The pulled muscle in my chest is not hurting any more. I know you’ve been on pins and needles waiting to see how that turned out. 🙂 I’m happy because it means I wasn’t having a heart attack or even heartburn. I’m still young. Elisa and I had some “pepper Raclette” last week and it was really good! I was happy to be able to eat all the spicy toppings on the Raclette that I wanted. BTW, we had bought this Raclette cheese at a specialty store. It turns out that there is a big difference between off-brand cheese bought at the grocery store and cheese bought in an authentic rural shop. Elisa and I were in heaven for a meal.
On Monday my group at work moved from the old Google building to the new Google building. They are about a 15 minute walk from each other. The new building is not completed yet. The 5th floor where I am is just a temporary accommodation. The construction is months behind schedule. So during the workday there are people in the next room working with concrete drills! The door between us is thick, but it really doesn’t help. One guy working on the 2nd floor, on the opposite end of the building, says that it’s awful because the whole building is made of concrete, and even from that far away “the drilling might as well be inside your own head.” The facilities team gave us each a souvenir pair of earplugs. At first we thought they were only meant as a joke.
I’ve been spending a lot of time this month working on my computer program that analyzes stocks. Last week I was up until 4 am on three nights. Maybe I’m too old to keep that up forever though.
It’s that time of year again. Elisa and I have known each other for exactly 2 years–that’s all! We invited our friends to come over and bring a box of cereal, to celebrate the quirky get-together where we first met. A tradition in the past is that I make Elisa cry on this day. (That’s how I got her to remember me in the first place.) 🙂 This time Elisa got off easy though.
This year’s party was rambunctious because Baumanns and Sannemans were able to bring their kids. We mixed together sugar and preschool boys and a late night. It was hilarious. Milo dumped a box of cereal on the floor, and kids raced to see how much they could stuff in their mouths from off the rug. Kids teased each other about taking away the Froot Loops box. Mike Christian wanted to tease the kids by pretending to dump cereal on the ground, but really he closed the bag so it wouldn’t spill. Then he accidentally mixed up the boxes, and really did dump a box of cereal on the ground. Then we let Milo borrow our camera, and he invented a game of camera tag. He chased after the other kids and tried to flash the camera at them, and they tried to run away. We got funny pictures of kids under tables and bolting around corners and upside-down on the furniture. 🙂
Just because Elisa is super creative, I have to copy here the poem that she sent out after the party:
Cereal is my favorite treat
at any time of day.
T’was great for Chad and I to meet
in this very kooky way.
Thanks to those who came to eat
and brought a wide array.
We’re sorry it was not complete
as some could not come play.
We’ll repeat the feast replete
four months from next May!
Monday night we headed over to Nik and Rahel’s to have dinner and Family Home Evening. What a fun time. The way to their house takes you past a yummy-smelling chocolate factory. We succumbed and got some some good truffles to snack on. We helped Milo put cherry tomatoes and Mozzarella balls onto tooth picks–but not many of them made it to the tray. I think Milo ate one for every one he completed. As soon as we were done he was convinced we were supposed to start eating them. We ended helping with a new project to avert his attention. We began to sandwich little cookies together with a chocolate-hazelnut filling. His new distraction was dipping his spreading spoon into the bowl of chocolate filling and putting it straight into his mouth.
We had planned to ride our bikes back home that we had left at their place on Saturday but it was too dark. We ended up going back later in the week one evening for another attempt. This time Chad’s front tire was completely flat and we discovered their new unused pump was defective. They tried it on a neighbor’s scooter that was down there just to make sure it wasn’t just a problem with our bike–but no luck. I let all the air out of the scooter’s tire and couldn’t fix it. Some five-year-old is going to be surprised when he finds out!
