Christmas Puppy

Mike and I started the holiday weekend with some skiing. Since the weather had been warm and a little rainy, we knew conditions wouldn't be optimal. Still, Windham was un-crowded and the conditions were fine. It was great to see Mike Chow and Joe and skiing only confirmed my new found love for this sport. Granted it was the second time I had ever skied, but man, it is so much fun. A classmate of Mike's also came, and it being her first time skiing, she and I took runs down the greens together. I made the mistake of going down a blue at one point and Mike Chow was very kind at fetching my skis for me when I would pop them off.

It was great to see both our families, especially my sister since she is moving to CO (lucky duck!) and our nieces and nephew (they are getting so big!). But one of the coolest thing about this Christmas was...my gifts. (Normally I don't like exchanging gifts and honestly receiving awesome gifts this year really didn't change that but anyway...) I got two cookbooks I have been eyeing, a food mill, an awesome yoga book, two great shirts, and...my Pound Puppy, Brownie. I had this Pound Puppy for years and got it for Christmas when I was in the 1st grade. This puppy went with me everywhere. I use to drag it on a leash all around town and the A&P (which my mom would yell at me for). Then an accident happened and it lost its eyes, then my mom threw it out while I was at school (ok, so I was in high school at this point). My little sister found me a replica (with eyes) on eBAY! I'm so excited! Brownie! Only a real puppy would have been better. (It was funny because I kept joking all night that there better be a puppy in that pile of gifts for me.)

Then Mike told me that naming him Brownie again is very Pet Cemetery-ish. That totally creeped me out.

Whatever. It was great to see everyone and now I have a puppy! Happy Boxing Day everyone.

Til Questions Do Us Part

Ladies and gents, listen up. According to "relationship experts" (really, what constitutes someone as a relationship expert? I imagine these are serial daters [you know, the kind of people who will only have long term relationships even if they are not what they want] who really don't know what they are talking about) there are certain questions you should ask before getting married. Katie alerted me to this article and while the questions are good, it seems a little weird that a list of questions critical to the survival of your relationship was created.

I thought question#7 was interesting. But I guess it's because I never even thought about having a TV in the bedroom and because I (and neither does Mike, though his love for this show is starting to become a problem) generally don't watch TV, it never crossed my mind.

10) Do we like and respect each other’s friends?
This was a bit of a problem because, well because Vijay is a little sketchy. Ha!

13) Are there some things that you and I are NOT prepared to give up in the marriage?
I was not going to give up meat or my decision to continue eating lactose products even if it means I have to burp up smelly burps all night. Poor Mike has to deal with this.

Other than that we were good to go and so according to experts, we will have a long healthy happy marriage. Boy am I glad I confirmed this with a relationship expert-rather, a f-expert (fake [or faux for Vijay, our sketchy friend] expert).

Things I have been up to

As Christmas nears, things get busier in lab. It might be because I have a lot of deadlines with trying to graduate and all, but mostly it's because I want to get stuff done before things slow down for the week during Christmas. In addition, Mike has finals which means all work (study not work work) and no play for about two weeks. So before the onslaught of all this work, we watched another film (The Fountain- I loved it. It was incredible [but I think all his films are.]), finished knitting Mike's scarf and started a hat for myself.

I also did something that I hope (really hope!) I follow through on. I signed up for the Manhattan Half Marathon. But this isn't just any half marathon. This is the first of 5. It's the first of the Grand Prix- a series of half marathons in NYC with a race being in each borough. It starts in January with Manhattan and ends in October in Staten Island. I'm most looking forward to Brooklyn (running from Coney Island to Prospect Park with a goal to get hot dogs from Nathan's afterwards). These 5 plus the NYC half marathon (I'll definitely be doing that one again) makes 6 half marathons for the year. But no marathon for me. That's crazy talk.

Oddly enough- I had a guy at the gym ask me if I wanted him to hold my hair for me while I did my bent over rows. He was half joking, but it was a little strange.

And finally, there is this article in the NYTimes about rat patrol. Since we have a backyard, I have been a little jumpy about rats. Not that we have had to deal with them, but the idea that they will crawl in and chew my face off is a concern. Upon reading the article, I thought how great it would be to go to one of these rat summits dressed as the Pied Piper of Hamlin insisting that they pay me one dollar per rat head and then throw rubber rats at them when they dismiss me. Getting escorted out by security would be the best part.