Love isn't blind, it's boring

Community is one of the best shows on TV right now.  It's witty, quick-paced, and hilarious, but it's not very popular, and I think it's poor showing in the ratings has to do with it playing on NBC opposite The Big Bang Theory.  If I'm watching TV with Dan, we're watching Community, if we're watching TV with our family, we're watching The Big Bang Theory.  I believe this situation is a common one.  Dan doesn't care for The Big Bang Theory, but I love mindless entertainment, so I watch it, and saw this little scene that inspired me to write this:

Bernadette and Amy, you are completely wrong.  Love can be "boring," you just don't know it yet because you're in the honeymoon phase of your relationships.  It can take years (and Penny and Leonard have been on and off for four years) to get to the boring part of a relationship.  That doesn't make it a bad relationship.  No, my heart doesn't pound and my loins do not catch on fire every time Dan walks in the room.  Just doesn't happen.  It's impossible for that to happen after being together for 10 years (in the event of such a happening, please see your doctor).  If all your relationship is about passion, then you are in for a HUGE shock when things calm down.  And they will. 

Dan and I are boring.  We're completely in love with each other, we're on the same page about all the important things in life (religion, politics, kids), and we like most of the same things.  Our taste in food is completely different, but we deal with that.  Now if he didn't like Disney movies....

We do some amazing things a few times a year, have a lot fun together, but on a day to day basis, we are boring.  Which leads me to Part II of this blog entry: What we did this weekend.

Literally:  Friday is the Islamic Sabbath

If I haven't mentioned it before, weekends in Abu Dhabi are Friday/Saturday.  On Saturday, we did absolutely nothing.  I read a book, Dan played video games, and we ate junk food.  I scrambled some eggs for dinner, and that's it.  Oh, I also did a load of laundry in my horrible washing machine.  It was boring, and it was fine.  The most exciting thing we did this weekend: We ate at a new restaurant in the mall we go to all the time.

Every restaurant gives you moist towelettes.

Red Star bills itself as an Asian-American Bistro.  The menu consists of food items that are either American OR Chinese, but despite the fancy description, there is no fusion.

Unless you count getting a side of stir-fried veggies with your country fried chicken.

The decor mimics an Applebee's, and the walls are covered in pieces of charming Americana and photos of famous Chinese-Americans (Red Stars!).

Not fooling anyone, John Cho. You're best known for "Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle.

This restaurant must be targeted at people who have never been to either to China or to the US.  It was ridiculous, and I loved it.  There was a statue of Elvis in the window, and the TVs were showing the Arizona State football game and Catwoman (both great Asian-American traditions!).  I traded seats with Dan so he could watch the football game, even though then I didn't have a good people watching seat (because that's part of loving someone: courtesy). 

Doesn't sound very exciting, does it?  But it was pretty fun for us.  You have to take pleasure in the boring-sounding things you do as well as the exciting things.  Sometimes you have to do boring things because you love someone.  I have to wander around electronic stores while Dan looks at every video game available, and he has to linger outside the women's dressing room when I try on clothes so he can tell me if it looks good or not.  That's love.  Sometimes it's boring, but it's also pretty great. 

And you can wear theme costumes!

Penny, stay with Leonard.  The Big Bang Theory is already starting to get stale, you don't need to throw in the standard sitcom troupe of a will-they-or-won't-they relationship. 

Because then you'll just be "Friends"

Rage Against the Machine

I am, at best, an indifferent housekeeper; at worst I am a terrible slob.  I sweep the floors every few days because the crumbs and dust and loose hairs on the tile floor get ridiculous, but I never do a super job.  I've lived in this apartment for over a year and a half and I've only ever mopped the kitchen and the bathroom.  I hate mopping, it's a man's job.  I did buy a mop this weekend, because I have good intentions about mopping the whole apartment sometime soon. 

OKAYWIFE brand.  Makes a contented family!

One thing I do keep up on is the laundry.  I'm very touchy about having clean clothes and I like to make Dan's life easier by keeping his clothes folded and neat so he doesn't have to play the puzzle game "Match the Black Dress Socks" every morning (it takes him long enough to get ready as it is).  So I do laundry.  A lot.  And I despise my washing machine. 

It's not just a washing machine, it's a washer/dryer combo.  "But that sounds great! You don't have to switch over the laundry, you just let it go and come back when it's done!"  You're right, hypothetical person, that does sounds great.  But that's not how it works.  Well, that's kind of how it works, but there are a few things about the machine that make it obnoxious to work with.

Excuse my while I freshen my drink.  I hate this machine so much it's driven me to drink.

First, the door locks on the machine while the cycle is in progress.  This makes sense.  You don't want to open the door while it's full of water and get water all over your floor or have a child sucked into it's spinning, or whatever.  Unfortunately, it doesn't unlock when the cycle is over.  It only automatically unlocks after a dry cycle  after it's done it's 4 hour "Wrinkle Reduce" cool down or you restart the cycle and pause it and wait 5-10 minutes while I scream "Gimme my freaking clothes!" at it.

Smug bastard.

Second, it takes forever to dry something.  Literally, forever.  I have put clothes in there to dry for 5 hours and I still had to hang them up to dry when they came out.  Here's the estimated cycle time for three regular size bath towels:

That 3 hours and 25 minutes is just an estimate, mind you.  It'll definitely take longer than that to run all the way.  I usually stop it during the last ten minutes and hang the stuff up to dry.  Some people hang dry all of their clothes here.  To that I say "Bah!" because that can take days.

I don't have a balcony, and even if I did, it would be against the rules of the apartment and the municipality to line dry my clothes out there (gotta keep the buildings looking nice for the sandlot outside my window!).  So I would have to hang them up inside my glacially cool apartment, in a country where the humidity is so high water routinely condenses on my windows or my sunglasses when I walk outside. So foregoing the dry cycle completely is out.

Third, and worst, is the condenser that you have to empty after every load.  See, the dryer doesn't have an outside vent so it works on some voodoo magic (or science) which requires water use on the outside of the drum during the dry cycle.  That water gets collected in the bottom of the washer and after every load you have to empty it.  This is what it looks like:

That's what all the towels are for.

So I hate my washing machine.  And I will never ever forgive it for being so horrible.

LG Washer/Dryer Combo:  Consider yourself on notice.