phonies

reasons why yesterday was a good day:

1. kind of a secret, but i can tell you in a week or so
2. i got to work on our statistics spreadsheet at work. this pleased me so much that i worked straight through my breaks and didn't realize what time it was until 4:50.
3. h2ocean piercing aftercare spray arrived in the mail. now i will not need to get up 20 minutes early to soak my nose in a sea salt solution before i head to work.
4. i got to chat with aaron online for 20 minutes. he is having lots of fun in nepal and india. he is safe and happy.
5. i finished knitting the second sleeve on my owls sweater and attached both sleeves to the body. it is starting to look like an honest-to-goodness sweater at this point.

one not-so-good thing was that i found out that j. d. salinger died on wednesday. he was without question my favorite author. i have all four of his books and have photocopied every single short story he had ever published (aside from "an ocean full of bowling balls" which can only be read with supervision at princeton library). i still have a few fan letters i penned to him as well (unsent). catcher in the rye is his most well known work, but it wasn't my favorite. my favorite is franny and zooey. actually, any of his stories pertaining to the glass family. it drives me crazy to think that there are possibly dozens of unpublished glass stories gathering dust in some new england attic. frustrating. i hope he was able to achieve some form of peace and happiness in his last years. selfishly, i hope that some of his unpublished later works will be made available to the public before i loose my eyesight to old age.

a sparkle in my nose

way back when i was in high school i bought a magnetic diamond nose stud. i loved the look of them, but knew i would never be able to get one because:

1) i am a big wuss face. i have been told by various people that my pain tolerance is below normal
2) my father would kill me

in college, i told aaron that i would love to go to the tattoo shop to just look at the jewelry. i thought maybe it would help me get some nerve up...it ended with me having a panic attack. bad idea.

last august, my friend theresa, wanted to get her nose pierced and i went with her. she was a champ, and i was stunned that watching the actual process made the whole procedure seem much less scary. i think i might have alarmed her with all of the questions i asked afterward.

last friday, theresa accompanied me to slave to the needle, where adam gave me a small diamond stud in my left nostril. i was a little shaky, but was relieved to find that it didn't hurt much at all, there was only a little pinch when he was attaching the jewelry. t was an awesome person to bring along as she kept talking to me and adam the whole time, providing distraction from the actual process. i love the result, it is so pretty! (although the sea salt soaks may be my undoing). i have always heard that tattoos and piercings could be addictive and i never understood why until now, there was definitely tremendous rush associated with it.

we celebrated afterwards with crepes and wine at the crepe cafe. and then more wine and a private viewing of when harry met sally. i hope to surprise aaron when he returns from india in a few weeks. after the last experience 5 years, when he escorted me out of a tattoo shop crying, i'm sure it will surprise him that i garnered enough courage. oh, and my father is still not pleased, but he took the news with much much less yelling than i thought. he might be mellowing...

if nose piercings aren't your thing, and you think i might have ruined my nose forever. relax, i've discovered that many people don't even notice (maybe that's because in seattle, where it's really common). i don't think it jumps right out at you, it's pretty subtle as far as piercings go.

do you fondue? i do too

our swiss friend, sanjoy, hosted the 3rd annual fondue gathering last friday. everyone loves the fondue party, dare i say that it is our most anticipated winter gathering. aaron and i had some problems getting there...we started off on our bikes, but before i could completely leave our driveway i had already fallen off my bike and tumbled to the ground (no, there was no alcohol involved). once i had recuperated, we biked about 15 blocks before i got a flat tire. we walked our bikes back home and drove. the rocky trip was worth it though. there is something magical about friends, wine, and swiss cheese dip.

saturday we gathered at theresa's to watch the cardinals v. saints game. the game itself was pretty lame (cardinals lost), but it was a great excuse to eat chili, cornbread, and apple crisp. we also discovered for the love of ray j. it has the honor of being the best worst show ever to watch. i'm holding out hope that these people are all paid actors pretending to be contestants on a reality show, and not actual real people .

sunday was pretty laid back. we had some brunch with friends at hattie's hat in ballard, took a short nap (because brunch can be exhausting, you know?), and then played some pool at the buckaroo.

we were both pretty excited to go snowshoeing on monday. however, the route that i picked from the book, there was absolutely no snow. sad. we made the best of things and did an pleasant (but short) hike to the big four ice caves. it was nice to just get out of the city, breath the fresh air, and get a bit of exercise. when we got back home, it was so nice (60 degrees!) out that we went to the park with our favorite swiss man, to toss the frisbee and play the first round of boccie of 2010.

oh, yes. 2010 is great indeed.

3 unique social situations in 1 amazing day.

after a mid-afternoon visit to nintendo, aaron and i paid my boss/good friend, mary and her boyfriend, kevin a visit. we called a 5-10 minutes before we arrived, just to make sure they would be there. of course, in those 10 minutes i'm sure they were scrambling, because when we arrived the house was spotless, wine was getting ready to be poured, and there was a fire crackling in the fire place. mary has a "special drink" that she has been dying for me to try. her special concoction involves wine, concentrated pomegranate crystal light, and a dash of diet 7-up. it was delicious, and i thought it tasted surprisingly like sangria. there was lots of funny dialect and even a few rounds of poker before we had to bid them farewell for our next hot date.

hot date number 2 involved jeanne and ron. they were representing kansas in the american farm bureau 91st annual national meeting. on our way back from mary and kevins, we swung by their downtown hotel (the sheraton, how fancy!) and whisked them off to ivars salmon house. they both wanted to try some food that they couldn't get in kansas, but we wanted it to be friend for picky eaters (a.k.a. ron). seafood was a great choice. it was nice to see them, but before too long we had to hug it out, and join some friends for the last venture of the evening.

our friend, adam, turned 29 so to celebrate we hit the zoo. no, not that zoo, this zoo (if you were true followers of this blog, you would expect that). there was a few beers, and a lot of merriment. also, have you heard of snooker? yet, another fascinating game that i am horrible at (fun, nonetheless).

so there you have it, 3 very very different social situations, with 3 groups of very very different people, and lots and lots of fun.

2010 = awesome

the holidays are over and things are settling down to normal again. sometimes, i forget how much i like normal.

to welcome in the new year, aaron and i played scrabble and had drank merlot. which was pretty low-key, but perfect. this is the first year that i can remember that i wasn't sad on new years eve. usually, i'm very sentimental about the last year, and feel bad that we have to move on to the next year already.

2009, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

i have decided that 2010 is where it's at... and so far i am right.

i'm excited to finally be knitting a project just for me again. i'm working on the owls sweater by katie davis. isn't it too cute? it's my first sweater, so i don't have unrealistic expectations. however, i'm trying it on as i go, and it fits like a dream. it has been a pretty fast knit too, i started it on new years day and am about halfway done.