It all started with a fake plant

The sink project is on.

We went back and forth, trying to decide if we wanted to take on the project, but in the end, we decided that we couldn't recover from our jealousy if we returned the sink and someone else bought it. I think we both had other motivations, though--and they are different.

I think B likes the sink project because it's a project that he's never undertaken before. We're going to be removing tile and moulding, repainting (hey, at least we kept our chosen color for two years--that is something), installing plumbing stuff (I'm a little hazy on those details), and maybe even--yes, the wedding didn't see the end of my spraypaint adventures--spraypainting our lighting fixture to match our new faucet.

I'm less excited for the journey and more excited for the end result. When I mentioned to CDL that we bought the sink and were still trying to decide if we should keep it, she offered this sage advice: Throughout your life, you should collect and surround yourself with beautiful and unique things. When she put it like that, I didn't see how I could possibly give the sink back. It will transform our downstairs bathroom, and I can't wait to see how everything will look together.

Today we started buying our supplies. We found a faucet and drain that we like at Lowe's, and a 10% off coupon made it even more attractive. B also got some sealers that spilled in the car and left the Subie smelling like the kill jar that I used to amass my insect collection in the tenth grade. And I don't think that I need to state this, but the insect collection was a bio class assignment and was not a hobbyist activity. I don't get down with bugs.

We also bought a granite countertop. This purchase required a bit of research because our local Lowe's and Home Depot didn't sell any vessel-sink countertops. On the recommendation from one of B's coworkers, we called some local granite stores to get quotes on remnants, which are the leftovers from somebody else's project. The $35/square foot cost in addition to a number of other add-on charges for finishing and back- and side-splashes kicked the cost up, even if we installed ourselves. We found the most reasonable option at the Expo Design Center, which is a higher-end version of Home Depot. Our color options were limited, but the price point was right on.

On the way to the Expo Design Center, we stopped at our local hardware store and picked up paint chips for our bathroom. Our new bathroom is going to be reddish-pink, orange, yellow, green, or purple. I guess we still have a decision to make there. B is leaning towards something lighter, so the sink will stand out more, and I'm leaning towards something darker because I think it will be a more dramatic look. We'll probably follow our usual path of hanging the finalists on the wall and picking the one that looks the best.

We haven't decided when we'll start, but as long as we finish before we go to Italy, I think we'll be ok. I can't wait to see our brand-new bathroom.

The Napster generation

When I started at my university, I and every other entering freshman that I knew had a computer. Many dorms, including my own, offered high-speed internet access. I kept in touch with high school and new college friends through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM).

The early days of the internet were lawless and chaotic. Even if you knew that a piece of information was out there in internet world, there was no guarantee that you could actually find it because the early search engines were unreliable at best. Half of your search results were inappropriate, and the other half were irrelevant. Google might be on its way to becoming the next evil empire, but the company's search engine rocked my world and changed the way that I use the internet. Now I take for granted that I am able to find what I am looking for.

The internet was great for finding information, but it was great for sharing stuff, too--in particular, MP3 files. Remember Napster? Another life-changing (albeit short-lived) technology. Napster rose and fell during my tenure at school, but while it was in its heyday, everyone was on it every night of the week, downloading their favorite tunes and then sharing them on the school network.

B's experience was different. Bringing a computer to school was not an unstated requirement. Dorms featured dial-up internet access, if they offered anything at all. Students checked their email on DOS machines with single-color monitors. B doesn't keep in touch with any of his college or high school friends over AIM because none of them had it back then.

The amazing part of this story is that we are only two years apart--and yet the advancements that were considered newfangled for him were commonplace for me. And naturally, the trend continues--people who are just a couple of years younger than I were exposed to advancements that I didn't even think about in college.

Take, for instance, cell phones. When I first started college, cell phones were rare and still expensive. But by the time I graduated, I and everyone else I knew had a cell phone. Circuits were jammed on graduation day from everyone trying to call their friends and find out where they were. Nowadays, third graders--and maybe even younger kids--have cell phones. You used to have to save up your babysitting money to be able to pay for your very own land line in your room--times have changed.

I don't always change with them, at least not as fast as the early adopters. I have even been known to resist new technologies. It still feels strange to take pictures without loading film into my camera. It took years of ridicule and teasing from friends before I began using online banking, and even now, B takes care of most of that work. And I refuse to join online social networking sites.

Myspace, Facebook, Friendster--I vaguely understand the differences between them, but I don't understand how they could possibly improve my life (and in fact, see only room for them to detract from it), so I have thus far resisted joining. However, I recognize these websites as entities that provide life-changing experiences. People who are just a few years younger than I would never question the value of their myspace pages, which they use to keep in touch with their network of friends. Many kids spend hours every night on these social websites, leaving notes for friends and responding to others' comments.

The passage of time between the late nineties and the late oughts can be counted on only two hands, but the changes in the technological experiences of young people who came of age during this time period has dramatically changed our life experiences. I am technically part of Generation Y, but my fellow older Ys and I have lived much different lives from the younger Ys that I wonder if we should even be grouped together. This rapid-changing technology, which has the tendency to widen generation gaps between those who are tech savvy and those who are not, is also changing the way that we have to look at generations. People who are just a few years apart experience life-changing technologies at different ages, so the advancements affect them in different ways.

In short, generations are getting smaller. B is part of the internet generation--because the internet was just getting big when he was in college. I consider myself to be part of the Napster generation (for better or for worse) because my generation took the internet and used it the way that we wanted to, regardless of a variety of factors (including reason, common sense, and the law--I did say for better or for worse). I'm not sure when the Myspace generation began, but I suspect it's the batch of kids who entered college soon after I did. As for kids who are in college now? I guess we'll have to wait and see what they come up with, but I do know this--it'll be techie and cutting edge--and I suspect that I will resist it.

Nineteen years...why did it have to take nineteen years?

When I think back to my childhood, there were more than a few pop culture influences.

Take, for instance, American Gladiators. I loved this show, maybe because it was unusual to see grownups running around and acting like the maniacs that we kids were all the time. My little gang of neighborhood kids set up Gladiator-style challenges and obstacle courses in backyards and garages and pummelled each other with Nerf weaponry and dreamed of being on the show. Now that I am eligible (age-wise, anyway) to compete on the new show, the experience looks like my worst nightmare. I guess some childhood dreams are best left behind in childhood.

Another favorite past-time was watching movies.

I feel now that I must state for the record that I was not one of those kids who lived their childhood indoors. From 9 AM until 9 PM on nearly every summer day, I was outside, running around and riding bikes and playing in the dirt. But sometimes you want a break from all of the fresh air and just want to see a movie. So sometimes we did.

There were a few classics that were guaranteed to provide fun and excitement on a rainy afternoon. Adventures in Babysitting was fun (though it had some scary scenes). I think that Mannequin was my first treasured ro-com. The Goonies rocked. But the best movies to watch were always in the Indiana Jones trilogy.

When I was ten, I thought that Indiana Jones had the most exciting life ever. Now that I am twenty-whatever, I still think that Indiana Jones has the most exciting life ever. Granted, if he were a real person, he might come under attack for his slash-and-burn archaeology style. However, because he is not technically real, we can overlook his flaws and focus on his fabulousness (and that great hat).

The Last Crusade was our favorite of the three movies, but Raiders of the Lost Ark was a strong contender, too. The Temple of Doom was creepy--to this day, I don't think I have ever watched the scene where the guy has his heart dug out of his chest (though the parts that I have seen are so firmly ingrained in my mind that they will never go away--thank you, George Lucas).

We had a few favorite scenes that we would always rewind and rewatch over and over and over again. The melting-face scene was a favorite, as was the forget-your-sword-I'm-just-going-to-shoot-you episode. "No ticket," always got a big laugh, and I've had more than one occasion where I've wanted to say, "I wrote it down so I wouldn't have to remember it!"

My favorite quote from all of the movies is, "Snakes....why did it have to be snakes?" It can be modified in so many ways to fit your particular situation. (For example: "Misplaced modifiers...why did it have to be misplaced modifiers?" Doesn't it strike terror in your heart?)

Years ago, I heard murmurings about a potential Indiana Jones movie, and I followed internet gossip as the movie wasn't going to be made and then was going to be made and then wasn't and then...was. A script was approved, filming was scheduled, and then...a release date. This weekend! Yesterday, in fact. I would have gone, but I was tired, and I want to be awake and refreshed when I join Indy for one more adventure.

You can't kill a fake plant

It is a truthiness universally acknowledged that a plant in possession of bad health does not want to come and live with me.

I'd like to say that I try hard to keep plants alive, but I don't. My plant care routine is neglectful at best, a regretful cycle of extreme drought followed by a monsoon-like watering, followed again by days (weeks?) of drought. The results are that I own the heartiest plants in the world, and they have returned from the brink of death on more than one occasion. However, a few plants have fallen over the brink, never to return again.

The easy solution, of course, is to recognize my shortcomings and limit the number of plants that I own. However, I do love the look (if not the maintenance) of plants, and I am not ready to give up my greenery yet. I decided that an acceptable compromise was a realish-looking fake plant.

We picked up a (fake) tree this past weekend at Home Goods, but what looked good in the store didn't quite fit in our living room. I thought I wanted a tallish tree, but it loomed over me when I was sitting next to it, and it stood out too much. How much attention does one want to call to a fake topiary?

We brought the tree back tonight with the intention of exchanging it for a shorter, shrub-like plant, but a tour of the store revealed no acceptable option. However, we did find a beautiful desk instead.

The desk is dark wood, slightly distressed on the top, and more ornate than most of our furniture, but it looks like the kind of desk that Hemingway would have written at. I suspect that I would be a smarter person while I was sitting at that desk (and maybe the extra intelligence would carry over into the rest of my life, too). However, the economics of the plant/desk situation didn't quite work out.

Cost of the fake tree: $60
Cost of the nice desk: $999
Net loss if we exchanged the tree for the desk: -$939

Obviously, there was no way to come out ahead in that situation. We decided to keep shopping.

The beauty of Home Goods is that you never know what you're going to find. I wandered somewhat accidentally into the bathroom section and found a strange glass bowl with a hole in the bottom sitting on a shelf. A bowl with a hole seemed impractical, so I investigated more and discovered that it was actually a sink--a vessel sink. It was quit possibly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and I brought B over to check it out.

We admired it for a moment and tried to figure out the logistics of replacing the sink in our downstairs half bathroom. Because the sink that is currently in the bathroom is recessed, we'd have to buy a new countertop, but we probably wouldn't have to replace the vanity itself. We would also need new hardware, including a new faucet.

We decided to buy the sink--we reasoned that we could always return it--and head over to Lowe's to figure out the costs that we were looking at to give our bathroom a little makeover.

We got some countertop quotes that ranged from $60 to $800 (is granite really that expensive?) and realized that we'd have to do the installation and cutting of the countertop by ourselves. The project was starting to look daunting but not necessarily impossible.

We headed back home, quotes in hand, and checked out the way that the sink looked in the bathroom. It looked great--but it didn't quite match the walls. Would we need to paint the walls again? And upon closer inspection, we realized that we might need to remove the tile from the wall, too. This new sink project has the ability to get out of hand quickly.

We love the sink, but we're still deciding if we're ready to redecorate our bathroom around it.

The desk, on the other hand...that option is still on the table...

Boutique shopping at home

As I slowly work up to having a wardrobe consisting only of clothing that I love, I have found a way to jump-start the process, and it's a lot easier and cheaper than I expected. It's all about appearances. I have given my wardrobe a make-over by putting my clothes on different hangers.

Because we have limited bureau space (B and I share a bureau, and by "share," I mean that he has 3 drawers and I have 9), most of our clothes hang in our closet, which is the entire length of one wall in our bedroom and is pretty spacious. I have a hanging shelf that I store some sweaters on, but most of them hang in my closet, and I thought that they deserved nicer hangers than the standard plastic ones that we have. I decided to trade up in hanger world, so last night I bought wooden hangers for my sweaters.

A box of 24 wooden hangers came at a bargain price from my neighborhood Target, and today I hung my sweaters and a few other shirts on them. What a difference! Opening my closet doors is like stepping into one of those boutique stores that hangs every shirt on a wooden hanger that is exactly three inches from the next item of clothing. Those stores feel like exclusive spas for clothing. And now so can my closet! My clothes look ok on plastic hangers, but they look spectacular on wooden hangers. I want to wear everything!

Granted, only 24 (out of how many, I don't want to know) items are on my fancy upscale hangers, and the closet situation is a bit cozier than the spa-like boutiques. Apparently wooden hangers take up more space than plastic hangers, so maybe switching over to all wooden hangers is not the way to go. I am already encroaching on B's space in the closet, and with all wooden hangers, I might just take over the whole thing--and that wouldn't be fair (he has more clothing than I do!).

For now, I'll keep myself happy with my 24 hangers and will consider buying another package, if the right mood strikes and I decide that my closet needs another cheap make-over.

Shopping update

The packing lists for Italy (in a spreadsheet) and Germany (in my head) have fewer and fewer to-buy items--not because I'm eliminating items from the list, but because I'm buying them. Here are a few recent purchases.

Winter gear.

For our Germany/Austria winter trip, we got new jackets and fleeces that button right into them at EMS. B got a lightweight rain jacket and has been wearing it in this month's chilly showers and cold days--so far, so great. My jacket is a bit too warm (did you ever think I would say something like that? I'm still a little in shock myself...) so it will have to wait until the fall for its fashion debut.

In other warmth news, I wanted to get some waterproof and warm boots to go with my new coat, and I happened upon this great pair at zappos.com. They're made by Sorel, which is a company that even I know. I ordered them in blue to match my new jacket, and I'm so pleased with them. They're warm and comfortable and not too heavy (but maybe not quite comfortable enough to wear on the plane--we'll have to see how much room we have in our luggage). I'm going to try to wear them around the house to break them in. The neighbors might think something was wrong with me if I started wearing winter boots on B's and my evening strolls.

In other unrelated news, zappos.com might just be my new favorite website. They offer free shipping both ways, so if you don't like what you ordered, you can return it at no cost--and you have up to a year to return an item. I'm a big fan. But more shoe purchases will have to wait a while because I have a few more planned purchases...

Rain gear.

Apparently, it rains in Italy. Sometimes, it rains a lot. I'm not one for getting wet, and I have managed to find fault with all of my water-resistant and water-proof options, so I decided that buying something new was my best bet. I ordered a cute blue rain jacket from REI, but as it turns out, the sleeves on REI clothing are not long enough for some of us. The jacket went back, and I remembered my first choice in rain gear.

The red raincoat is from travelsmith.com and is more than twice the price that I wanted to pay for a raincoat, but it's waterproof, doesn't wrinkle, and packs into a small space in its own little travel bag. I haven't ordered it yet, so I have no idea if it will fit, but I called the company to find out sleeve lengths, and I think they should be ok.

My next planned purchase, right, is a pair of water-resistant pants from athleta.com. I received their catalog and decided to take a look through, and I was surprised to find something that I liked (and, in fact, didn't even know existed). Water-resistant pants that aren't designed for the ski slopes sound like the best invention since waterproof boots. The pants come in a tall size that should be just long enough for me.

Having dry pants is important, especially when you're on vacation. On the one day that it poured in France during our honeymoon, we happened to be at Disneyland Paris, and the bottoms of my jeans were soaking wet within the first 15 minutes of arriving. Osmosis was not helping the situation. I was on the verge of having a mini-meltdown and going home crying all the way on the subway due to being wet and cold and generally unhappy. A well-timed pizza luncheon saved the day, but I think the situation could have been prevented with better clothing. I don't want something like that to happen while we're on our Italian adventure.

Oh, the frugality.

It's not all about shopping in the H household--sometimes I make do with what I've got. For instance, I had been considering buying new Merrells to replace the brown and black Merrells that I took to France because they don't provide as much support as they used to. But then the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that I wouldn't find shoes that I love as much as the ones that I have. Instead of buying replacement shoes, I'm going to buy new insoles for them. Bravo to me--such economy.

I have also saved money (that is the bright-side way of looking at the situation) by deciding not to replace my fleece jacket. The cream-colored jacket that I have now (and have had since college) is a little worn, but I decided that it can handle one more vacation, especially since it's been on nearly every vacation that we've taken and is featured prominently in many vacation photos. The cream fleece has become a vacation tradition, and I just don't think I can leave her behind. I could also take the new black fleece that I goes with my winter jacket, but will black look out of place in September? Perhaps some more research is necessary.

The evolution of Pudgy the budget

Our budget, codename Pudgy, has been evolving since its pre-wedding creation, but I think it's in really good shape nows. The lesson that I've learned over the past few months is that creating a budget is much easier than sticking to the budget. Here's a rundown of how we created our budget and are attempting to follow and maintain it.

Expenses.
This is the depressing section. It's hard to list all of your expenses, especially if you have a lot. But acknowledging the damage that you've done while shopping with wild abandon is the best way to prevent it from happening again.

In this section, we list our expenses/bills, the costs, and the due date (where applicable). We have three categories of expenses: Fixed bills, variable bills, and variable expenses.

• Fixed bills cost the same every month and include our mortgage, student loans, insurance, cable/internet/phone, and cell phones.
• Variable bills are due monthly but vary in cost and include electric, gas (for heating our house), water, and sewer.
• Variable expenses are a bit of a gray area. This category includes groceries, gas (for our cars), entertainment (for movies and the like), dining out, our allowances, and household.

Our theory is that the individual variable bills and expenses will change from month to month, but the sum of the money spent should never exceed the money budgeted for all variable costs. Last month, we failed at this task miserably. More on that later.

The variable expenses are hard to figure out if you don't have hard data, and examining your bank statements and categorizing your expenses can be, well, depressing. We skipped this step and based our numbers on what we thought was reasonable. Naturally, our estimates were low. We're still trying to figure out the balance between idealistic and realistic numbers.

Savings.
This is the uplifting section. Saving money makes you feel good, and it's addictive. The more you have, the less you want to spend it because you want to see it grow even more. We've set up auto-deductions to guarantee that we save something every month. We have long-term (our next house), short-term (vacations, furniture, house and car repairs, and other unexpected expenses), and emergency ("you never know") savings. We track our auto-deductions (and their effect on our budget) in the spreadsheet--because while saving is actually a way of paying yourself, a savings debit is still a negative entry on the old blotter.

Month-by-month analysis.
If you thought the expenses were sad, you ain't see nothin' yet. Just wait till you spend all of this time figuring out the numbers--and then you don't follow them. I hung my head in shame, metaphorically (I thought it might be uncomfortable to actually do it), after we compared our April budget to our actual spending in April.

B computed the over/under for each category, and April was not a good month for sticking to the budget. For future months, we will do interim analyses throughout the month to see how we're doing. If, after months of over- or underspending in one category, we can decide if we need to modify the number (or maybe just our spending).

A primer on painting

When we first saw our condo, we loved the layout and the light and many other aspects of it. However, we found a few areas for improvement, including the colors of the walls. The combo living/dining room was painted a dark orange-y red and forest green. One particularly wretched bedroom was pink (walls and carpet), and nearly everything else was brown, including the ceiling of my bathroom. (Who paints a bathroom ceiling brown?? Isn't a windowless bathroom cavelike enough?)

We painted rooms in order of wretchedness--the worst came first. First up (before we even moved in) was the living room first. That project took a gallon of primer, two gallons of paint, two weekends, several disagreements, and more blue tape than I'd care to remember. But every time we look at our Morning Sunshine walls, we are happy. I love the color.

The downstairs bathroom got a daring makeover--it went from brown to red. Benjamin Moore has a color called simply Red, and that's what we wanted. It's bold and beautiful and perfect.

The guest bedroom, aka pink nightmare, became a beautiful turquoise-y blue. It's beachy and fun and I feel like I'm on vacation every time I'm in the room. I don't really notice the pink carpet anymore.

Our bedroom went from a dull, blue-gray (I didn't think I disliked any shades of blue, but I disliked that bedroom color) to Antique Yellow--creamy and warm and light. Our bedroom is a sanctuary of warmth and happiness.

We've had nothing but success so far, but every time I paint, I worry about what I'll do if I don't like the color. Granted, our color-choosing process is pretty extensive (for example, we've had two paint chips hanging in our hallway for over a year as we have tried to decide between them), but mistakes happen. I knew that sooner or later, I would choose unwisely. And sure enough, I did.

Our kitchen was, naturally, brown. We were able to live with it these past (nearly) two years, but we never liked the color and always planned to change it. I think we put the project off because we were scared to paint above the cabinets. But two weeks ago, we decided that enough was enough, and it was time to say good-bye to the brown kitchen.

My original plan was to paint our kitchen an orange-y yellow (called Nacho Cheese), but orange would have clashed terribly with the tile backsplash and lino floor. Our only option was some sort of off-white color. We went to the local hardware store and picked out a few paint chips, none of which I was super excited about. It's hard to match someone else's color scheme, especially if you wouldn't have chosen it yourself.

We settled upon Butter Pecan, an off-white color that is tinted with a hint of brown. We used the leftover primer from our bedroom to cover the brown, and I was loving the results (the primer was tinted in the Antique Yellow color). Then we put on our first coat of Butter Pecan, and I began to get an unsettled feeling in my stomach. I didn't like the new color as much as the primer color. It was lighter and felt colder.

B (who has an uncanny ability to sense my moods) asked nonchalantly, "So...how do you like it?" I waited a few moments and then cried out, "I like the primer better!" He said he suspected as much. The only problem was that he liked the Butter Pecan color better. He thought it looked brighter and cleaner.

I tried to convince myself that Butter Pecan was ok. I reminded myself that I chose the color. I told myself to sleep on it and approach the situation in a calm and collected manner the next day. We had bought only a quart of paint and needed to put on another coat, but by this time it was Sunday afternoon and all of the hardware stores were closed, so a decision was going to have to wait until the next day anyway.

The next morning, I greeted my new kitchen with a grimace. "Oh, you, again," I thought. I still didn't like the Butter Pecan. I wanted my Antique Yellow back!

All that day, I went back and forth between Butter Pecan and Antique Yellow. I felt bad choosing a color, seeing that B liked it, and then changing my mind and going with a different color. In the end, though, I made the (admittedly, somewhat selfish) decision to get the Antique Yellow. It might not have B's preferred color, but it didn't incite anger in him the way that the Butter Pecan did with me, so I decided that it was the safer bet for both of us.

And our new kitchen is just beautiful.

Putting an end to the excess

The past week has been characterized by depressing realizations.

Depressing realization #1: I have failed Budgeting 101.
B and I have a monthly budget that we are apparently unable to follow. This evening, we ran the expenses for last month and discovered that our "Household" budget ran over by--I'm cringing--300 percent. The Household budget allows for smaller-scale home purchases, such as decorational items, paint, and any number of other random expenses. At this rate of spending, I will never be able to buy real lamps for our living room or art to hang on our naked walls. I'm not sure how we managed this budgeting overachievement, but buying sticks for a vase in our living room was partially to blame. We should have known better and plucked them from my parents' yard.

Also in the Bad News Budgeters category is our Dining Out budget, which ran over by (when compared to Household, an admirable) 100 percent. However, comparing worse to worser and thinking that you came out ahead is like praising yourself for managing to make it through the day without pouring the contents of a cement truck into your attic--small praise indeed.

Depressing realization #2: Ice cream has calories.
I knew that ice cream has calories. But I didn't know that it has as many calories as it actually does. On a whim, I took a look at the nutritional information on my Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Next time I have a similar whim, I will be sure to ignore it until it passes.

My pint of ice cream has 4 servings of 250 calories each. Now 250 calories is a lot. But when you consider that I usually eat half of the pint in each sitting, the situation is even more dire. I am eating five hundred calories worth of ice cream less than an hour before bed--several times per week! No wonder my jeans have been a bit on the tight side. I guess I can't blame the dryer anymore. Le sigh.

In conclusion.
It's time to stop indulging whims like it's going out of style. It's time to buckle down and follow the rules that we set up! From here on out, I am on budgeting and ice cream probation.

Dressed for Teutonic success

The clothes that I pack for a vacation are of great concern to me in the months leading up to a trip. For a cruise that B and I took a few years ago, I planned my outfits for every day. Every day featured two outfits, and they were carefully plotted in (of course) an Excel spreadsheet. The daytime outfits were specially designed to fit with the excursions that we picked for each day, such as closed-toe shoes for our ziplining terror in Jamaica. The nighttime outfits were dressier because you have to dress up for dinner on a cruise, though only two nights required formalwear.

We nearly had to pay overweight-luggage fees on that vacation, so in the spirit of Yankee frugality, I have since scaled back on the quantity of clothing that I pack for each trip. However, the clothing planning is no less rigorous and begins the day that we book plane tickets.

My compulsive planning tendencies mean that I am currently planning the clothing that I will pack for two vacations, a daunting task that I am tackling with the excitement that--I suspect--few would feel. My packing list for Italy is nearly finished, so now my focus is on Germany.

I posted on the Rick Steves question-and-answer boards to ask what style of jacket we should wear in Germany to fit in with other Germans. The answers were mixed, but a few people mentioned having success with lighter-weight winter jackets and lots of layers. Although May is probably not the ideal time of year to buy a winter jacket (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), we headed to our local EMS to see if they had any leftover items on the sale rack.

The women's sales rack had few options, and most of them were sized XS--a tad petite for my statuesque frame. We both headed to the men's rack and found some great jackets. As it turns out, men's jackets have very long sleeves--long enough even for me! We both picked up lightweight jackets (Ben's is lighter than mine--more like a spring jacket--a great rain coat) and fleeces that button right into them. Our jackets are water-resistant, windproof, and have more pockets than we can count. There is plenty of room for stashing passports, cash, cards, room keys, and maybe even the occasional Christmas market souvenir.

And now on to shoes--what kind of shoes do Germans wear in the winter? I think more research is in order.

Coming home to gang violence

B and I have, shall we say, different tastes in movies. I like movies with happy endings, minimal drama, and music montages (bonus points if there is a wedding). B likes movies that are in the genre that I have coined "Guns and Cigarettes." Guns-and-cigarettes movies are characterized by violence, coarse language, and lots of smoking (bonus points if the mafia is involved). B's movie tastes are, as I have learned, similar to his tastes in video games.

Before B and I started dating, he had been committing his free evenings to playing the video game "Grand Theft Auto" (aka GTA). The game allows free-form play--for example, you can earn Good Person points (that's my own term, I have no idea what they're really called) for driving ambulances and rescuing people. Or, you can take on missions that involve kidnapping people and driving them off piers, or you can simply incite gang violence, steal cars, and shoot anyone who gets in your way. I'm not sure what the goal of the game is, but a secondary goal is just to stay alive.

B put the game away when we started dating (I am, after all, way more fun and interesting than gang violence), but the recent press for a new release of a game in the GTA series has renewed his interest in the game. My evening shower time, which he used to use for foraging in the kitchen and later for doing his Navy SEALs workout routine, is now dedicated to playing GTA. And when he plays, you can hear the echoes of the machine gun throughout the house.

I can relate to having strange obsessions, even of the video game variety. I think it's safe to say that I have played just a little too much Tetris in the past, and I have the tendency to become single minded in some of my pursuits. Luckily, most of my crazy obsessions are short lived, and after burning brightly for a couple weeks, they fizzle out and return to normalcy. For now, I'm enjoying how excited he gets when he plays, and I'm hoping that the upcoming golf season will be inspiration for new and different pursuits.