Ethiopian Birthday

For my birthday this year (and Amy’s too) Andrew & I went out with my high school friends for a fun dinner in Cambridge.  It was a new and interesting experience to say the least.  All those years my mother taught me to have good table manners, use my utensils, sit up straight…down the drain in one meal!

For those of you who have never eaten Ethiopian food, let me set the stage.  You sit in a chair, with a tiny block table in front of you, and something that looks like an upside down Mexican hat to the side of the tiny block table.  You wonder where in the world the food is going to go and assume you’re going to be eating very tiny foods.  You order a variety of food options to share, yet you have NO idea what you are really ordering, how much you are ordering, or where they are going to put it all.  Nevermind whether or not it is spicy or goes with all of the other food you’ve eaten.  You’ve heard something about eating with your hands, picking up the food with pieces of bread etc.  Well, this I have to see.  So after ordering they bring out huge trays (they put them in the upside down hat…it starts to make sense).  The tray is covered in a crepe/crumpet like substance…the bread.  Covering the bread are the various foods we ordered.  Unsure of exactly what is what…we dug in!  It was surprisingly delicious.  The boys managed to make the food disappear…their skills were impressive.  Overall the night was a blast.  While I’m not sure I’ll be eating Ethiopian anytime soon…the experience was priceless!

Birthday HatFinger FoodFood...gone!

Plum Island

Every year we look forward to spending time at Plum Island. Andrew has already started thinking about Plum Island 2009 and it’s August 2008. He just loves the place. We get to spend time relaxing with his family at the Minihaha (Laughing Waters). That’s the name of the house. No idea where it came from, but I’m sure someone knows…most likely Nana. It’s a great little place right at the end of the island. It’s on the water at the mouth of the river which means good swimming and a nice big beach at low tide. And of course there’s fishing and kayaking and eating and football and fishing and eating. Basically what happens is, we arrive at Plum Island after work and I don’t see Andrew until it’s time to leave . He has much to get done before our time there is up. Things on the MUST do list:

1. Catch a fish. This usually requires a large amount of time because they often do not cooperate.

2. Kayak. This also takes a lot of time because every area must be explored for birds. And maybe more fish (although I have YET to see him catch a fish from his kayak).

3. Football. A football must be thrown at least once a day, a frisbee is an okay substitute.

4. Swimming. I almost forgot swimming. We ALL must swim at LEAST once a day in the FRIGID waters. I’d guess somewhere in the 60-65 degree range. This year I managed to only swim once…brrr!

5. Bait shop. We must visit the bait shop at least once during the trip. Usually because the fish have stolen (without being caught) the first round, so we need more. And maybe we’ll get a hat or new fishing paraphenalia while we’re there.

6. Walk/Run to the open ocean. It’s a pretty walk, I must admit. Plus we can check to see if other people are catching fish down there – in case we want to try that spot too.

7. Eating. There is lots of eating: hot dogs, hamburgers, guacamole, pasta salad, ice cream, chicken, chips & salsa, Devil Dogs, Twizzlers…and sometimes we have salad or fruit!

8. Fireworks. Typically these are handled by Rob. He is the fireworks master. This year we got treated to fireworks both times we went (but neither time by Rob). The 4th fireworks were great, you could see them from all the different towns in the area & along the coast. The other fireworks were set because the Tall Ships were across the river in Seabrook. A fun family event always.

9. Play Games. This can be done during the day or night, but usually at night. We get the nieces around and play card games, board games, word games. All sorts of games. Always a good time!

10. Adventure. This one is key. Each year there must be some sort of unplanned (usually somewhat frightening) adventure. The first year I went it was when Andrew flipped me over into the frigid water on the sailboat (we had only been dating for a month!). This year it involved his nieces.

There they all were, Michael (bro-in-law), Julia (11), Sarah (9), Lily (7) and Andrew. Far away from the shore hunting for clams (to fish with of course!). They had the kayak & row boat. After being out for a while Sarah & Andrew decided to come in on the Kayak, just as a CRAZY storm was headed over them! It came in quick, but it was pretty clear it was coming. After a little while longer Michael, Julia & Lily decided it was time to come in on the row boat. Well – the storm wind was crazy and Michael couldn’t control the boat by himself to get them in (nevermind the fact that it was pretty low tide so there was no great way to get to the shore). So he jumps out of the boat to try to swim it in, leaving Julia “paddling for her life” (in her own words). They are drifting further & further away. Meanwhile the rest of us are watching from shore trying to figure out the best way to help them. Did I mention lightning & thunder are striking too? Anyway, to make a LONG story very short, they finally drift to an area where we can get to them. We leave the boat tide to a dock (which is now on the sand since it’s low tide) and will go back for it later. All parties are okay…but it was a scary adventure none the less.

So. As you can see there are MANY things that MUST be done while at Plum Island. For this reason I see Andrew for about 20 minutes the whole time we’re there, but that’s great. He is like a kid again whenever we’re there & loves every minute of it! What could be better?

Our time at Plum Island always ends with a sunset. It could probably be one of the 10 things you MUST do, but we’ll leave it in it’s own category. It is usually beatiful and always a relaxing time of night. I probably have more sunset Plum Island pictures than anything else. So I’ll include a few here for you since this year was particularly good. While this post is late (we were there in mid-July) I couldn’t let it go by without sharing.

House Hunt…

We’re goin’ on a house hunt, we’re going on a house hunt…I’m not scared…I’m not, well – okay – maybe I’m a little scared.

I know, I know – I’ve been a very bad blogger.  What can I say, it’s the summer and I’m lazy.  But I promise to get better (saying this to myself).  So what has been going on lately you ask?  Well – Andrew & I have been talking houses.  Now – we love the place we live.  Our little convenient apartment in a beautiful town.  However, the recent crazy rain has led to water in the basement…and in the bathroom (where it shouldn’t be).  While we know the landlord will take care of it, it started us thinking about moving.  We’re not in any rush, the more money we figure we can save, the better.  But we’re definitely thinking about it.

So as we think about it I remember all of my friends & co-workers going through the pain of finding the ‘right’ place…all the while thinking…that won’t happen to us…our search will be somewhat easy, we’re both looking for the same things…HA!  Wrong!  Funny how making such a large purchase can bring out the crazy in ANYONE!  And it certainly has in Andrew & I.   (NO I will not take full responsibility for the ‘crazy’ – though it’s probably mostly me).  Instead of agreeing on the big things & disagreeing on the small things (what I expected) it seems everything is Big!  Let’s see here are some of the hot topics:

• The perfect town
• Neighborhood or woods (I’ll let you guess who wants what:))
• Price
• New or fixer upper
• hmm….I’m sure there were more…the conversation certainly lasted long enough for there to be more

Then beyond the details you start ‘discussing’ who needs what to be happy, who should be making the decision etc.  HA!  All a good time.  It’s a good thing we love eachother!  But it isn’t all bad.  We do agree on:

• Cape/Colonial/Farmhouse style
• nice backyard…
• That’s all I can think of now…I’m sure there was at least one more

All in all this process is going to be very interesting.  Fun and miserable all at the same time.  But as everyone tells me, it’s worth it in the end.  Amazing to think we’ll be homeowners someday.  Wish us luck…we’ll need it!

One Year!

One blissful year! It’s hard to believe we were standing at the altar saying ‘I do’ one year ago today…time has flown by.  But what a great year it has been!  Looking back on our wedding day we had so many amazing memories.  Family and friends with us to celebrate.  Seeing my handsome groom at the end of the aisle.  Wearing the dress that I never thought I would love so much.  Enjoying perfect weather, food and music.  It was all so great.  I am so happy we had that day to share together…and it would have been great if it rained too…but maybe just a little wet .  Looking back on the pictures is so much fun.  http://www.perfectweddingphoto.com/vplay/vplay07/070630_mckeon_vp2/.  And our album is finally done, which most people haven’t seen here: http://www.perfectweddingphoto.com/vshow/vshow07/070630_McKeon_vs2/.  What a wonderful day!

What a wonderful year!  Honeymoon in Hawaii (Maui & Kuaui)…unbelievable!  Moving in together in Concord.  We love our little apartment.  Going for walks along the wildlife preserve, swimming at Walden Pond and eating Purple Cow ice cream! Visiting Plum Island, NH and Maine.  Setting up our first Christmas tree with our ornaments from all of our trips.  Vacationing down in Bahamas at Atlantis.  Surviving the final semester of my MBA program.  Taking the long trip to Australia for an unbelievable tour of the country.  What more could we ask for?!  We are so lucky to have had all of these experiences and to have family, friends and each other to share them with.  We truly have had a magical first year.  Not to say we didn’t have our moments.  There is the issue of the change on the floor and my need for the bed to be perfect.  He does like to play the guitar all the time and I do love to watch really cheesy TV.  But we’re making it work.  We’re having as much fun together as we can find.  We do our best to remember how lucky we are at every turn.  We are truly happy to be together.  It has been a great year…and I look forward to MANY more!!

Rainy Rainforest

The RAIN in the Rainforest falls mainly…on our tent! On Saturday June 7th we headed up to Cairns and headed to Cape Tribulation immediately. While Andrew waited for me to arrive he got the car and visited the grocery store to get all sorts of yummy treats. He made it all by himself while driving on the left side of the road! Amazing!! He picked me up and we were off to the rainforest!! We pitched our tent at the campsite and walked to the beautiful beach which was practically empty, it was so nice and relaxing. We cooked a little camp food, sat out and relaxed under the starts before heading to bed early…again! Overnight it rained, but we stayed nice & dry in our tent. The next morning…still raining! But it dried up relatively early and we went for walks along the beach and explored the area. We stopped for lunch at some picnic tables and had yummy PB&J. Just as we were finishing I heard step…step…step…slowly through the leaves, turned around and there was a Lace Monitor (Goanna Lizard) sneaking up on us. Yup…I jumped right up, and Andrew followed. A girl nearby said they wouldn’t bite, but they might scratch you up! Let’s just say we grabbed our PB&J (which the Monitor absolutely wanted) and high tailed it away. Andrew has affectionately named it the Peanut Butter & Jelly Monster and does a pretty good impression, tongue and all! After lunch we went for a walk along the beach and through the rainforest. We were going to stop by and close up our tent, but had a reservation for a fruit tasting we didn’t want to miss so we left the tent open to air out. BIG mistake! About halfway through tasting some VERY exotic fruits, it started to DOWNPOUR! Thankfully we weren’t too far away and Andrew got back to close it up before everything was too wet. But the rain followed us for the rest of the night! Meanwhile the fruit tasting was great. We tried many fruits that can’t really be found in many other places because they don’t transport welll…and well, they’re pretty ugly on the outside, but they were good on the inside!

The next day we had scheduled our trip out to the Great Barrier Reef with the Rum Runner. After an interesting trip through low tide to the boat we boarded and met the crew. Australians who live in Cape Tribulation are a little nuts. Let’s just say one of the guys lives in a ‘Tree House’ with no windows where the animals (snakes, birds and insects too) visit whenever they like…what?! But they got us safely out to McKay’s Reef, a beautiful small sand bar in the middle of no where. Granted, the high winds made the hour ride out to the reef VERY choppy. We sat outside in the front of the boat & got SOAKED! But it was still pretty fun. We took our first snorkel as soon as we got there & Andrew quickly spotted a reef shark, pretty cool! It was amazing how calm we were about it…and how disinterested in us it was! They’re not man eating sharks…don’t worry! The reef itself was amazing. Everything was so alive. Not only the fish, but the reef was beautiful! As we were heading back to the boat we also spotted a sea turtle cruising along the bottom. A small one, but so cute! After a yummy lunch we headed back out for our second snorkel and saw two more sea turtles and more beautiful reef. Of course, it started to poor while we were in the water…but thankfully it didn’t really matter since we were already wet! The ride home was MUCH smoother than the ride out to the reef, but still we had 2 of the other passengers lose their lunch of the back. Andrew was struggling through the ride, but managed to get through the whole thing and was happy to see solid land! A successful trip to the Great Barrier Reef. I couldn’t be happier!

It rained again for the rest of the night, so hard it kept us awake. Every time it stopped, Andrew would open the tent, and every time he did it would start raining again…after a while it was pretty comical! Needless to say at 5am on our last day we were ready to go! We waited for a break in the rain, packed up the tent and headed out!! We loved Cape Trib, but were ready to go by the end! We headed down to the Daintree River for a Crocodile Sighting tour. Since we were ridiculously early, we took a small nap in the car! At 9:30 am we were ready for our tour, and were very successful in seeing some crocs! They are such cool animals. We saw mostly smaller crocs, the big one didn’t want to come out of the water at that time. I had no idea how long it took these animals to grow large. The 1 year old was very small, and the 2 year old wasn’t much bigger. The largest one we was a 30 year old female. So neat! It was a great end to our trip. We spent the rest of the day exploring Cairns and had a nice dinner. Cairns has really changed since the last time I was here, it’s a nice place to visit. All in all, this was another great part of our trip. Next we head to Sydney & the Blue Mountains!! The last leg! More soon. Love to all!

Sitting in the Melbourne Airport

Well – this is another leg of the trip that Andrew & I ended up on separate flights. We got up at 3:30 am this morning & to the airport by 4:30 so Andrew could catch his 6am flight. My flight got changed from 9:30 to 11am…so now I am hanging out in the airport for 5 hours & figured I’d catch up from where I left off last night since I have more time.

The last 3 days: After we picked up the car we headed down to the coast. We stopped in Torquay (Tor-key) at the visitors center to get an idea of where to head. Torquay is a pretty cool town in itself, very big surfing area. It’s right near Bell’s Beach, which is where the final scene of Point Break is filmed (should anyone remember that movie with Keanu Reeves). We saw the beach & the waves were crazy. SO many surfers out on the ocean catching long rides! I think these people might be officially crazy. After Bell’s Beach it was on to the Great Ocean Road with beautiful views all the way to Appollo Bay. We stopped off at a random country club along the way where Kangaroos just hang out all day (see post below). I was amazed at how close Andrew got…though we think they feed the animals to draw people to their restaurant. Still pretty cool. Australian animal 1…check! Next we were on to look for Australian animal 2…the Koala. Another pull off of the road lead up to an area deep in Eucalyptys Trees. We drove slow & looked up and sure enough…there were little blobs up in the trees! Koala’s are pretty lazy animals. None of them were moving much, but they are still so cool to see! Andrew of course wanted to hold one, but from what we know…they are pretty vicious cuddly animals! So we drove on. We drove all the way on to Apollo Bay where we spent the night in a nice campground on the ocean. Our time has not yet fully adjusted, we were in bed by 7pm…and up at 5am!

The next day we woke up to a great sunrise over the ocean…which finally happened at around 7am. After packing up, we headed off in search of the famous 12 apostles. Along the way we stopped in the rainforest, which was cool, but we didn’t see much and at the lighthouse where the first morse code connection was made to Tasmania. It was the 2nd most southern point in mainland Australia, pretty neat, especially since we got to climb to the top! Afterwards we finally were on our way to the Apostles and they didn’t let us down. This sight is absolutely beautiful! The gigantic rock formations seem to rise out of the ocean and the colors are spectacular when the sun hits them. The pictures don’t nearly do justice to the greatness of this area, the rock formations are simply huge! After taking some pictures we also headed on to the Arch, the Blowhole and the Grotto, all of which were also pretty cool! Moving on from there we thought we’d stop to see some nursing Right Whales which are supposedly a guranatee at this time of year. Of course, whales are afraid of me…so we saw none!

We ended the day in Port Fairy with some dinner & another 7pm bedtime…actually, maybe it was 8…such late nighters we are! We were up again at 5am and got right on the road back to Melbourne…we wanted to beat traffic, which we ALMOST did, until we hit Melbourne at 9:30 am of course! Anyway, we checked into the hotel, took a nap (in preparation for our late night at the Footy game). Then we had a chance to walk around Melbourne, which Andrew hadn’t really done yet. Melbourne is a great city on a Friday night, there was live music, carousels, beautiful lit restaurants along the river. It was really a nice night to be out. And of course Andrew consumed his first meat pie…it’s true love!

We ended our stay in Melbourne with a Footy game, North Melbourne Kangaroos versus the Geelong Cats. We were North Melbourne fans of course! Our seats were great, 5 rows back from the field. the stadium is HUGE, and round so there are plenty of seats for everyone! Footy is a crazy game, but very exciting, and of course more exciting with all the crazy Aussie fans around. Though they only had 1 cheer, and it was pretty bad ‘North Melbourne, clap, clap, clap’. And the don’t know how to do the wave, which could be SO cool in this stadium. But we had fun none the less…and Andrew ate yet another meat pie! Only to realize afterwards just how much fat was in each…ha! He’s on a fruit & veggie diet for the next 3 days . Sadly, the Roos lost to Geelong, they were clearly the better team, but we certainly didn’t give up with out a fight! It’s the closest scoring I’ve seen since I’ve been here…and I’ve seen a lot of Footy since that’s all that seems to be on TV here! So…here we are, I’m at the airport waiting to start the next part of our adventure, and Andrew should be just about in Brisbane if he hasn’t landed already. We’ll reunite in Cairns around 2pm and head up to the Rainforest/ocean of Cape Tribulation…where it’s about 80 degrees and sunny…yay! I’ll try to write again from Cairns on Tuesday! Love to all in the US!

The Great Ocean Road

I’m going to keep this quick since I only have a few minutes of internet time left but I just wanted to update you all on our last few days.  We took 2.5 days to drive down the Great Ocean Road which is west of Melbourne.  After Andrew adjusted to driving on the right side of the car & the left side of the road.  And after I adjusted to the fact that he could actually do so safely, we headed out and had a great time!  We camped in Apollo Bay the first night, right next to the ocean and in Port Fairy the next night before driving back to Melbourne bright and early in the morning.  The sights were beautiful and the weather worked out great.  Here are a couple of highlights.  I’ll update more when we are in Cairns.

Day 2 – Melbourne

After managing to get a good amount of sleep (with the help of maybe 1 sleeping pill) and a HUGE breakfast I headed out to tour Melbourne while Andrew went to the conference all day. I walked up to the city from our hotel to have a look around. The main city is pretty much ‘a city’ similar to NYC in many ways. Though it does have many little side alleys that have fancy cafe’s and eateries. Yum! I wandered all around the city for about 2 hours and then headed back to the Yarra River (the main river running through the city). I followed it along until I ended up at the Rod Laver Tennis Arena and Olympic Center from the Melbourne Olympics…I think they were here in the 80’s. The river walk was really nice. I was AMAZED at the number of people working out in the middle of the day. It seemed to me that most of the people should be working…but I guess not. I reached the Rod Laver Arena to find out it was on Batman Ave…ha! After that I decided to walk along down the street following my map to the Chapel Street area. This is a long street with all of the fancy shops and restaurants. It’s just outside of the city and I thought it would be more like a Rodeo Drive. Oddly enough, all the fancy shops are mixed in with 7-11’s and other random ‘low class’ stores, pretty funny in my opinion, but still fun.

After Chapel street I thought I would be led straight to my hotel…boy am I bad at remembering where I started. I ended up walking WELL past my hotel and had to backtrack though another neat area of Melbourne. A street lined with office buildings, but also with trees. And at the bottom of each office building there was a cafe, bar or restaurant where people were hanging out and relaxing…at 3pm! While it was very neat…I was EXHAUSTED from walking! All in all I walked for 5.5 hours straight! Guess I got my exercise for the trip! Needless to say we did not do MUCH at all last night. We had a nice dinner and delicious dessert (the Chocolate Bomb) at the hotel restaurant with some of the people on Andrew’s trip. So nice that pretty much all meals have been on Illumina so far! Andrew’s talk went great yesterday and it’s clear that all of the Aussie’s love him . We were in bed by 10 and asleep by 10:05. Of course it’s 4:30 in the morning here now & we’re both wide awake and watching random TV, but we’re too excited about the next part of our trip to sleep. Today we head off to pick up the car, drive on the left side of the road and head out to the Great Ocean Road. We can’t wait to see some beautiful sights and hopefully Koalas! It will be a few days before we can write again. Hope all is well!

34 Hours of travelling – I made it to Australia!

Wow!  After getting to the airport at 3pm on Saturday May 31, I finally arrived in Melbourne, Australia at 1am Boston time on June 2nd.  That’s 34 hours of travelling!  Needless to say it was a VERY long trip, but so far well worth it.  A little review:

1.  When checking in at the airport I was told I would need a visa in order to get into Australia…which I didn’t have.  After letting my heart race for a good 5 minutes, the people checking me in told me they could get one for a $25 fee (acting as if there was no way I would be willing to pay)  My response…so DO IT already…what else am I going to do?!   I already have my tickets I just want to get on the plane!

2.  The flight from Boston to LAX was very smooth…though if you wanted ANYTHING to eat you had to purchase food.  They didn’t even give up peanuts.  Good thing I’m neurotic & brought all of those snacks!

3.  Upon arrival in LAX I was told our flight was delayed from 11:50pm to 1:40 am (4:40am my time:).  So I spent the next 5 hours pacing a very small terminal where everything was closed, doing my best to stay awake!

4.  I finally made it onto the Syndey plane and fell asleep almost instantly and proceeded to sleep on & off for about 9 hours…yay!  The last 5 hours I read & watched a movie.   Thank goodness for the window seat I had secured at the beginning of the flight…it was the last one, and it made all the difference!

5.  Arriving in Sydney approximately 200 people had to have their connections rebooked, including me.  After clearing customs easily I waiting in line for about 1.5 hours to get my ticket rebooked and then hung out in the Sydney airport for 3 hours.

6.  Finally I was on my plane to Melbourne and sat next to a lovely Australian woman who now wants to be my life long friend.  She was here for work so allowed me to catch a ride with her into the city on her company’s dime…a definite highlight.  Incidentally, she works for IBM and may be helpful in connecting me to get some interns placed…not too shabby .

Finally at the hotel and it feels SO good!  I showered & did my best to stay awake for 4 hours until Andrew got here.  I failed miserably & ended up sleeping through 3 of them.  But he got here early & it was SO great to see him!  He’s been busy but seems to be having a great time!  We had breakfast this morning with some of his colleagues he’s speaking with and they are all very nice.  Some of them have been on the entire worldwide tour for the last 2.5 weeks and are completely loopy by now!   This is the last night of the tour, so I have no doubt that tonight will be an interesting, crazy and fun celebration.  For today I’m off to do some exploring, maybe some shopping and probably some more sleeping.  Andrew is gone for the day until dinner so I’ll do my best to entertain myself.  There’s a soccer game going on outside of the balcony of my room…so maybe I’ll watch that for a little while too.

Anyway, just wanted to update you all.  We’ll do our best to write as often as possible.  I’ll have Andrew share some of his pictures and stories from Singapore as well.  After tomorrow we’ll have a couple of days without internet access while we drive the Great Ocean Road, but we’ll be back in Melbourne on our Friday and will try to fill you in again then.  Hope all is well back at home!  We miss you all!

Singapore & a broken toe!

So…I dropped Andrew off at the airport at 4am yesterday.  He should finally be in Singapore at 9:30am today (our time). I’m trying to imagine what he’s feeling like right now. Exhausted, confused, excited…lost? I can only imagine how the people sitting next to him felt after 15.5 hours on the plane. Let’s be honest, sitting still is not one of the boy’s strong suits! Hopefully he managed to get some sleep and relax. Hopefully he’ll find a way to let me know he made it safely before noon today as promised. I cannot wait to hear about all that he gets to see while he’s there and see the pictures I have no doubt, he will diligently take. From what I hear there are animals everywhere. For those of you who know him…you’ve seen his ability to get completely distracted by a hawk flying around (he’s seen hundreds of hawks) WHILE DRIVING and lose sight of the fact that he should be paying attention to the road. I can’t imagine how distracted he’ll be by monkeys & other strange animals. While I’m thankful he won’t be driving…I hear the drivers there are crazy so I’m hopeful he doesn’t wander into the roads. I love him…but he gets distracted VERY easily!

It’s funny how you never really think about all of the people flying around in the air until a loved one is up there. Thousands of flights take off and land EVERY day. And yet when someone you love is up there you’re convinced it will be the one plane something happens to. And then you realize you really have no control over it, remember that 1000’s of flights go on every day and try to relax. I watched the news every morning and it appears as though everything went smoothly. Which is less than I can say for train travel right now. A derailment in Chicago, a T crash in Boston and a ‘run-over’ in Maine, wild. All I can say is that we are lucky people and pray for those that were injured in the crashes. But enough with this saddness…

The last thing Andrew said to me before heading off to check in yesterday morning was…see you in Australia. What? So strange! I leave in 2 days and I don’t think it’s hit me yet that I also will be taking that dreaded 14 hour flight from LA to Australia. But it will be well worth it! We’re meeting in Melbourne, then off to Cairns and finishing in Sydney. It will be one amazing trip and I cannot wait, though laundry and packing still stand in my way! 50+ hours and counting!

In regards to the toe…let’s just say it was late, it was dark, there was luggage out and my 2nd toe on my right foot is now throbbing and difficult to walk on. GREAT!