Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

There's not really much to talk about this week. We played games with friends Sunday evening. Rebecca worked during the week days. Wayne worked on school projects pretty much whenever he wasn't sleeping. Rebecca met Wayne on campus several nights and read while he worked on projects. There really wasn't too much else to the week. Even Saturday most of the day Rebecca took care of errands while Wayne worked on school projects.

I suppose somewhat noteworthy, we renewed our rental agreement on Saturday. So I guess we're staying put in the same apartment for another 12 months, but after that I put bets on us moving; this apartment complex is "cutting us a deal" to renew this time around, but the "going rate" is easily 14% more than it was 9 months ago when we moved here! That is crazy inflation, I tell you what. Fortunately we'll only be paying a little more (comparatively speaking) to stay put -- less than we figure we would pay in getting a moving truck and piano mover at least.

We're designing some enhancements to our cat scratching post/pedestal for Star cat. We're trying to give her some more puzzles because she loves them so. Mother's day was good here...Wayne made a delicious breakfast of french toast (with cheese! call me crazy...) and an impressive salmon dinner with crab-breading and red potatoes on the side. Mmm.

This week we look forward to Wayne finishing the last week of the semester and final projects, and Rebecca will have long work days Tuesday through Friday commuting to San Francisco with a coworker for a training class. At least she's looking forward to the topic of the training class, so hopefully that makes up for the long commute.

There are only two more weeks of this semester left, so naturally that means procrastinating things until the end. Half of the nights this week, I got home at around 9, which meant making dinner, talking with Rebecca and then going to bed. Between that, and reading books until late, and watching more movies than we have all semester...

Wednesday night, Rebecca's old roommate Erika went to dinner with us. While we wanted to go to St. John's Grill (because of their wonderful burgers), the place was packed with people because it was a San Jose Sharks hockey game and St. John's has a few large screen HDTVs. We got there, stood around and waited for a seat to open up. None opened. And then someone scored and the whole place erupted in a scream and we bolted for the door. I think I'll take my meals in quiet, please. Thank you.

After a quieter meal at a different restaurant, we chose to wait outside in the bitter breezy cold in a line that was much too long to get some small 31 cent ice cream cones from Baskin Robins. Rebecca tells me that BR used to do this annually with free ice cream, but they have since started to charge 31 cents (which is still a good deal for ice cream) - I guess I only mention it because it was 10 pm and we were in a long line for ice cream. Who stands in line for ice cream? [we do, as it turns out, because it was an adventure! :) plus the money goes to local firefighters, right? -beck]

Thursday I had a good chat with the head of my department which made me feel better about being here in this school. I'm not sure it encouraged me enough to work really hard - I'm hoping that will come during the summer when I have less distractions from school. But nevertheless, I feel more hopeful about my prospects here at SJSU than I did before and now I understand better why things are in a state of disarray in our department. It will get better. It must get better. I will be a part of making it better.

Mostly Rebecca and I read books in the evenings. But I go to bed so early (11pm), so I don't get enough hours at home to work on things. Perhaps I need to change that. We had a lazy Friday evening and watched Return of the King at home. Saturday was lazy as well (and once again, I haven't touched my 10 page theory paper due next week) and we watched another movie, cleaned house and then played games at Kate and Robi's until late. Rebecca managed to squeeze in going to a baptism for one of her Primary students while I was busy cleaning and running errands.

While it sounds like we didn't do much, I swear we did: it's more that we can't remember it all.

Yesterday was lovely weather. Wayne thought it was Hot, but I thought it was just about perfect in the 80s. So when Wayne got home from helping someone in the ward "move" (and helping paint their house for them because they weren't packed when people showed up to help), he told me he wanted to go swimming as soon as I got back from the primary activity.

So I rushed off to the primary talent show, which was a barrel of laughs. There's just something funny about three 4 year-olds doing a "dance routine." Especially when they forget at the beginning why they are even on stage and one of the mothers is anxiously signaling the steps to the girls to help jog their memories. Hehehe. I loved seeing the kids in my class do their stuff. It was fun seeing what the kids wanted to do for the show, except for the very uncomfortable "discussion" one parent had with their child who was insisting she didn't want to perform after all. With the microphone between the two of them. In the "on" position. I kept inwardly wishing she would just take her 5 year-old off the stage and move on. But it did make me wonder what a good way to encourage your child to be brave is; some parents did nothing when their 8 year-old decided he didn't "feel" like playing the piano; another tried to sit on stage with her 4 year-old child when the child decided halfway through she was done, but left after a couple of moments because the daughter kept her head buried in her mom's shoulder. It probably depends on the child and the circumstance, eh?

Anyway swimming was a blast yesterday. We played a game diving for an object at the bottom of the pool, and racing across the pool. We practiced different strokes. And we only remembered the sunscreen about half an hour into the swimming, so I only stayed in the pool a bit longer and then sat in the shade throwing the object for Wayne to dive for, or timing how long he could stay under water. Fortunately I'm not too pink today at all; there's nothing wrong with pink, except when talking about sunburns!

Friday night we went to a ward dinner, with the theme of "Survivor." This, apparently, is some sort of TV show. No one at our table had a clue what the show was about, but we ended up winning anyway. After a miserable attempt to shoot plastic cups off a table with a toy bow and arrow set, we won or tied all the other events - running with two people tied back-to-back to dump a ball in a bucket, a memory game, and a race to get puzzle pieces from a bucket of rice and put it together. They had "luxury items" or a "leg up" that you could choose when you won; we usually chose the luxury items. The "leg up" just never seemed very helpful when other people chose it. Anyway, it was fun to get to know some other people in the ward.

We wandered around Target looking at kid toys and grown up toys one night last week. :) I think it was Thursday. We had gotten a free coupon for a Jamba juice, and wandered around Target which is next door to Jamba juice, drinking our smoothie.

I went to enrichment Tuesday night while Wayne played racquetball with a friend. I came home with three pots with some seeds that will hopefully grow cilantro, parsley, and basil for us. We will see. At the very least I have some pots now.... So my question is, what else can we grow in pots? Can we grow some type of tomato in a pot? Mmm. We don't have a backyard, but we do have a balcony and a pot (not all of our ten trees have survived over the years...). Strawberries? Could we grow some other vegetables or something? Any advice?

The rest of the week went by quickly. I read all night Monday, trying to finish two books in two days because the library wanted them back (for some reason). Wayne had class and I had work. The usual, you know.

We are in the process of compiling our own travel guides for places we have lived: hopefully an insider's glimpse into these locations. This list is a directory of the best restaurants in the places we have been. These are the sorts of restaurants where you cry when the place shuts down (or even if the chef leaves and it no longer tastes the same); the sorts of places our friend jokes would be "best if you could just burn down the place afterwards so you never forget how great that food was." A bit morbid, but you get the jist - good food. The sort of place you should make a cross-country trip to eat there.

• Zingerman's Deli - Ann Arbor, MI - #38 and the turkey reuben, don't forget to try both kinds of pickles
  
• Ben's Kosher Deli - NYC, NY - get the reuben. you have never tasted a plain corned beef reuben this good. ever.
  
• St. John's Bar & Grill - Sunnyvale, CA - bacon bleu and a side of garlic fries. Wednesday and Saturdays are half price. bring friends because it's too much food. why are there lame chips?
  
• Mr. Villa's - Seattle, WA - anything. everything. i hope they haven't changed.
  
• Sonoma Chicken Coup - San Jose, CA - three words: cheap chicken carbonara
  
• Firehouse Restaurant - Florence, OR - have a bowl of clam chowder and take the next two hours to visit dream land. and the halibut parmesan is worth a 10 hour drive as well.
  
• Rudy's - Austin, TX - i can drink that sauce.
  
• Dawg's Hot Dog Stand - Provo, UT - onions, pickles, pepperchinis, sauce and a polish dog.
  
• Jerusalem Garden - Ann Arbor, MI - it's a tiny house and there's no place to eat. the flavor sticks with you for days.
  
• Diddy Riese Cookies - Westwood (LA), CA - the ice cream sandwich with their fresh cookies is heavenly; (aka "THE cookie place").
  
• BW3s - Ypsilanti, MI - I'm hesitant to put this one on the list because it's a big chain, but the wings are just amazingly good: how can you turn down the spicy garlic or the parmesan?

Last time we left off, we were up in the Santa Cruz mountains at camp Lehi, getting lips punctured, 25 foot flames and dropping off logs that weighed 500 pounds plus. We were sore Sunday and tried to catch up on that trip while preparing for this weekend's trip.

It was Rebecca's birthday, but thanks to my graduate studies, I only actually saw her for a few hours on her birthday. So, we celebrated mostly on Tuesday by going to a mediocre (not our fault!) mexican restaurant and then on Wednesday, Rebecca celebrated alone with a pizza while I was at a lecture. Rebecca got a lot of ecards, phone calls and birthday wishes and she was happy for that [thanks for all the cards and birthday wishes! -beck].

And by the time that was over, it was already Thursday night and we got things cleaned for our trip Friday morning. We woke up early Friday to pack and load up the car and hit the road after morning traffic had dissipated. 10 hours later, we pulled into Florence and had a mediocre seafood dinner at Moe's.

Most of the weekend was rainy. Oregon rain is refreshing, cold and beautiful, especially as the clouds roll off the ocean and brush through the forests. Most of our Saturday was spent lazily playing with Jon and Faith: I couldn't ask for a more relaxing weekend (minus the 20 hours driving). We played lots of rounds of Munchkin Fu and watched a few movies. Because of the rain we didn't get out to the beach until Sunday after church, and because we just didn't want to leave, we made it home at one in the morning last night. Of course, Star cat refused to let us sleep because she was so happy to have us home. But we're safe, home, and now we need to get back into the regular swing of things until the end of the semester.