All of the talks at the Mexican Virology Congress (except for mine and the other plenaries) are in Spanish.  So the marmot’s got a lot of free time on her hands.  My favorite way of passing the time so far has been to make lists of ‘Yay!’ and ‘Boo!’.  This appears to be my new favorite game during boring meetings.  Expect this list to continue to expand as the meeting wears on:
| Yay! | Boo! |
| Lionel Messi | Daniel Snyder |
| Women’s Half Marathon | Holiday Lake |
| Asian Small-Clawed Otters | Mosquitos |
| Vace Pizza | Mayonnaise |
| Running in the Sodds | Running on the C&O |
| Thai massage | Hot yoga |
| People who are funny | People who are not funny |
| Spending time with family (<48 hrs) | Spending time with family (>48 hrs) |
| Wedding cake | Wedding toasts |
| Lobster | Frozen fish |
| Taking wildlife photos with Aaron | Smiling for photos |
| Pilates with Mom and Cecile | The pilates lady who breathes loud |
| Vacations | Planning for vacations |
| Shelter/rescue animals | When people pretend to love all animals and then buy purebreds |
| Meyer Dairy | When people pretend that sorbet is even within the same order as ice cream |
| Fans at Boston Marathon | Logistics at Boston Marathon |
| Seinfeld | Friends |
| New Zealand | Flying to New Zealand |
| Running with Sean | Dealing with Sean |
| Stone House | Building 12b basement |
| Wailing guitars | Regina Spector |
| Wegmans | The fact that DC has no Wegmans |
| Altras | Vibrams |
| Canada Goose Coats | Winter |
| White Grass XC Ski Area | Winter |
| Skiing in Frisco | Winter |
| Pull-buoys | Goggles |
| WUS | Jennifer |
| The Wire | The War on Drugs |
| Car Seat Heaters | Winter |
| Beer Mile | Morning after the Beer Mile |
| Rock Creek Park | Rapists |
| Being Jewish | Fasting |
| How people who drive Jeeps wave to each other | When we forget we’re in a rental car and wave at the confused person in the Jeep |
| My job | Describing what I do to people I meet the first time |
| Writing my blog | Knowing that I should be doing work instead of writing my blog |
| My simple minimalist $25 Under Armour sports bras, circa 2007 | Lululemon, for making $50 sports bras standard |
| Anna Karenina | Robinson Crusoe |
| Metro | Metro |
| Bike gloves | Bike seats |
| Getting haircuts | Makeup |
| Pooping | Pooping during a race |
| Catherine the Great | Every Russian leader since Catherine the Great |
| Berger cookies | Diabetes |
| NIH | DHS |
| Max Beckmann | Goethe |
| Alice and Isabella | Italian bureaucracy |
| Winning a race | Being asked before the race if you’re gonna win |
| USWNT | FIFA |
| Golden lion tamarins | Temple monkeys |
| Japanese food | Japanese desserts |
| Horton swag | Horton |
| Science | Jenny McCarthy |
| Ponies | Girls who actually had ponies growing up and don’t call their parents every day to thank them for it |
| Adaeze | Naveen |
| Ryan Paavola | People who actually refer to themselves as ‘elite’ runners |
| Stone Mill 50 | JFK |
| Watching sports games | Watching sports games with Bob |
| Cleveland Park | 800 sqft apt (2 people, 1 cat, 3 bikes) |
| DC Public Libraries | DC Parking Enforcement |
| Dark chocolate | Milk Chocolate |
| DCA | IAD |
| Playing tennis | Playing doubles with Bob |
| Jen’s cookies | Jen’s job |
| Trainwreck | Watching Trainwreck with a family member |
| Butterflies | Butterfly collectors |
| Aaron | Lyme disease |
| Amherst XC | Ned |
| Chicago | O’Hare |
| Next-generation sequencing | Assembling next-gen data |
| Skiing in the Italian Alps | Driving a Panda with no snow tires in the Italian Alps |
| Intercourse | Babies |
| Food in Barcelona | Trying to get food before 10pm in Barcelona |
| Some Like It Hot (the Billy Wilder movie) | Some Like It Hot (the Robert Palmer song) |
I’m with you on mosquitos and running on the C&O.
And store mayonnaise is horrifying.
But you haven’t had my homemade mayo.
This cracked me up! But I must disagree on the chocolate – any chocolate whether of the dark or milk variety is a yay! I would love to hear the stories behind some of the other entries and their corresponding boos. Thanks for the (perhaps unintentional) laughs.