Tuesday, September 26th, 2006

Hi, this is Uma (a friend of Erica’s from college) logging in for an inevitably long and windy update. I certainly won’t be as eloquent as Erica, but I do have her looking over my shoulder to watch my language.

On my first day being a 27 year old, I flew to Boston to see Erica. I arrived at 7am and went straight to bed. Erica didn’t mind as she was up to sleeping till noon that day as well. When we awoke our first item of business was to listen to some kick ass mix CD’s that Mr. Erik Patterson created with his blood, sweat and tears. The most memorable moment in this montage was seeing Erica writhing around in bed and rocking out to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”.

That night Jaci, Erica and I had a true girls night watching two of the best shows on TV: The Office and Grey’s Anatomy. We all got a little misty eyed when Bailey collapsed near the end. You know the scene.

On the 22nd, we were all invited to their neighbors’, Amelia and Mike, for dinner. They were dog sitting and their dog clearly had a crush on Lola (Jaci’s dog). After a scrumptious dinner, Mike took the dogs for a walk and came back after two minutes, quite panicked. A skunk had sprayed both dogs!! The next two hours went by as Amelia, Mike and Jaci showered the dogs with hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish soap. Erica and I did the dishes and ate cookies. Needless to say, it was a great way to bond with the neighbors.

On the 23rd, lo and behold Jonathan Murray and Ted Sheets (also from the college days) arrived. Or at least we thought they did. They too arrived in the early AM but did not make contact until the early PM. When the boys FINALLY arrived we headed over to Erica’s friends’ (Gioia, Katie, and Evelyn) house for Afghanistan food (yummy in my tummy as Jonathan put it). After a thoroughly satisfying meal we settled into a game of Settlers. Yeah, you can probably guess what that means. A very complicated and therefore hard to learn game that had Jonathan rolling his eyes a lot and texting on his cell phone. Ironically, Ted and Gioia won, being the fully white team. Erica and I protested for our people (the darkies) but to no avail.

On the 24th we started our day with a lovely afternoon of arts and crafts. Erica painted a gorgeous depiction of Lola. Ted drew Lola in pencil and then quickly lost interest. Jonathan drew Ted who looked alarmingly like Adolph Hitler. He then proceeded to draw me, and I had grotesquely large breasts and looked like a relation of Beavis.

I then had the brilliant idea of going to Karaoke. Which was met with groans from everyone but my darling, Erica. We first went to another wonderful restaurant for Korean BBQ. You basically cook the meat on a grill at the table you are sitting at. The poor waitresses tried to cook for us but Erica quickly took over, eying the waitresses with suspicion anytime they tried to help.

Then we headed over to Karaoke and got ourselves a room with a strobe light, tambourines and books filled with lots and lots of oldies but goodies. We sang for 3 hours and Jaci, Jonathan and Ted sang the most. Yep that’s right. The groaners ended up Bogarting the microphone. Memorable tunes of the night were Ted singing Eddie Vedder, Ted and Jonathan singing from Phantom of The Opera, Erica and I jamming to Mmmmbop by Hanson and Jaci singing a beautiful Lisa Loeb song (JON!). The worst song of the night was all of us butchering Eminem.

On the 25th we decided to do a Boston day. We had covered Afghanistan, Korea, and Japan and we headed for somewhere more local….the Barking Crab. A lovely restaurant on the water where live lobsters (Jonathan ran away when we looked at them) and crabs are cooked for patrons to ravage. We got our bibs and went to town.

Ted named his lobster Uma (!) but like a true pansy refused to eat the head of her. Jaci and I had crab legs. She was smart and used her hand. I was not and used my teeth. Jonathan finished his lobster (who he named Bubbles – what is it with grown men and naming their lobsters??) but couldn’t bare to look at it after he was done. So he covered it with lemon pieces to show his respect. Erica topped us all and was the last woman standing as she ate from all of our plates and left no leg unturned. Our waitress said we did quite well for newbies.

The night was finished with a game of Balderdash (which I won!) and Taboo (which Erica and I won!).

And now on the 26th, it is noon. I sit with Erica as she eats her breakfast and we recall the last few days with giggles. I am sad that I have to leave this wonderful girl who is a like a sister to me but who I don’t see nearly enough.

- uma

p.s. Erica LOVES music and feels it is the best therapy for her. So, if you hear a great tune(s) send it our gal’s way because she will be sure to wiggle with glee.