TeamME

On Thursday, in a somewhat haphazard method, Mike and I got a Wii Balance Board and Wii Fit. I can’t overstate this, it is the most fun working out that I have ever had! I am not a team sports person, nor do I enjoy running outside, but I don’t particularly like gyms when there are people there. My favorite thing is aerobics, and the wii fit has that!

The game also allows Mike and I to compete with each other, which is another thing that we both enjoy doing. I am good at the aerobics and hula hoop, while Mike is better at the strength exercises and the running. I enjoy quickly passing my guide so that I can follow a puppy! Then I slow down.

All in all, it is a ton of fun. It is entertaining and gets us moving, while at the same time, it has graph after graph of information to peruse. It is like it was made for Team ME!

Mike and I spent part of the weekend down in RI to say “Happy Birthday” to our niece, Molly. It was an important birthday, at least from a binary perspective. Here are both Molly and Megan showing their ages.

In some sense, it is neat that Molly is one left shift from Megan now. Oh powers of two, you are so neat! As are Megan and Molly. Happy Birthday!

There are so many things I want to post about, the Tri Delta convention and our lawn being two of those things. Unfortunately, I really, really want to add pictures, and to do that, I need to first, find the camera; second, take the pictures; third, find a way to get the pictures off the camera; and fourth, find a way to put the pictures online. This list of things to do doesn’t even involve a “profit” step, so you can see why it is taking so long to get through it.

One thing I can post about that does not require pictures is my 18+ hour trek to get home from Chicago. And really, there isn’t too much to say about that other than I hate cut-offs of more than 20 minutes before departure to check a bag, I hate the liquids rule for carry-ons, I cry for humanity (or at least our portion of it) when I see rudeness and ugliness in what is a difficult situation for everyone involved, and I especially hate the fact that this could have probably have been avoided if I just figured out how to set my cellphone alarm. Also, I rely on technology way too much, seeing how by the end of the day, every electronic device I owned was way low on battery power. Luckily, Mike was at the airport to get me, and that put a smile on my face (at 1:30 in the morning).

Mike weaseled his way out of our grocery shopping trip by volunteering to go to the Walmart next door to the Hannaford to see if they had any wii fits. I refuse to go into the Walmart because it is sad, but I sent him on his way. He returned not with a wii fit, but with a wireless guitar for the xbox. Now, when I got Guitar Hero III, we were hoping to pick up another guitar so we could play together. Last night, that dream was realized.

We have started a band in Rock Band, and we are playing at the Charles Pub in Somerville. So far, we have over 2000 fans. We are still trying to decide whether our name should be “The Fighting Mongooses” or “Mongoose Scientists”, but I think we’ll have it figured out before we play again.

Of course, our new acquisition does not help us peel the paint off our walls any faster, although we have made quite a bit of progress in that regard. But playing a set at the Charles does make for a nice break from the lead paint.

The heat wave is seriously wilting me. Saturday night was a “let’s go to the movies to get out of the heat”, which was great because we went to see Iron Man! I found it to be a horribly wonderful movie. It was wonderful because it had both a cobra and a raptor, but it was horrible because (slight spoiler) both were ruined! Also, Mike says Bagram looks different than that. Since they filmed at Edwards, that makes sense. It was just about worth the $10.25 ticket price for the movie plus 2.5 hours of air conditioning.

Mike and I got a wii about a month ago, and it is wonderful. We have been looking to get one since September, but we aren’t overly dedicated to it. If they had been in stock when we happen to be at the store or website, we would have gotten one sooner. The only reason we have one is that my sister called one Saturday night, asking where she could get one, I told her how insanely popular it was, and how you couldn’t just go to the store to get one. She was slightly disappointed, but then she called again, about 30 minutes later, to say that all Toys’R'Us locations were supposed to get shipments the next morning. So Sunday morning at 9:30 found Mike and I sitting outside a Toys’R'Us in the drizzle, waiting for the store to open to pick up a wii!

We have enjoyed playing it. So far, my favorite game is Super Mario Galaxy. Mike and I play together and we take turns holding down the enemies of the other. It is a ton of fun. Now I want a wii fit! Mike says that they are too popular to just go to the store and get one, so I am waiting for Amy to want one, then it should be a snap!

I got a membership offer from AARP in the mail this week. It was to my correct name and everything. I mean, come on! Maybe I would be interested if they didn’t have screwed up politics or if I were 24 years older. I was thinking it would be worth the $12.50 sign up fee to see if they would take me as a member, but Mike told me to just shred it. And thus ends my foray into the 50+ lifestyle AARP thinks I live.

Back around October Eva and I tore down all the wallpaper in our house. It took about two weekends with an hour or two a night during the week and really wasn’t too bad. Since then we’ve been putting off painting because we didn’t like all the prep work that needed to be done before we could start.

This weekend we finally went out and got all the stuff we needed to start stripping paint. Things didn’t go as well as we had hoped, and long story short, we have lead paint in at least one room, and most likely throughout the rest of the house as well. So now we’re reevaluating our plan of attack and investigating our options.

In more positive news, we got a Wii on Sunday. That’s a story in itself, but I told Eva she has to post about it.

Or practically so. I spectacularly blocked up our kitchen sink on Tuesday night (my first time blocking any sink). Of course, I was just at the beginning of making two suppers (one for Tuesday and another for Wednesday), so I also made a huge mess of the kitchen. It was kind of neat for two reasons:we drained the pipe into a bucket which I have never done before, and if you turned on the garbage disposal, the water would recede quite a bit, but once it was off, the water would gurgle back. The whole experience makes me wish for a Rose class back in the day on fluids, but not as hard as the one that they did have.

In the end, we had to call a plumber, and even he seemed reluctantly impressed at how well I truly backed up the pipe. I have learned an expensive lesson: even if the garbage disposal can totally handle all the potato peels, the pipes beyond may not.

We don’t post any more. I’m afraid we have left our late teens well behind. It was bound to happen, but really, so soon?

I guess all things have to change. We went to the Agent’s show in Newport this past Friday. It was awesome to see them live again. They have a ton of energy and a sweet brass section. It was way too loud for us, as evidenced by the ringing in our ears for the next day. It was also hilarious because the wiry lead singer, who was getting married a week after we saw them in 2002, now wakes up at 7:30 and takes his kid to daycare. He also doesn’t swear in his songs any more.

We also went to a tv preview this past weekend, which was fun just to see statistic gathering in action. We were in the younger crowd, and while I liked the horribly edited drama best, the crowd went for the sitcom about three fathers who luck into their children growing up correctly. (Mike disliked it because it strengthened negative stereotypes about men. He is such a super genius.) It had a laugh track and everything. Is that where my mind is heading, to thinking that show is funny? For now I am just going to slip in and watch a little tv show that still makes me laugh.