I cleaned the flat today, a rare occurrence, in preparation for Ines and her cousin’s visit. As I was beating the dust out of the rugs, I was reminded of a humorous tale from my past life…that one in Nebraska. When I was but a mere boy, 19 years old, I was entering my second year of college. I had agreed to live with Mr. Ryan Frost who, as it would happen, turned out to be my roommate for 3 of the best years of my life. Anyways, we both spent that summer living at our parent’s homes in Omaha, the last summer we would do that, so by August we were very eager to move back to Lincoln for college. Towards the end of the summer, we spent a lot of time planning how to “pimp” our shared room. Yes, in the dormitories of American universities two or more people share a single room. And yes, it is cramped with a lack of privacy, but most people don’t care because they just moved out of their parent’s house. One item that we purchased together for our room was a huge chunk of black and yellow carpet. Shopping for it was an experience in and of itself. We borrowed my parent’s van and visited various carpet warehouses; it was like we were a newlywed couple. The real experience with this piece of carpet, though, was getting it to our room. Our room was on the 11th floor of a 13 floor building. Unfortunately for us, our hunk of carpet did not fit in the elevator. Thus, we had to drag, push, and yank this damn heavy carpet up 22 flights of stairs (2 per floor). To make things more miserable, if I remember right, the stairwells weren’t air conditioned…and August in Nebraska is damn hot. We probably sweat out a couple kilos just getting the carpet into our room. After getting it there, we had to cut it up so that it fit into our tiny little room. But all the trouble was completely worth it. That was the coolest carpet I’ve ever owned…way cooler than the pink rug I inherited from Ines when she left Finland (though I do like this rug).

In other news, I’m doing an experiment tonight that should last from about 1630 until 0030. It’s crazy…what was I thinking when I planned this. It is like my roommate that watches bird mating behaviour at 4 in the morning during the spring time. Sometimes biology just doesn’t fit into a normal working schedule. Oh well.

Dan