More on dishes

I would like to start by saying how much I have enjoyed reading this blog over past few months and I think that the memories and ideas that are shared here are truly extraordinary. What a great tribute to a special guy.

So, I recently read Dave’s entry on Mike’s special talent for clean dish-stacking which brought back memories of our place on Earl Street. It would seem that Mike’s ability to stack clean dishes matured over the years and, while we lived together, he expanded his abilities to include a mastery of stacking UNwashed dishes. Our kitchen was fairly big and the dishes could be stacked around the corner from our living room (out of sight, out of mind). Also, between the two of us, we had amassed a rather large collection of student-grade dishes/cutlery which meant that clean dishes were always available. So, the pile grew...

“I’m just going to cut my losses here...”. This little quote was frequently heard around that apartment and most often it was used when Mike was trying to get through a pile of food-encrusted dishes. “This pot is not coming clean, I’m going to cut my losses and head to bed”. Another common usage would be in the midst of a heavy stretch of exams. Mike had an uncanny way of knowing when to call it quits on a night of studying and head to the gym or to bed. Clearly, his performance did not suffer but Lisa and I would often laugh and scratch our heads as Mike “cut his losses” and closed his books well before the rest of us.

On an related point, I need to apologize. I need to apologize for anyone who spent time on the rug in our living room. It was a really cool IKEA rug that Mike bought before we moved in together. Unfortunately, over the 3 years it lay on our floor (including a whole summer of dusty construction outside our door), I think it was vacuumed about twice!! I suppose we both “cut our losses” on that one.

It makes me smile to think back on the times we spent in that apartment. It was my last taste of student/bachelor life as I married Lisa and started residency a couple weeks after moving out. Mike was a great guy to live with and a great guy to “cut losses” with as well.

Darren