Reunion, part 2

Reunion was a bit of a letdown at first. Much smaller crowd than the 5-year, mostly people I already saw around Boston, and everyone seemed more interested in hanging out with their little group of close friends than with catching up with old acquaintances. But once I got over that and started sticking with my own group, I had a lot more fun. We wandered around campus going, "Remember Papa, Mama, and Baby D-Tau? Remember your old roommate who lied about vomiting on your mattress? Remember rolling down this hill? Remember eating chicken Carberries at 1 a.m.?" For the first time in a long while, I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt.

Saturday night we went to dinner at Pot au Feu. We used to go there during college for special occasions, but only for dessert because we couldn't afford to eat dinner. They had the most delicious creme brulee you have ever tasted -- the crunchy caramelized top tasted like toasted marshmallows, and it's served in a shallow plate so the custard was a little warm from the torch. It lived up to our nostalgia.

Our freshman dorm, however, did NOT. JW actually lived there for three years, and when he saw that the door was open he couldn't resist going in and tracking down all three of his old rooms. What a dump! I don't know whether it deteriorated in the past decade or whether my eighteen-year old self's standards were that much lower, but YUCK. Peeling paint, general grime, institutional feel. Still, it did bring back memories. At the bottom of a staircase, I stopped and said, "Here's where I fell down the stairs with two boxes on top of me when I was moving my stuff out of storage sophomore year, and you helped me up and carried my boxes all the way across campus to my new dorm." I had forgotten about that. We were just friends then, but it was during that year that we started dating. So I guess I can trace our love back to that festering craphole.

K came to the procession with us on Sunday morning. Even though he got freaked out and had to leave in the middle when everyone started yelling, he got into the spirit.