first of all, theres a cat downstairs named troubador that weighs 30 pounds. im just putting that out there. apparently troubador is not just french but like literally, from france and rumor has it, troubador is blue. troubador lives with francois and francois. our neighbors on the 2nd floor are this surgeon and his mother. the surgeon is kind of awesome and heres why. yesterday we got a letter in our mailbox that, in 3 to 4 paragraphs, outlined his thought process on the idea of potentially buying a drum set: pros, cons, ways to reduce noise, the potential for building quiet hours, etc. we think its pretty awesome and are going to send him a letter back that says DRUM ON BROTHER! or something like that. would it be weird if we started an apartment-wide band? ill take guitar and that cool baobab fruit i got in mali. lucy's got keyboard and violin, and annemarie can play triangle! she can also sing the "dum dum dum" from that one regina spektor song AND she got this cool instrument in chile that might work too.

there was a huge neighborhood wide yard sale yesterday and i put all my junk out in the front yard for an hour or two and sat out there with a book. it was a nice day and i met a bunch of really awesome neighbors. this one lady bought my old moneybelt from when i waitressed at brandt's and one of my tshirts and the next time i saw her she was wearing both! we also have a bunch of kids in our neighborhood which is cool. i sold like 8 bucks worth of stuff and then just took a heap of clothes to rag-o-rama and they gave me 21 bucks and then i brought the rest to the clothing drive and counsel for the blind. point is, i got rid of a lot of shit! woo!

then last night we had our first potluck of the year in the mothership. the theme was that everyone had to bring something with a face. thing is, its mostly vegetarians. the faces were pretty awesome and thoroughly documented. the weirdest thing anyone brought was keith and alex who brought cow tongue. only, believe it or not, they made a face and didn't use the tongue to represent a tongue! very creative. lots and lots of people came which was great and lively. around 11:30 a bunch of us went outside and played KUB, this swedish game that i played like 10000 years ago! turns out keith and aLo have a set. that game is amazing. there were more games when we came inside too - that game where everyone puts a bunch of names in a hat and then you have to draw and describe the person without saying their name and see how many you can get through in a minute.

today was workwork worky but i did run like 5 miles when i woke up and i made new pants (snip snip). kaletomatogoatcheesequesadillas?! phishfoodwithannemarieandROOshy?! homework?!

LAFIA