January of 2009 brought a mixture of relief from holiday travel and excitement towards our plans in the coming months. We returned to Boston the Sunday after New Years day, vowing to never fly again with a certain low-budget airline, lugging suitcases that weighed frightening close to the new 50 lb. cutoff and half heartedly engaged in the same argument that typically takes place as our plane inches down the runway to our gate.
Dori: ”Maybe we should take a taxi back to Brookline.”
Justin: pretends he is asleep and cannot hear Dori
Dori: “I mean, our flight was delayed, we have these heavy bags, it’s cold and snowy… and…”
Justin: “Every time! I knew you were going to bring this up! Why do you always want to take a cab?!?!”
Dori: “…and clearly neither of us are in the mood to deal with the T and other T passengers….at least… you’re certainly not.”
Justin: “I don’t think you realize how expensive taking a cab is.”
Dori: ”I’ve done it more times than you have, and besides it’s a nice way to end our holiday trip. Let’s just splurge.”
Justin: “You know what? Fine. We will take a cab this one time just so you can see how expensive it is. And then, I don’t want to hear about this anymore.”
Dori: ”Are you sure?” (smiles quietly to self) “Because if you don’t want to…”
Justin: It’s FINE! Let’s just focus on getting off this damn plane for now.”
So… 25 minutes later we were off the plan. 25 minutes after that we finally had our 49.7 pound checked bag marked “CAUTION” with a bright pink sticker + 4 carry on bags and were waiting in the taxi line at Logan airport. Approximately 15 minutes and $28 later we were home. Finally! And, Justin finally admitted out-loud that he was wrong about the price of the taxi. Woot!
For the next (roughly) 10 days we barely left our apartment, except for work and to buy food at the grocery store. In part, this was because Boston was hit with 2 snowstorms in the first few weeks of January. But mostly, it was because being away from Boston made us realize how much we missed our city, missed our too small, too cold, smells like old people or overcooked cabbage (take your pick) apartment and missed each other. Don’t get me wrong, we had a GREAT time visiting family and friends in Maryland and Florida during our time away. And we wanted to make the most of that time with our favorite people which meant a lot of late nights, early mornings and busy day time plans too.
So, our first 10 days back home were spent trying to recapture the moments of restful relaxation that typically accompanies a 13 day stint without work. We both skipped our morning work-outs and slept in until 8AM during the week, 10AM or later on the weekend and went to bed at shamefully early times every night. We started and watched nearly all of the HBO series Weeds, caught up on TV shows that had been missed during our time away and ate a lot of pasta (aka: low budget, low effort foods). Folks – we returned to the lazy, sloth-like humans that we had both once been before meeting each other. It was pretty awesome. more…
