Tuesday, February 16, 2010

"It's kind of a race to the bottom between me and my brother."

This past weekend was so much fun. Friday night, of course, I had Sweeny Todd rehearsal. Three hours this time. When I got home, I was surprised that Shane was still there. The Pub was having a burlesque show, which some of our friends were going to and he'd expressed interest in it. But it was $10, and he wasn't sure he wanted to spend that much money. So he waited for me, thinking we'd go after I got home, when the show would be over and entrance would be free. But I was so tired from work and rehearsal that I ended up crashing out at around 11:30.
Saturday was spent lazily, with lots of reading and only a few chores. Lucy and I went to Barnes and Noble in the afternoon, and I managed to only buy one book. It's a real-life medical mystery about these things called prions, which cause diseases that manifest themselves in different ways. In one family in Italy the disease expressed itself through severe insomnia, and then the insomniac would die within a few months. In one tribe--I can't remember where--it was expressed through uncontrollable laughter and the same fatal timeline. Sounds interesting. Lucy bought "Stiff" and "Bonk". One's about what happens to your corpse after you die (embalming, stuff like that) and the other is about the science of sex. I'm going to borrow both of them after she's done.
Did I mention that I made a list of the books I want to read this year? Obviously the ones mentioned above are on it, but also:
Slaughterhouse Five
Animal Farm
1984
The Help
The Girl Who Chased the Moon
Sizzling Sixteen
Dead in the Family
In Defense of Food
The Omnivore's Dilemma
The End of Food
The End of Oil
I think that's a pretty decent mix of thought-provoking and just fun. And of course, there will be others. (My reading list each year usually has about 75-100 books on it.) Currently I'm reading "The Pickwick Papers" by Dickens. Very amusing. I keep reading little sections out to Shane because I just can't help it. Especially the chapter about hunting, I knew he'd like that. He said, "Oh, God, it's like hunting with Mark."
Anyway, Saturday evening we were just hanging out with James and Lucy when our friend George called to ask if anyone wanted to go sledding. Everyone but me said no (lame!), so I went. Of course, the first run down, we ended up having to call James and Shane to bring a flashlight because George had lost his glasses. So they showed up, and did a couple of runs after we found the glasses. (George left them with some stuff at the top of the hill after that.) Actually, James only did one run because apparently his pants weren't great for sledding (sweats) and he ended up with snow all the way up to his butt. Ha! Shane went down with me a couple of times before leaving. It was so much fun, but I wish there was a fresh layer of powder down. The sledding hill on campus isn't maintained at all, so once it gets packed down it forms bumps and waves that are rather jarring. Still, it was fun. Also, the girl's basketball team from Western was there. They'd beaten our team earlier that night and wanted a chance to enjoy the snow. I had almost as much fun watching them as I did with the actual sledding. All in all, a good evening.
Shane was still hanging out with James and Lucy when we were done sledding, so I went back there and had some yummy hot chocolate to warm up. We played a Mario game for Wii, then Shane and I went home.
Sunday was Valentine's Day, of course. Shane (I'm kind of ashamed to admit this) plays D&D on Sundays with Dustin and a bunch of other friends, so he got up in the morning, started dinner (he made moose roast! <3 style="font-style: italic;">before putting in the pudding. So I had to bake the whole thing. I sprinkled some milk chocolate chips over the top in the hope that those would help it from turning out to badly. It was fine, and the chocolate chips were excellent.
Shane took a nap when he got home, so I got a bit more schoolwork done and then woke him up when dinner was ready. After we ate, we watched the movie "Fanboys". Nothing more romantic than watching a bunch of Star Wars nerds trying to break into the Skywalker Ranch. I love that movie, though, and it was perfect. We were going to watch another movie, too, but our friend Mark called. I asked him when he was going to get a job in Fairbanks and move back up here, because we miss him!, but he said he intends to stay in his current job in Juneau for at least a couple of years. He's talking about buying a boat. At some point, we'll have to go down there and visit him. But it's either a day-long trip, or it's about $500 to fly. So we'll see. His dog, about four or five months old, is now about as big as I am. It's a mastiff, so he'll be about 250 lbs. when fully grown. That's a big dog.
I've kept up with my running, and it helps that every time I go out I can feel how much I'm improving. I'm less out of breath, or I can get up the hills easier, things like that. The last couple of times the only reason I've paused at all was so that Pepper could pee. I still don't like running, but it's good for me. And Pepper LOVES it.
She's getting a badly needed haircut tomorrow. I'll have to start putting her vest on her again when we go out, but she'll be so much more comfortable. I'll have my dog back, rather than a ball of hair.

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