Unquestionably, i have learned a lot from blogging thus far.  But, i have learned one hard and fast rule.  If I blog about anything going in or coming out of my body, i will lose a blog follower.  Now i know that there has to be a floor to this effect, as i know a good number of my followers, and i also know them to have a high tolerance for the fluid talk. 

Early on i decided that this was a trade off i was willing to make.  the fact is, a percentage of my life (considering i test couples' saliva for a living at the moment, this percentage may be higher than you think) deals with bodily fluids.  And as passionate as i am about equality and not hanging strangers hang their nasty ass bathing suit outside their locker, at times i can be equally passionate about poop, saliva, and boogers.  I like to think (rationalize) that this just adds to my renaissance man appeal.  You can win with everyone, and i choose to lose with people who can't take civil discourse on the merits of nasal exploration.

Let's move on.

Last night mmf and i did something that blew my mind . . . but before i do that i need to tell you some brief background.  Over the new year, mmf and i moved to a new digs.  I had lived at my last residence for almost 5 years (mmf was there for 2.5 of them), and frankly we just started to outgrow it.  So, in looking for a new place we had some criteria:

1. Bigger
2. Off-site landlords (while i loved my past landlords, we were ready to be out of the "in-law apartment" phase of our life).
3. dog friendly
4. bathroom next to the bedroom (past apartment you had to walk upstairs to pee (the bedroom was in the basement)

Our new place is bigger.  Much bigger. It's a house.  There is color on the walls.  A washing machine in the basement and a dry attic up top.  Check.  The property is managed by a nice guy who owns a property management firm, and the owner lives in the town over.  Check.  The new place is dog friendly and has a backyard (when not covered in 2 feet of snow of course).  Check.  The bathroom is  . . . downstairs from the bedroom.  No check.  That said, at least we no longer sleep underground.  Having the sun hit my face in the morning is a revelation.  It's been way too long.

All up, the positives far outweighed the negatives -- and we jumped at the opportunity.  Total travel distance = 1.3 miles.   We moved down the road.  Unfortunately, we still had to move everything.  That part is always sucky.

Back to the story.   In our old place, mmf and i ate japanese-style using a large long glass coffee table as our dinner table.  In our new place, not only do we have room to use our actual kitchen table, but the addition of the dog certainly motivates us to do so.  Grover isn't a super annoying beggar or anything, but he is a dog, and he does love food. 

So, last night mmf and i did something that blew my mind -- we ordered pizza, and when we sat down to eat, we laid the box right on the table with our plates!!!  For as long as i can remember -- at least a decade, whenever i ate pizza, the box was placed on the floor next to us, in the kitchen on the counter waiting for us to come get our next slice, or even on the coffee table as we sat with our plates on the couch (back in boston).  But never was the eating of pizza civilized enough to accommodate both our plates and the pizza box.  As i stood next to the table just staring at the box/plate set-up remarking, "Wo wo wo."  Mmf looked back and said, "Right!?!" 

This is apparently one of those hidden perks of growing up.