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On Friday Aaron retold a good joke to me. It was a Stephen Wright joke. “I plan to live forever – so far so good.”

Stephanie and James were going away for the weekend so the pug dog is over for a few days. It must be an odd experience for Leelin to go back and forth between locations. Some people think that Sarah and I have joint custody of Leelin as though he was a child from a failed relationship. This weekend we scheduled a play date with Manju, a female pug puppy owned by Hattie’s friend Alex, and then we left Leelin at Alex’s place. From Leelin’s perspective he had been at his home, then kidnapped into our apartment, and then transported to another apartment and abandoned for half the day. I never recall having play dates as a child. We would just get beaten-up by the Griffins, the family across the street. A play date with friends of a friend who we casually know is an interesting social experience because we don’t actually know each other very well. Our dogs know each other much better than we do. So we spent time at the table introducing ourselves as the dogs would clamber up and down our legs to stop for a break before pouncing and panting into other rooms. Dog owner bonding is an interesting situation. Most of the time when you walk your dog it takes about thirty interactions with an owner peer before you learn their name. People go by the names of Manju’s owner or Spike’s father and you can learn many things about them like the colleges their children go to, professions, and illnesses long before you actually learn their names. But a play date means you have some real quality time amidst the yapping to get to know your fellow owners. It is hard not to feel a bit awkward given that we aren’t actually dog owners, just pug-sitters a couple of times a month.

Alex had brought food from a Japanese bakery for us all to eat while the pug dogs skidded in circles around the wooden floors. The Japanese had made some progress on standard baked goods by inventing new items like a croissant covered with egg salad. I noticed that they have a Roomba vacuum and don’t have rugs on the floor. We talked about the tassel limitation of the Roomba. The problem is that it can’t deal with rugs with tassels and because the rug in my living room has tassels the Roomba has been retired. Alex retired his rug instead of the Roomba.

Alex is a video game developer so he gave us a demo of his latest game, Antigrav, a game that uses a camera to allow the user to control the action in the game by moving their body. It looks like a great workout. I can’t wait for the people at the gym to come-up with some work-out games based on the same technology. He also gave a demo of how the pugs chase the laser pointer. Alex will often take the laser pointer at the end of a session of laser chasing and direct it under a door leaving Manju to guard the door in anticipation of when the red dot will return for another game. We had been talking about the top-secret world of pet gaming but every development is hush-hush at the moment.

Kim came to help us organize in the afternoon. Sarah had her sights set on invading and cleansing Jeremy’s room. We had moved a lot of our junk and furniture from the other rooms into Jeremy’s room and yesterday we opened Pandora’s room. Many items could still find new homes like Marshfield, my new office at Viapoint, return to Stephanie, garbage, and for the two biggest items we hatched a plan to redistribute in a socialist capitalist way on craigslist. So we posted a couple of ads for the recliner and an entertainment center. Kim and I got into a brief argument that there is nothing entertaining about a piece of furniture so it should be called a TV holder but the Sears catalog vindicated Kim’s opinion by clearly labeling a similar item as an Entertainment center. The craigslist ads got an immediate response of about seven people all asking the same question – “Is the entertainment system still available”. It is tough to reply to these people. I would prefer that they said – I want your entertainment system. So I have candidates of people interested in these items but nobody has taken the time to haul them away for me. There should be a clearer etiquette when you give away junky furniture on craigslist. Now I have a whole bunch of people and nobody has taken the furniture. Before we finished Sarah decided to purchase a shag carpet from Target and I didn’t oppose it because I thought that the lack of tassels would give the Roomba a new opportunity to roam in the living room. But I decided to buy a wireless mouse from Gyration so that I could better control the living room PC (the current mouse is on the fritz) as long as we were making unnecessary Internet purchases.

Last night Sarah and I set out on a mission to see the Improv Boston 8PM show. I had told the folks in my class that I would be there for the 8PM. I had a stiff neck because I had forgotten my headphones and had chosen a machine underneath the televisions with closed captioning. With all of the snow blocking parking spaces we drove around Cambridge for about half an hour before realizing that we didn’t have a chance at parking within a mile of Improv Boston. So we drove near Bertuccis and Cuchi-Cuchi and stopped for dinner. Cuchi-cuchi was filled completely with overdressed Brahmin Bostonians out for a good meal so we figured we didn’t have much of a chance of getting a seat. But when we went to the counter to check the wait the woman told us it was our lucky day and that we should buy a lottery ticket because although there was a two hour waiting list for any other size group, she could seat a table for two immediately. So Sarah and I decided that we were going to declare Saturday night an early Valentine’s Day and for once celebrate a stupid holiday early rather than late by having a nice dinner. I still think that Cuchi-Cuchi is the best place to go for a funky upscale dinner and drinks in Boston. Last night was no different with the wait staff dressed fully for the evening in fettish gear, gaudy jewelry and vintage 20’s outfits.


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