guess who won't sleep tonight

we're going to boston! whoo!

and it's currently 10:01 pm, and we haven't cleaned, packed, printed tickets, OR driven mara and santiago's car to the airport yet. or taken care of our nourishment for tomorrow--that probably should've gone first.

but we're totally excited about joining the chinatown commuters tomorrow for the dc-ny/ny-boston shindig. cheer for us. and cheer for the ericksons, who so kindly invited us to their home for the fourth after we asked if we could come! we've gotten really good at helping people realize how much they want to invite us to do stuff this summer.

i play the new regina cd incessantly from npr's "first listen," and i think nick's nice and sick of it. i like to sing the same two lines over and over and over and over without realizing it, which is probably his favorite part.

at work, lauren--my fellow office peon--and i have been "studying for the GRE" by memorizing a box of kaplan tutors' GRE WORDS IN A BOX. there are 500 of them, and whenever there's been a lull in pressing tasks--only about 8.5 of the 10 hours i'm there each day, with lunch considered pressing--we learn new words. we've instigated a HWR word of the day on the hours board. it's amazing how many words we never knew we didn't know. we've also developed the habit of exchanging frequent emails inundated with disgustingly orotund invectives. and i'm pleased to announce that we successfully flipped through all 500 words today, able to define each one. it's pretty awesome (not one of our words, by the way). i think it's making jane question how undemanding she is with our task load, though.

ps, nick and i went to the zoo on saturday before chillin' with lau and steve in our beloved low-ceilinged apartment. nick gets REALLY REALLY angry at the ceiling at least once a day when he full-on smashes his head into a sharp edge. i keep suggesting that he duck lower, and he keeps glowering at me like a hungry bear. i don't get it. the zoo is fun. we spent an inordinate amount of time looking at bugs through the kids' microscopes and playing the "language game" in the monkey house. that was an edifying experience. basically, you sit on opposite sides of a table divided (or bifurcated, if you will) in half by a low board so you can't see over. each person has an octagon, a rectangle, a triangle, and a trapezoid. one person makes a pattern on his side and then tries to explain it to his partner. nick went first, and i made an identical pattern within 3 or 4 minutes. then i made a pattern and spent the next 15 or 20 minutes trying to get him to understand what to do with his infernal pieces. he kept telling me i couldn't say that the trapezoid leans left, because that depends on which end you start on and which way it's flipped. i insisted that it was leaning left. he kept asking me where my octagon was, which i thought i'd explained when i said to tip it on its side and stick it there. he said it made no sense to slide the rectangle along the trapezoid so they made a point. i disagreed and demonstrated multiple times on a board he couldn't see. and so on and so forth.

i'm not trying to make a metaphor or anything, of course.

finally, i repeat: this world is full of crazy people. i've been exposed to a whole new realm (ken!) of crazy these past few days. i reallyreallyreally want to blog about the particular joys of my job, but that's probably not allowed. siiiiiiigh. everyone just close your eyes for a second and imagine it...

i love nick. he's lovely.
wish us luck tomorrow! i'm sure we'll be rife with stories come midnight!