10 (more) Things About Me

Since writing posts about triathlon training is giving me nightmares, I figured I'd break it up a bit. Also, my last 10 Things About Me was one of my more popular posts. That and any post that involves booze. Can't help you with that tonight. Just sparkling Rosé. What? It's the drink of snowstorms!

1. Okay, since I mentioned the rosé I guess that can be number one. Do you have a song that distinctly reminds you of a place or event? Last February, we had Nemo. It was a Noreaster? Maybe a blizzard? It doesn't really matter. We got 2 1/2 feet of snow on that Friday and my Saturday schedule at work was pushed back to Sunday. We spent all day shoveling out the alley where my car is parked. The alley is city property and city maintained but you bet AINT NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT. Not one plow. Most of us realized that we would have to get together and shovel the length of the alley to get out, so we did. By about noon we were done and I said to The Husband, "you know, the local restaurants are posting on facebook that they don't have food (delivery trucks could not get through), but they're open for drinks. I think we should stop by." So we went to Tremont 647. It was hoppin in the there! Not only did they not have food, but at that point they were also out of OJ for mimosas. It was pretty funny. I took one look at the menu and said, "this might be ridiculous timing, but eff it. I'm ordering rosé and pretending it's spring." And then, just when there was a lull in the collective conversations in there, someone changed the song that was playing to something much more appropriate:

Everyone simultaneously started dancing and looking around like, awww yeah, who did this?!


2. I have some random habits that I always do. One of them? When I get home and know the next time I will be getting in my car is the next morning for work, I ALWAYS put the preset to 105.7 WROR. I feel like it HAS to already be on that station when I turn the car on in the morning. I always listen to Loren and Wally and classic rock in the morning. I just can't handle the top 40 DJs on the way to work. I'm cranky. I'm barely awake. I'm not in the moods for shenanigans. Unless it's Loren and Wally Shenanigans, then that's ok.

3. My "classic" bad dream that I have when I am stressed out, like REALLY stressed out, is that the lights either aren't working, are dim, or a combination of both. In the dream I feel like I'm in danger because I can't see well and am super frustrated about it. It almost has a supernatural feel to it, like there's some sort of demon or ghost controlling the lights. Towards the end of The Husband being in grad school, the on light from our track lights pointing towards the kitchen, plus the light over our sink went out. Only the dim bulb over the stove was working. It felt just like the dream and I was ready to move out until he graduated. Of course I couldn't reach the track light to change it and was afraid to mess with the sink light. ARGH!!!

4. HUGE pet peeve of mine? When pedestrians are crossing at a light where it specifically says WALK or DONT WALK and they somehow don't get it. I will give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you are from somewhere without stoplights. MAYBE. But probably not. But seriously don't walk out into traffic that has the green light, while you have the pedestrian equivalent of the red light, THE BIG ORANGE HAND THAT SAYS DONT WALK, jack up traffic and gesture to us, "ehhhhhhh, this is a crosssss waaaaaaalk." Yes. It is. AND YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

5. I really REALLY like how I smell after swim class. I love when I go to bed after (it's usually a late class), curl my arm around my pillow and can smell the chlorine on my skin still. Now that I'm waiting on signing up for my next round of classes, one of the things I keep thinking of is that I will get to drift off to sleep dreaming of swimming.

6. My bird, Peete, gets really, REALLY upset if I lay down anywhere (especially my bed) in the apartment. He shrieks, paces back and forth and generally loses his mind. I don't know if he thinks I'm dead, is upset he's no longer getting attention or is just a jerk who won't let me nap. I also think it's really funny to go to bed wile the husband is still up so Peete loses it with him too.

7. I'm almost incapable of making a dinner recipe without doubling it, especially if it's a soup. Even if the recipe looks like it makes a lot, I will still double it. That's how we ended up with 8 quarts of Minestrone Soup last week. It was totally worth it though. It was yummy and now have it, like, forever.

8. We live in a +/- 650 square foot studio apartment in the South End of Boston that houses the two of us, two bikes, a cockatiel with a HUGE cage and a wetsuit that hangs on a wall because there's no place else to put it. Oh, and our kitchen table is mostly commandeered by my husbands "mad scientist experiments" (read: legit technology projects). It's "cozy."

There are now two bike parked here...

9. I am really bad at keeping plants alive, but am obsessed with cacti and succulents. I know. Everyone is bad at plants, right? However, there have been two or three plants that The Husband (who works with plants for a living) deemed as dead lost causes that I not only brought back to life, but are now beautiful. I got my amaryllis to bloom after 18 months of being told to throw it away. I have a 13 year old Jade Tree. I even got his Bonsai Tea Tree to bloom 3 or 4 times while he was in school. Too bad I forgot about it just long enough for it to die weeks before he graduated. Wah wahhhh...

10. My bike is named Tater. I was jokingly calling it The Orange Crush, because it's orange and tried to crush me but I knew that was SO LAME. After doing my last triathlon this past summer, I said, "I'm pretty sure it needs a trip to the bike shop. There were so many rollers and I was mashing those gears like 'taters." And then it felt right. Tater. Right from Ron White. (Because Tater is so much cooler)

I'm serious, it's worth watching the first 8 min to the punch line!