Sushi and poker

This time next week I will be getting ready to go to the airport to head back to cold, cold Indiana. I’m sure I’ll find things to do there and people to see though, so it should be fun. I’m excited, but also broke. Why does the federal government take federal taxes out of the federally funded Americorps program living stipends? Beh.

Anyway, I’ve been up since about 730 this morning (it’s only just past 9am now). I’m kindof surprised by that, because yesterday was a pretty busy day. We had to be into the office by 8am, loaded up the vehicles (and tools!) and headed out to do maintenance projects all day. We went to 3 different schools, and each school had about 50 trees. 8am-4pm was full of pruning, stake removals and stake adjustments. I don’t know if that sounds fun or tiring, but it was both. It finally stopped raining ("winter storms") though, so it was sunny and around 55 degrees. It was really pretty out and I was grateful to have a job where I just stand around and look at trees all day.

After work yesterday some of us (Bo, Meghan, Karoline, Vinh, Caroline, Micah, Ian, Carie, Matt, Erin, Monte and I) went to some Japanese restaurant downtown. I had chicken teryaki (boring!) and shared some sushi with Meghan. The sushi was good, but I did have this one that had a big ol’ slab of salmon across the top. Man, I’m so inexperienced with sushi and how to articulate the experience correctly. Anyway, I guess the salmon blob was good but it was extremely squishy. I am one of those picky complainers who can’t eat certain foods, no matter how they taste, based on the texture. I was thinking, damn, this salmon blob tastes like some kind of warm, fluffy, chewy,rubbery marshmallow. Gross. It’s cool, keep chewing. Pretend this is a scientific experiment. It’s probably not cool to just shove the whole thing in your mouth, but I was using a fork (the chopsticks were too hard to maneuver–and therefore too time consuming) so I didn’t really have a choice. I also had Sake (saki?) for the first time though, and it was pretty okay. Better than a lot of the crap I’ve had before.

After that me, Meghan, Karoline and Erin headed back to Bo’s place to play some poker. This sounds so silly because I have never played poker before. I just figured I’d stop being a weiner and do something after work for once. We had some raspberry Sake at Bo’s place (it was good, but really was just like drinking syrup) and beer. It was a fun "ladies night"–especially because I won probably 7 of the 10 hands we played. Yeah, I had poker chips coming out of my ears. Once it hit about 10pm though we all started to get tired (I know, that’s SO early…) and I finally had to leave around 1030. I talked to Paul for a little while and was asleep (I think) before midnight.

Sorry I don’t carry my camera around with me! That would make my entries more interesting. I’m just not the type to snap a lot of pictures at social gatherings (unless it’s close friends, like the ladies in Indiana). Oh well.

Today… well, admission into the best hiking area around here isn’t free today (it’s free tomorrow!) so I probably won’t go hiking. I was thinking I might sit on my ass and work on my Peace Corps essays if I manage to feel creative and inspired enough to do so. I should probably get some crap done on them before I head out to Indiana so I won’t have to worry about it.

Oh, Ian and I never had that talk. He still texts me late at night when he’s been drinking though (classy!), and said he wants to do something today. I’m not so sure if that will happen. Man, if only I could make a full time job out of refusing to hang out with people.