Saturday night. It was AWESOME. So awesome that the 20 & 30-something DC crowd, which are usually the "too cool for school" type, got into it. They Danced. They Sang. They Cheered. They briefly escaped their pretentious devotion to yuppy hipster-dom. So Stars is a band of MIRACLES. MIRACLES, I tell you.

It was really one of the best concerts I've gone to. Stars played wonderfully and they're so delightfully over the top in their presentation that the show was just good melodramatic fun. They had these crazy fake flowers covering the stage and they periodically threw them into the crowd. Theresa, being the scrappy farm girl she is, fought off like five other kids for a plastic carnation. I was very, very jealous and impressed.

I know Stars isn't the most known band and I would spend more time describing the music but I don't have to, because NPR decided to do it for me. They recorded the whole show and you can listen and see pictures Here. In the photo galllery if you look at picture 8 of 21 you can see me! Well, my small pixelated blob of a head at least. I'm on the far right edge of the photo in the middle.

The Woman of Aaron's Dreams

The woman of Aaron's dreams is me of course. But sometimes, as I learned yesterday, it's also the woman pictured above, Helen Mirren. Watching TV, I came upon HBO's Elizabeth I. I really enjoyed it. When Aaron came home I told him about it explaining that the actress who plays Elizabeth is Phenomenal and really makes the show. I couldn't remember her name so I said, you know who it is right? She was in The Queen. (Which is another Excellent movie) Aaron said, "Oh yes, the woman of my dreams." Who knew? I guess it's a good thing. Now I don't have to worry about Aaron leaving me for some spring filly.

Sauce 1 Me 0

The house has been in shambles the last couple of days. We don’t normally let it get so bad, but we were sick, then we were busy catching up from being sick. Our feeble efforts to fend off domestic chaos were useless. We ran out of clean dishes. We ran out of fresh food. Our laundry piled up. Pathways began to form as we navigated through piles of junk on the floor.

Finally, last night Aaron and I decided we would bite the bullet and spend at least 2, maybe even 3 solid hours cleaning. We made up a task list, divided the chores and began. Aaron took grocery shopping and headed out the door. I decided to hunt down the strange funk lurking in the fridge. As I pulled out empty pickle bottles and mysterious leftovers I noticed that a nearly full jar of spaghetti sauce had been overturned in the very back. Its contents had slopped down the back wall, pooled onto every shelf, leaked into the bottom drawers, and dried into a sticky blood colored ooze. It covered everything in the back half of the fridge. It was disgusting. I pulled out all the shelves and ran them in hot water in the bath. Then I used a spatula to scrap off the tacky tomato sauce scabs. When the shelves were clean I returned to scrub the actual fridge. When that was done, I washed off the splattered food.

After two hours I had a sparkling clean fridge in a miserably messy apartment. And I was DONE with cleaning for the day. Aaron returned and we buried the newly organized fridge in groceries. So it goes.

I have to add here that Aaron is INCREDIBLE about house work. I rarely feel like it is MY job to keep everything clean. It’s something we do together. Aaron regularly washes dishes, does the laundry, cleans the bathroom, picks up and cooks delicious dinners. And he makes the bed every day!!! He’s a dream come true.