Selena and I recently finished reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. You can find it rated and updated on  Selena or my GoodReads page, if you are part of that social network (or if you want to be, please join and befriend).

What I found most interesting about this book was not the spot-on accurate detail with which Gaimen described the different landmarks of Midwest Americana, nor the complex interweaving of the myth and lore of the different gods into the fictional characters he created for each. No, what I found most interested is how popular reading this book made me.

Four times, while reading Niel Gaiman’s American Gods, complete strangers started a conversation with me praising the book - twice on a Metro, once in a coffee shop and once during jury duty. Each of the four people approached me with exuberance, excited about the book I was reading and for me reading it. Each of the four went on to suggest another Niel Gaiman book I should read when I am done.

This has never come about from reading a book before. At our book club, I told this story and a single friend joked that she is going to carry American Gods around all the time, or put whatever she is reading in the American Gods dustjacket, to see how that boosts her chances.

Greg and I went on vacation earlier this month. We took our tour of New England, traveling through Mystic, Connecticut, Rhode Island, continuing up through Martha’s Vineyard, P-town, Cape Cod, Plymoth and finally, a two-day tour of Boston, a place Greg has never seen while sober.

While in P-town (also described to me by friends as “the gayest place on earth”), I found an adorable stuffed animal that I had to have. One to add to my fat, cute animal collection (a subject Greg can expand on, I’m sure.)

I was really excited about him. So I took a picture of him as we drove down the Cape:

We never felt the need to have a mascot for our trips the way some people have gnomes and such. When we went got to Boston, we were too late to walk around in the graveyard of Sam Adams. But in hopes to have some memory of seeing it, we put the hedgehog in the picture on a whim. We kept attempting to get a good picture of this and in the process, drew out a multiple reactions from passerbys that we never expected. Words of encouragement, compliments on the hedgehog, stories of similar experiences with their stuffed animals. One lady just giggled and pointed at the hedgehog repeatedly.

This very bizzare occurance that meant one of two things:

We spent far too much time trying to get this Sam Adams picture.

OR

Having drawn such a reaction from multiple strangers, I guess we were stuck with a mascot now.

Here’s the rest of the hedgehog’s trip:

One of many attempts to get a photo with Mr. Adams.

The places we went.

This picture looks like he pissed off Greg.

Overall, a fun vacation that took us to new places and gave us a mascot we never meant to have. Now all he needs is a name. Suggestions?

Here’s how I know that Selena is a first-time runner - because while Dean and I and surely about everyone thought there are a lot of people running right now because we are running a race, Selena’s mind went a different place on Saturday night.

Apparently all those end-of-days blockbusters like “Day After Tomorrow” and “Cloverfield” have etched a permanent impression on Selena, because at the beginning of the race, the first couple miles or so, she got rather panicked and began looking around to the left and right to try to catch a glimpse of what she was running FROM.

Selena explained that she’s never been in a crowd of running people before and in her mind the only reason for a large group of people to be running in the same direction as fast as they can is to get away from something - like a natural disaster or an oversize monster.

Fortunately, no monsters materialized, and this irrational fear left her somewhere after the second mile. After she was able to accept she was in no imminent danger, the panic subsided and Selena was able to relax and enjoy the rest of the run.

I hate running. Running for “fun” breaks my cardinal rule of “never run unless you are being chased.” So when I was forced to do it for Tae Kwon Do training, I naturally had a hard time with it.

Greg loves running. He likes races. He was ecstatic that I was starting to run with my team. He constantly came out to run with me. I signed up for an 8K race, because it gave me a goal to work towards, and it’s something that I knew would make Greg happy. It did, and he promised to help me train.

Little did he know what he was getting into. The training process with Selena is not fun. I am prone to temper tantrums. I look just about the worst out there as you could ever imagine me. A few runs ago, I stopped at the two mile mark and threw a fit because Greg (Damn Greg!) was being TOO supportive. I jumped up and down. I punched my fists at the air. I screamed out things like “I’m never running again!” and “I’m going home and UN-signing up for this race!” All of this in the manner of a six-year-old being told to brush their teeth. Except on a city street. And I’m 30.

(Side note here: There is also an embarrassing incident of this happening one time on a frisbee golf course.)

Come Saturday night, the Rockville Twilight 8K. A delayed start to try to get over 90 degree weather and the heat advisory. I did it!

Below is a photo documentation of one of my proudest accomplishments! And to see how proud Greg and my family were, I hope he felt like it was worth it.

Before the race.

How I was feeling.

A kid at the race. I think this kid practices Falun Gong or something. Although later, I felt like he was onto something.

If you’ve ever wondered what I look like when I am hating life but aware that someone might be taking a picture.

This is after the race and after I went through the fruit, donut and granola bar buffet. The first time.

This is the reason I would sign up for another race: Four free beers per runner!

Go Dean: 38 minutes! Go Greg: 44 minutes! and Selena: 55 minutes.

Growing up in the Kang household, Sundays were designated as grocery days for the week’s worth of meals. Dad took the family out food shopping, then the Oriental market and finally the Chinese bakery or the nearby Entemanns outlet to get a nice treat for us. A reward for our help with the chore. Through this process, I looked forward to a designated family time, I actually enjoyed the process of food shopping and understanding how to plan meals, and I developed an ingrained concept of what to look for in the fruits and vegetables at the store to ensure I get the ripest and freshest foods.

This concept is completely foreign to Greg. Greg stands firm by the idea that there is no need for us to share the chore of grocery shopping. He goes with me very begrudgingly. He is also okay with the idea of taking three trips during the week, buying one or two items each trip. And when I brought up that someday, I would hope that he and our family would embrace a weekly run, he looked at me as if had three eyes. Am I really alone on this concept?

Greg also can’t see the value of Costco, my favorite place on earth and Greg’s seventh ring of hell. He sees no use for Costco unless we are throwing a party and just can’t seem to understand why anyone would need 4 lbs. of shredded mozzerella. Cue Duke and Lauren last Monday. When we called them unexpectedly to see if they wanted to get together, they were in the middle of shopping TOGETHER at COSTCO. Support for my two favorite grocery arguments. All I need now, is a non-crowded Sunday (when the sample buffet is out), and I’ll be one step closer to getting Greg to love the Costco too.

As we get ready to take a long weekend in Boston, both Selena and I are packing using the new system that her friend Alex introduced.  It reminded me that I documented this system in action when I had to pack for an overnight retreat with my work.  Here’s the breakdown:

This is what I was bringing with (I needed an outfit for golfing, for the pool, for the evening festivities and for the meetings the following day.)

The folding system requires that outfits are ziplocked together.  This makes it easier to just grab what you need when you need it.

Then just about everything is sushi rolled together.

And it is so compact that all of that can even fit spaciously into this tiny backpack.

It takes a little getting used to, using all the ziplock bags, and what not, but in the end this is a really efficient way to travel and will come in really handy when we (hopefully) go to Europe later this year.

This past weekend Selena and I went camping and white water rafting with our good friends Catherine and Tom. Here are a few outdoorsy lessons learned from the experience:

• A hatchet is useful, it can chop the firewood down to kindling.
• A flint is not useful at all.
• When a flint fails, try matches, then a lighter, then lighter fluid.
• Raccoons are scary when they sneak up on you.
• A hole in the ground goes beyond rustic.
• Setting up the tent in the rain makes everything wet.
• Setting up a tent is easier when it looks like this:
  But gets a lot more complex when it looks like this:

  

Yes, that is the tent, or as we were calling it, the Manor House.  The three room tent could have comfortably sleep eight (it did only sleep two). It includes two rooms, plus a screened in porch, all of which you can stand upright in. Assembling this wasn’t so bad, except that it was pouring out. Disassembling was a lot harder, and we still haven’t figured out how to put it away.

Still, I will say, I got turned around on this one, once we were there, and it was set up, I really enjoyed having the very very spacious tent. So, good picking Selena. Now, anyone good at folding things until they are very small want to come over for dinner?

Imagine you are at our place. You walk from the bedroom into the living room, it’s spacious and feels great with the windows open, but you’d rather get a full breathe of fresh air, so you go out onto the screened-in porch. “Wait” you keenly interrupt, “Greg, you and Selena don’t have a screened in porch.” This is true, not in our condo, but that’s now where we are. I am taking you on a walking tour of OUR TENT!

Selena smiles and continues the virtual tour in her head as she stands in the aisle at Target looking at all the multi-room tents on display in miniature. (I am convinced that Selena would have zero interest in tents if it wasn’t for the miniature displays).

We have a tent already; it’s a two-person, one room, Eddie Bauer tent that has been used once – during a monsoon. Selena insists this is way too small (”You can’t even stand upright in it!”), and as we plan a camping trip for this July, the Eddie Bauer tent is persona-non-grata.

Instead one of these McMansion tents with 6-foot ceilings and 3 or more rooms will be coming with us. Is it wrong to have a tent that has more rooms than people using it? Would it sway your opinion at all if you were the one that had to assemble it?

Damon Lindolf and Carlton Cuse have been very tight lipped about plot details for season five of LOST. However, we have uncovered this exclusive Season Five poster to be debuted at Comic Con next month. SPOILER ALERT, the poster is very telling about what direction the show intends to go.
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Selena asked me if, hypothetically, I was being courted by two separate groups to join them in doing a heist, but I could only join one, which would it be? Would I become a member of the George Clooney’s Ocean’s 11 team, or prefer to sign on with Mark Wahlburg’s Italian Job crew?

Good question, right? As a web geek, I couldn’t resist using the web to broadcast this question to the masses. I used a new online site built for debates of this sort and posed the question. So, if you have an opinion you’d like to voice, or just want to see my answer, visit the page I dedicated to this subject on MonkeyBrain: Ocean’s 11 or Italian Job, and decide which side you are on.