Blessed by the Potato

As I said in the comments of my last post, I passed my master’s defense with relative ease. Now I just have a few corrections to make to my thesis and I’ll be done completely, and can move on to my PhD.

That also means that it’s time to start my diet/exercise program in earnest. I’m not off to a very good start — I only went for a 10 minute walk today, and had a large pizza for dinner. I don’t feel too bad though, since it’s still celebratory, and since they were very late with it (they hadn’t even started by the time I got there to pick it up) they knocked the price down to $8 and gave me cheddar cheese without me even asking (I actually didn’t mind the wait — I wasn’t in a hurry and used the time to extend my walk with a lap around the block). Bonus!

The celebration weekend for the MSc was all right — we had some last-minute drop-outs for health reasons (Shubh’s mom and Dimple’s reluctance), and a good chunk of the party left first thing Sunday and missed some good eats and cards. The whole thing made me feel kind of old though — the latest I stayed up was 2:01 am, and that was a pretty sad sight at that point. Must be the coke withdrawl (I think I only had 6 the whole weekend).

More good news than my own was shared though — Reggie announced his engagement and showed off what 4 month’s salary will get you these days (yes, for a diamond it was pretty big and sparkly, but I still have trouble believing that that much money goes into finger ornamentation that doesn’t even tell time or shoot laser beams). Plus, Joce brought her latest boy toy/legitimately serious boyfriend to show off (though I don’t think he was entirely comfortable stranded in the wilderness with a bunch of old men who might die and stink up the joint before the ambulance could arrive should any sort of fatty-food related coronaries occur).

When I got home, I found a letter from my landlord saying they were going to come in today to change the toilets and showerheads to new water saving ones. I won’t be sad to see the toilets go (which are the original ’62 fixtures) since they don’t work any better than devilish no-flow ones do… but that showerhead is a classic. It doesn’t have a ton of settings, and it doesn’t need them. It has one setting that just simply gets the job done. My shower here has the best water pressure of any shower I’ve ever used. My parents used to have a similar no-nonsense showerhead, but replaced it some years ago for a detachable one with a hose, and showering at home hasn’t been the same since. It has a ton of settings, which can basically be summed up as “useless spray, wide useless spray, narrow useless spray, wide gentle dribble, single stream dribble, single stream high powered massage, and three stream pressurized shower” — of which, only really the last one is of much use for getting shampoo out of your hair, though the effective rinse area is pretty small.

Anyhow, I didn’t sleep at all last night because I hate the thought of someone coming into my apartment while I slumber, so I got up at 9 and waited for them on the couch… and fell asleep and snoozed right through until almost 2. Around 4, they dropped off another letter saying they won’t be here until tomorrow (Tuesday, so today as I post this). I’ve got a bunch of stuff that requires going in to the hospital tomorrow, so I’ll have to let them do it without me here (which is a shame — I was going to try to save my showerhead).

My allergies have been pretty bad this year. That’s the problem with Wayfare: not only does she have crazy, ridiculously over-sensitive allergies, but she also spreads them to everyone around her. It sounds nuts, and I didn’t believe her when she said she gave her strawberry allergy to her best friend in high school… except I used to only have fall allergies (ragweed), which are mostly itchy eyes… but I’ve been pretty damned sneezy the last two springs, too. Plus I gained a mouse allergy (but that can also happen just from working with them as much as I have).

I think that’s about it for tonight.