Sweatpants, West Wing and Uno

It’s raining. It’s Wednesday afternoon and it’s raining. It started raining Monday morning and has pretty much been raining since. So, any plans I may have had to leave seemed to have been soiled. But, luckily, I didn’t or don’t have any plans to leave. And by the way this rain looks, I probably won’t be leaving until February. Which is troublesome because I’m not sure I have enough Ramen Noodles to last me that long. I may start eating frogs, since they seem to flourish in abundance here in my house. Mostly in the bathroom. So maybe eating them isn’t such a good idea. Seriously though, there’s nothing to worry about on the food front, plenty of rice and potatoes to keep me plump enough for the Big Bad Lobo. And plenty of hair on my chinny chin chin too for that matter.

I’m turning a bit Bolivian. How can I tell this? Because I no longer go out when it rains. Not just out of my house, I hardly leave my room. If I do leave my room, it’s to fill up my water bottle and empty my bladder, a process which I then reverse once returning to my room. I also muster up the courage to run up to the kitchen in the rain to get food every 5 or 6 hours and a cup of hot chocolate mixed with coffee. About a half hour ago I was forced to leave my pajamas for the first time in two days to head out because we were out of coffee and milk. Don’t worry, once I got back to my room, my pajamas found there way back on. Speaking of pajamas, I would like to take this time to personally thank my parents for making a special trip just to bring me my Ohio State sweatpants, quite possibly the most comfortable lower-extremity cover in the history of the world. And the best part is, they still smell like good ‘ol Cincinnati Tide. I am leary of wearing them too much so they don’t lose the smell, I’ll let you know how that goes. Talk about living in the third world making you appreciate the little things…the smell of Tide is definitely one of those. Since they were down here already bringing the sweatpants, I decided it might be a good idea to show my parents around Bolivia a little bit, which was great…but that’s a story for another day. Because today it’s raining.

I’m not going to lie, it’s been a relaxing couple of days. My parents also brought down a pack of Uno cards, which my host family has fallen in love with. Since I taught them how to play, it has become all we do. Here’s how it usually goes when I come in from the office at lunchtime.

Me: Good afternoon family
Them: Good afternoon Benjamín. How about some Uno?
Me: Sounds good. After lunch?
Them: We’ll worry about lunch later, sit down and start shuffling.

Because they don’t know how to shuffle. Or at least do the bridge. (Totally random side story: I remember the day I taught myself how to do the bridge. I was probably 8 or 9 and I had seen someone, most likely Uncle Ron or Aunt Bea shuffling cards and asked them how I could learn that and they just said “you just have to keep practicing.” So a few days later…I think it was a Saturday, I went to work with my dad…we went to Burgundy Court to pour part of the pool deck…Bill Tepe was helping that day, which was a little weird. Anyway, I had brought a deck of cards and instead of working that hard I just practiced and practiced until I got it. Ok, back to Bolivia.) So we play Uno, and they love it, especially when someone has to keep picking cards until they get one they can play. They hoard the Wild cards until the end too, which is endlessly obnoxious…like not moving your back row in checkers. But it’s fun, I like watching them laugh…and when people come over, they teach them too. So we’ve been playing a lot of Uno during these rainy days as well.

I have not been completely unproductive. I finished one book (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey) and started another (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins), I’ve done a lot of work on spreadsheets (my whole life is a spreadsheet) and drawings of well drilling parts that I have needed to catch up on for a long time now. It’s amazing what I can get done with some chocolate coffee, a white patio chair and some music. Well, and having an Apple iBook G4 certainly helps as well. A friend of mine has lent me some West Wing DVD’s as well. I am currently in possession of all of Seasons 3, 4, and 5. I told myself I was only going to watch one episode a day, which I was never capable of even in college, when there was many other things I should have been doing. Jody and I would spend a whole Sunday on Doug’s sister’s horridly ugly but extremely comfortable couch at our apartment on Highland watching episode after episode. Around 6pm or so we would decide that getting food and perhaps starting our homework was a good idea. Anyway, when I had Seasons 1 and 2, I stuck to the one episode a day rule and was quite proud of myself. But, since it has started raining, I’ve plowed through about 10 episodes in the last two days. If the rain keeps up, I’ll probably finish season 5 by the end of the week. But God Bless the West Wing. This is going to sound extremely corny, but it seriously inspires me to work harder…well, at least when I can find time between episodes. No joke though, watching this show makes me want to find a job that will make me want to work as hard as they do in the show. Something that is worth working that hard for, you know? Something where going back to the office after midnight is a fun thing and not a pain in the butt. Yeah I know I’m young and idealistic and it’s just a TV show and I’ve never really had a real job, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with thinking like that.

Well, it hasn’t stopped raining since I started writing this. However, if you are reading this, it means that it DID stop raining, at least long enough for me to get out of my site and get to the internet to post this blog entry. It has probably started up again since then. I’m going to reward myself for writing this by watching another West Wing episode. Will Bailey just came on board and things are getting interesting…

Send a helicopter and instructions, I’ve always wanted to learn. Then again, maybe don’t…I could handle a few more days of this…

Ben