Almost Halfway Through 2015

It’s the end of May and we’re almost halfway through 2015 already. Can you believe it???!!!!!!

Seems like a couple weeks ago when Ben and I were ushering in 2015 at Campbell Apartment.

A quick run-through of what’s been going on in our lives:

• Ben and I got married two weeks ago!!!! This will be its own post soon.
• Almost as exciting as the prior news, we finally got a new refrigerator. Why is this so exciting? We have been living without a refrigerator since March. It’s actually surprisingly easy and doable living without a fridge. I only really missed having milk in my coffee and I got around this problem by buying coffee before I got to work. Now that we have one and because we lived without one for so long, we stare at it lovingly and wonder what we should put in it.
• We’re doing some major improvements to our house. Hauled away more garbage out of our backyard (it almost kinda looks presentable now), got some grass growing, and planted a few tomato, pea, and pepper plants. We’re fixing the facade of our house right now as I’m typing. It had cracks and looked unslightly. The work is attracting a lot of attention from our neighbors who look on approvingly because seriously our house was an eyesore when we bought it. They’re happy we’re improving upon it because it means rising property value. 🙂
• We watched (Dis)honesty, a documentary by Dan Ariely and Yael Melamede. Dan Ariely is a behavioral economist who studies decision-making, written several empirical articles and popular press books, and writes a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal as a “modern-day Dear Abby” where he answers readers’ questions with dry wit backed up by science. He was also the officiant at our wedding, so we were very happy to support him by showing up to his screening last Saturday.
• Attended Light Falls, a dramatic portrayal of Einstein’s discovery of the general theory of relativity narrated by our favorite physicist, Brian Greene, and The Stanford Prison Experiment, a film screening and Q&A of the infamous study investigating how ordinary people can do awful things under the “right” conditions at the World Science Festival. We LOVE the WSF and it’s an annual tradition for us to go. It’s five days of nerdy fun with lectures, demonstrations, and presentations. What we like best about it is that whatever is presented is presented at a fairly sophisticated level for a general audience. Obviously the material has be to be accessible to non-experts, but it’s not dumbed down. You do need to think and pay attention. We’re going to one more presentation on Saturday, Reality since Einstein. If you’re in NYC area and love science, we definitely recommend going to see something at WSF.
• Ate lots of delicious food at various restaurants. We’re having lots of fun getting to know our little neighborhood.
• We had a beautiful Sunday stroll through Washington Square Park, where we unexpectedly came upon an art installation called “What’s Your Story” where people anonymously share any story of their life. I love Washington Square Park, because not only is it beautiful, but there’s always interesting and cool things going on with art, music, and all sorts of things.
• We started running again! Love, love, love running in Prospect Park (as long as I don’t run into sketchy people).
• Yesterday we started to teach Bandit how to play dead. She almost gets it now. It’s so cute watching her trying to figure out what crazy stunt we, her parents, want her to do. She has this look of, “Okay, it’s pretty silly you want this, but whatever gets me the TREATZ!!!!”
• I’ll be in Toronto next week for a conference.

Yael Malemede & Dan Ariely at (Dis)honesty

What’s your story?

Delicious food, especially the Banana Fosters French Toast at Blessings