Secret Handshake

A lot of little things happened last week, none of which were worth their own post. The event that made me the happiest, while not the most exciting, was learning the secret handshake at the gym. While not an actually physical manifestation of camaraderie, we still feel privileged to know this new information, which is this: you don't have to pay $108 a month to belong to the gym. They make you think you do because that's what they tell you when you sign up. But, after an undisclosed amount of time being a member and paying a billion dollars a month, you can downgrade your membership to any number of veiled secretive options.

We were prompted to ask because our boss said he only pays $70 a month on the condition that he can only go to the one gym rather than all the gyms in the chain. So we thought we'd ask for that. When we did, Mr. Gym Membership man said we could do an even cheaper "off peak" option, allowing us only to go to the gym between 10-4pm on weekdays. We go every day at lunch, so that was perfect. And it only costs $52 a month - 50% savings, booya! So, sadly, that was the highlight of my week. I love saving money too much.

Other than that, we got to help Marc and Alana move (yes, I wrote "got to" because they read this blog sometimes). Just kidding, it was easy since they only moved down the street. And Kane and Marc did all the heavy lifting, so it was especially easy for me. Yeay. Pictured are the three of us in the front of the moving van, Kane is behind the metal grate in the back (sorry that you're blurry Marc). We also got most of Kane's Halloween costume; he is going to be Shaun of the Dead. I will be a zombie and intend to acquire the necessary makeup this weekend. And, while acquiring this costume, we encountered Mr. White Trash Australian, which was new and exciting to me. I've only ever experienced Mr./Mrs. White Trash America before, so it was nice to see an exact parallel between these two countries.

Mr. White Trash Australian, let's call him Steve, had an Australian flag hat on, sleeveless shirt, and tattoed arms. He was also hopelessly (and appeared happily) overweight and eager to discuss menial topics with us, such as the merits of the clip-on tie that Kane was trying on for his costume. Steve was very excited to see another fellow human wearing this tie, since he himself had purchased this same tie but a week ago. Apparently, "you can't go wrong with a tie like that, mate", which is good because Kane certainly wants his costume to be excellent. And by excellent, I mean as cheap as possible. We salute you, Steve, wherever you may be, no doubt with beer in hand.

Also, the weather, while still hit or miss, is getting nicer. On Saturday it was hot in the day and warm all night - my favorite. I hear it's going to be a hot summer here, so we are relatively prepared to go from way too cold to way too hot weather. Figures.

Big accomplishments occured this weekend when we finally sent in our absentees and did our taxes. Those two have been weighing my to do list down quite a bit; now we are free!! They were both very trying activities and pretty much took all my energy for Sunday. Which works out since we don't usually do anything anyway. Next weekend I hope we can rent a car and go drive around somewhere. The weather better stay good!