"In the Border"

So Phil 'n' I will be going to Canada this weekend to follow the Admirals around for a few games. Just a fun lil 2010 roadtrip to ring in the new year. Which is awesome. We're hoping to meet up with DitchDoc as well, God willing!!

So naturally I gave T-mobile a ring this afternoon to find out how much I'm charged per minute for Canadian calls because I really don't know other than that it's something. What a joke that was. I called, explained that I would be driving to Canada, and politely asked my customer service rep how much I'm charged, per minute, for calls made to Canada and calls made to the US from Canada. His response? "Oh, you're driving there? Well you're just charged for normal minutes, cuz you're in the border." That... did not make sense to me. "In" the border? What the? So I acknowledge that I do not know what that means and asked for clarification. So he responds "Well you know, if you're calling either the US or Canada from in the border there is no additional fee." Still got nothing. I'm confused... is this coming up because I live IN a state that borders Canada? Don't see how that should matter... so right. I ask again. "No, no. That doesn't matter. You just don't pay any additional fee so long as you're in the border." He's not cute anymore: "Where IS in the border?" He starts faltering, then comes out with "You know, the line. Between Canada and the U.S...."

I'm a little disgruntled. So basically he was telling me that I just spent 10 minutes of my time having him totally misrepresent how "I'd only be charged normal minutes" during my trip.... by leaving out the part that it's only AS I'M CROSSING THE FREAKING BORDER. I finally got him to spit out a number and that it's 20 cents per minute extra for when I'm either in the U.S. or Canada, but whatever. That's just ridiculous. What a slime ball, with his tricky prepositions.

Bitterness and Grief

Call me shallow, but I'm really upset about how my roommate (I try not to focus on how he's also my brother... makes it too personal...) murdered my daffodils the other night. I was so proud of myself. It's the first plant I've ever had that I've remember to water. They have a really nifty "vase/pot" that's a like a fish bowl but open at the top with a downwards slant, cool little rocks and foilage stuff in it, and it had two beautiful blossoms that became three thanks to my nurturing. I'm trying to prove that I can nurture plants because if I can nurture plants I can probably nurture pets and if I can nurture pets I can maybe nurture babies. Maybe I've got something to prove here.

But regardless, the point is that he sabotaged my attempt at proving I could nurture by opening the window upon which sill my plant was resting (for optimal sunlight-- it was not left there out of negligence!!) and exposed it to freezing temperatures, crippled it with frost, and thus made me a failure. It doesn't look like she'll recover, though I still have faint hopes.

And I'm very upset about this. Even bitter. Possibly in the first stage of grieving.

Sigh.

A Winter Prophecy

Sitting on the sofa. Minding my own business. Researching. Silent clickety-click of computer keys.

Matt's voice.

"It's coming you know. The hour of apocalypse."

Glance over at him with awkward skepticism.

"The snow parking disaster. The snow parking apocalypse.

I don't know what we're going to do.

In those bleak days young men will see visions. Old men will dream dreams. Many of those old men will not survive the journey back to their apartments from their parking spots.

Look out there. It's bleak."

I look. We look.

"Look out there. Way out there is probably where we might be able to find parking."

Silence.

Matt's voice.

"Do you have a window scraper?"
"yeah."
"Do you have two?"
Exchange of a glance.
A sigh.
Silence conquers.

Griping

I feel so beaten-down and dejected this evening. In about 20 minutes I have to leave for work... and won't get home until after classes tomorrow afternoon. That is so wrong. What's worse is I don't know what else I'd want to do if I didn't have to work tonight. Sleep? Not really. I'm too restless.

I feel like I spend a couple months trying to get a routine down pat. And then once I've established that routine my skin starts crawling with dissatisfaction and the desire for change. There is nothing worse than getting too comfortable with your situation. Than always knowing what to expect. Except for when you don't have any clue what to expect- then that's worse. And we're always constantly bobbling between the two extremes.

If only I could take a roadtrip and just drive from all this cold, barren land and emptiness...

Winter needs to end.

Learn to Drive, Asshole

Today I nearly died.

I hate people who drive their cars in crappy weather when they clearly have no idea what they are doing. Take this morning for example.

TIME: 7:47AM. Rush Hour Traffic.
LOCATION: Milwaukee, WI
OFFENDER: AssholeInTheDirtyRedCar.

CONTEXT: So here I am in the right hand lane on a three lane road, going with the flow of traffic at 40mph in a 50mph zone. Reasonable considering the roads are not clear and it's slippery. The flow of traffic was working as one beast in unison. Until the AssholeInTheDirtyRedCar came along. Just AS I'M PASSING the right hand turn lane, whatshisface decides to swoop ahead of me at the last second, cut me off and swerve right, making an illegal right hand turn.

OPTIONS: The road conditions are such that stopping in time is simply not an option. My choices were as follows.
1) Slam right into the S.O.B. Tempting, to be sure, but my car would likely take most of the damage and I'D be hitting him (complicated) and I'm uninsured. No go.
2) Swerve left and hit the SchoolbusFullOfLittleKiddies. Yeah. I avoid schoolbuses when driving as a general rule in the winter. The only thing worse than an accident is an accident where little kiddies are involved.
3) Swerve into the HugeAssSnowDrift that's literally 3X as tall as my car at 40 mph. Seriously. It was unfathomably huge and looked like the equivalent of slamming into an iceberg.

CONCLUSION: So right, I took one for the team. It sucked. I was yelling "WWWHHYYYYYY?!?!" as I slammed into the huge-ass iceberg and spinned out. First of all, the impact really sucked, I nailed my head pretty hard (still have a headache). Second, my car whipped around after the nose got stuck in and I nearly hit the SchoolBusFullOfKiddies any way... some angel must have squeezed between us at the last second and acted as a buffer, cuz it was damn close. And by that I mean I'm a damn good driver and controlled my spin. (*twiddles thumbs*) Third, the iceberg- I'm NOT exaggerating.. iceberg.. FINE, snowdrift.- avalanched down on top of me. Fortunately there was a car-full of kindly consctruction worker guys with lots of muscles behind me that helped dig/push my car out the iceberg (*glare*) it was so deeply imbedded in.

AFTERMATH: My head hurts. I am SO MAD that AssholeInTheDirtyRedCar and he'd better pray I don't find him (Yup. He didn't even stop.). And I was late for my Anatomy&Physiology Lab. On the bright side I didn't seem to suffer any brain damage cuz I aced the quiz/test thingy postponed from the snowday on Wednesday. But I suspect that one was because it was easy-- I'm NOT on my "A"-game in that class... Yet.

At any rate, I guess this makes me a Hero... y'know... protecting the LittleKiddies and masterfully manuvering my spin so I miss them by a hairsbreadth. Talk about finesse. Or something. But in all earnestness, I've decided that the real trick to being a good driver in inclement weather is Avoidance. I mean this. I really do. Avoidance of other drivers primarily, avoidance of slippery sludgy icy snowy crap secondly, and avoidance of potholes thirdly. This is the trick. Avoid these things like the plague and you can be a masterful life-saver, iceberg-demolisher too.

SNOW DAY!!!

Having slept a paltry 2 hours since Monday afternoon, my enthusiasm levels about this snow day are THROUGH THE ROOF. I'm more excited than a little kid on Christmas! I have spent all yesterday afternoon/evening studying for two Tests I was supposed to have back to back at school this morning- one in Chemistry, one in Anatomy & Physiology. And they're the first for each class, so I really don't know what level of difficulty to expect. I was supposed to go straight from work to school to take them. In fact, I spent a good 3 more hours at work (inbetween rounds and on my breaks) studying, I was so nervous about it.

But not anymore. Milwaukee's getting a good 12-16 inches of snow today. And the roads are crap. We're being blanketed in violent ThunderSnow (yeah, they actually call it that). I'm not too excited about the snow itself, but my gosh is it great to have more time for studying. And now those test won't be on the same day, and I'll be well rested for them. PLUS, I'm already prepared for them and can focus on long term memory as opposed to cramming. This is excellent. Simply outstanding.

And with that, I'm off to bed...

Homeless in Wisconsin

So here I am, the day Phil's coming out to visit, realizing I still haven't gotten around to cleaning my room. Right. So I got up this morning and I was cleaning up, trying not to get too distracted, but getting distracted anyways. So I decide to go do some laundry. That's concrete, definite progress having laundry out of the room because the room instantly looks less cluttered, right?

Anyways. So I get my laundry basket and go out into the back hallway to go down the basement to wash my clothes- and the door locks behind me. I'm locked out of my apartment. The landlord and his wife won't be home from work 'till 5ish. Matt won't be home 'till 4ish. It's 11:10am. My cellphone is locked inside. I'm wearing my PJ's. My "not meant for 10 degree weather in a snowstorm PJs." It's winter. Life sucks.

So I go outside to try and go around to the front to try and break in. It's damn cold. It's snowing and windy. I'm painfully obviously locked out of my house and not dressed for the challenge and sleezy people are honking at me and laughing as I fumble around on my porch and try to break in. At first I smile and shrug like "what's a girl to do?" but I quickly deteriorate into tossing them dirty looks and flipping them off. The one window that's storm is loose enough to break in through is locked on the inside. I set about trying to get another storm window open for an unlocked window. It's not happening. I need some sort of tool to pry it with. So right, I fumble around searching for something to use, basically I'm out there in the freezing cold totally exposed for an hour determined to get in- I had way too much stuff to get done to sit around waiting for them to come home for 5 or 6 hours! I did seriously consider making an igloo, though. That would kinda be like saying "Fuck you, apartment. I don't need to live in you." Or a snowman friend to keep me company and comfort me in my sorrow. Or an icicle key.

So anyways, an hour later as I'm finally caving (yes, I'm that stubborn.) and going next door to try and see if the nosy neighbor guy it's taken me so long to get to stop bugging me all the time will help me (*cursing under breath*), guess who's car randomly pulls into MY drive?! Matt's! It was so fortuitous. Apparently the tool he needed for work he had left in the basement! So I come trudging back around the house to his car and tell him my sob story amidst his laughter, and he let me in the house.

So I learned two things today. One, the reason why Milwaukee has so few homeless people is because there's no way you could survive in these conditions long term. And two, we've gotta get a damn spare key.

Christmas Time!

Wow. I love the holidays! Just so much frenzied playing and partying and people you don't see often but who get you so excited and happy and playful!

I wish it was Christmastime everytime!