the power was out and the super bowl was on. i was the only one not running room service. well, me and the random maintenance guy.
by the time it was all over, it wasn't clear whether the rams had won or lost, and we couldn't go home. there was only one thing to do.
"you want to jump on the bed? fine! we'll jump on the bed!"
alicia and i made sure it wasn't a serious head wound before we started making fun of him.
don't even get me started on the trip to boston.
the latter day saints stopped by today. i lied to them. but in a pleasant way.
what is the deal with people bugging me on the day i get to come home early? it started with a picnic in the park and eased into a short nap through dr. phil. then the next thing i knew, zoey was flipping out at the top of the stairs and there was a knock at the door. i knew it wasn't the neighbor kid because he would have rung the doorbell, which is something we'll cover later.
the nervous gentlemen at the door had the right to be nervous. by the time zoey and i'd made it down the stairs, she'd worked herself into an excited and jumping froth. i had to haul her away from the glass so i could open the door an inch. even tho her energy had only good intentions (come on, look at that face), 70 pounds of jumping and barking dog might put you on guard.
i was so proud of her. it totally reminded me of the time we still lived on state road and had dusty, a 90-pound retriever/lab mix. he was a lot more laid back than zoey, but definitely got worked up in the presence of strangers. those poor jehovah's rang the wrong bell that day.
knowing they were bad news, i watched them walk up to the house. i posed dusty just behind the front door, grabbed his collar, and braced myself. when they'd gotten his attention, i opened the door, and he jumped forward ... all dog spit and floppy ears.
it was beautiful. i told the jehovah's i didn't know how long i could hold him. they tried to pass me some "literature" over him, but were unsuccessful.
today's adventure was pretty much the opposite of that in that the dog was behind me. i set one foot on the porch, kept the other inside, and looked like i was having trouble keeping my balance due to the crazy snapping and potential biting behind me.
turns out they wanted to chat for a while, but i told them, while i repeatedly pushed zoey back, that this wasn't a good time. when would be a better time? i looked at her, back out at them and shook my head. they didn't argue.
and then! not ten minutes later, the doorbell rang. neighbor kid. i wasn't quite as pleasant. when will it end?
oh well. at least i was fully awake for the family feud.
"this is my darling sister marie, who's stuck in 1972."
there can't possibly be enough change in the world.
more.
this is very telling.
the good news
- the microwave is a good chicken defroster.
- there wasn't enough smoke to be detected.
- the kitchen floor is incredibly clean.
- my french knife doesn't need to be sharpened.
- there's an aloe plant on the counter.
- the kettle needed to be washed anyway.
- nothing sticks to a stir fry pan.
- bag-o-salad.
the bad news
- my hands still smell like garlic.
- the fan above the stove is as loud as a tornado.
- the hair on my forearms is gone. (this one might be in the wrong category.)
- how long until you know if you have salmonella?
- those poor snow peas.
- what do you do with that much leftover rice?
by 8.30 a.m., today was a big day. media relations was shooting random video to use in random video clips either at a town hall or a road show or something like that. they weren't looking for audio, and i was having a good hair day, so i went.
the location? panera. not the newest one. the one next to the first chipotle. yeah, that one.
at 8, it wasn't crowded. neil said he would be there, but i didn't see him. he might have been hiding behind a screen somewhere. my hot chocolate and i took a seat at a small table in the back and i fired up my laptop. i didn't even think to put my wireless card in. it wasn't like i was actually going to do any work.
as i sat there and was ultimately videotaped ("pretend i'm not even here" said the guy with the giant camera who sat down next to me. i was suddenly nervous, so he got a good two minutes of me mostly hitting backspace.) i had an epiphany. it was very cool because i so rarely have epiphanies. the last really good one i had was when i was looking down the barrel of a deadline with not even a hint of a story idea. that evening, i'd just smeared cold cream all over my face when it hit me. i looked myself in the eye and said, "reg is a woman!"
then i proceeded to write an awesome script that no one else understood and were assigned to read again because dr. schiff loved it.
this morning's epiphany was a little different, tho: i realized what i want to be when i grow up.
i want to be one of those people who sit in a coffeehouse all day writing and watching people ... and i don't even like coffee! before i knew it, my panera hour was up, and i'd just hit a good stride. we'll revisit this career path again in december ... after the results of this year's NaNoWriMo have been tallied.
at that point, i may be taking applications for a benefactor. don't worry, i won't ask for your identity ... just your money.
it's gonna be great ... you'll see ...
thank god for rain, wind, and other such natural destructors of human technological advancements. can you believe the number of hurricanes cropping up this season? florida must have done something truly evil to deserve the pounding it's taking. i hope it has enough bottled water.
but that's not my concern right now. i'd rather talk about a minor cloud burst and a fire drill.
if you've been keeping up, you've noticed that i spent what seems like a majority of my summer in north central and northwestern pennsylvania. if you haven't been keeping up, what you've missed are a few of my escapades in north central and northwestern pennsylvania.
now that we're all on the same page, i'd like to share with you the route you must travel to get from wilcox, PA to richmond, VA (avoiding DC traffic because interstate 95 is a bitch if you hit it between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., pardon my french): 219, 153, 80, 970, 350, 322, 99, 76, 70, 522, 37, 81, 66, 17, 95, 295.
actually, 295 takes you around richmond, so if you're aiming for 64 and the city's west end, you have to pretend that the signs for "295 to 64" don't exist. otherwise, you'll end up in charlottesville, making the lady in the leasing office really, really mad, which in turn means you get an apartment filled with cockroaches. and bugs. trust me, 95 eventually intersects with 64 directly.
although each of those roads is memorable ... especially 80, since it's where i got lost the first time and had to call mom, the maker of maps, to find out where i was and she didn't have a map handy ... interstate 99 holds a special place in my heart because it's where my heart actually stopped for the longest period of time that my heart has ever stopped without the result being my death. not that dying is common for me ... i think i had sleep apnea when i was a freshman. is that something that just goes away? i have no idea.
so, you walk unsuspectingly into a friend's house on a day that isn't your birthday or anniversary and a group of 20 people "surprises" you because maybe it's a few days before or a few days after. or! you wander onto a porch to take candy from a seemingly fake gorilla and it grabs your hand. or! you wake up and ... no, that's not a good one ... anyway! minor heart stoppage. for a second or two, you've lost complete control and your body thinks it's best to handle the situation by shutting down momentarily. it happens to everyone, right?
the rain hit in philipsburg. it was the kind of rain that makes motorcyclists and native virginians stop under bridges. being a native pennsylvanian driving through pennsylvania, i trudged on and found I-99 on the other side of the clouds. naturally, the road was wet with some puddling here and there, but mostly on bridges. have you ever noticed that pennsylvania has "bridge may be icy" signs all over the place? that's because it's freezing there 75% of the year. it rains thru the other 25%.
i was driving one of approximately four cars traveling south. all 937 northbound cars were stopped because an upside-down SUV was blocking both lanes at the 350 merger. the only cars that actually made any headway to the north for about a 6-mile stretch were emergency vehicles. nothing was on fire, but i saw two stretchers and a sign that said "slow down. save a life." i wasn't in a hurry to get home, nor was i in a hurry to be the next flipped SUV on 99 regardless of how short a trip it would be for the ambulances. i could live with 70 in a 65. sacrifices.
unfortunately, the lexus that came out of nowhere a few miles later was completely oblivious to the situation and to my plan. going about 80, he passed me on a bridge.
the sound that 20 gallons of water makes when it hits a windshield at 70 mph made my heart stop for the first second. the other two stopped seconds are attributable to the facts that 20 gallons of water had just hit my windshield, that i was blind to everything outside the car, and that my heart had stopped beating a second ago.
somehow, i managed to turn on the wipers and not die. a few minutes later, i was back to breathing normally. a few more minutes later i wasn't shaking quite as much.
it's funny. in the summer of '97, i worked in the college library. it was under serious renovation, so i spent the first month moving art books and "new fiction" to the makeshift satellite library on the other side of campus, and the next two months reading "new fiction" and doing as much astronomy homework as one can do in the daylight.
jen also worked at the library and was taking astronomy. we lived in the same town and would be roommates in the fall, if that matters. one afternoon we were quietly working/studying in the two-room library that no one ever visited because, duh, it was summer vacation, when the fire alarm went off. holy loud.
in the split second that followed, jen and i made brief, meaningless eye contact and with absolutely no regard for anything whatsoever, fled. if you can get a good sprint going in 40 feet, that's what we did.
it wasn't until we were let back inside that i realized i'd left my book bag, my books, my purse, my wallet, and my car keys behind ... and i hadn't even checked to see if anyone else was in the building. it was a moment when my life should have been flashing before my eyes, and all i could think to do was run away.
when that water hit my car, and my life should have been flashing before my eyes again, here's what i thought in that crucial moment: "fuck!" i may have even yelled it. then i braced for death.
what kind of person am i?? certainly not a helpful one when danger looms. i may have to start purposely putting myself in life-threatening situations to develop my reaction skills. i'd much rather be the person who's calm and collected under pressure than the one who wigs out, immediately causing another accident and getting more people killed. maybe i'll even condition myself to have meaningful flashbacks in times of crisis rather than panic-induced tourettes.
the next time i almost die, i want to be thinking about that time i gave mandy a shoebox full of oreo's and orange M&Ms for her birthday. at the very least, i want to think about how much zoey will love texas.
some people (mostly men) will tell you that they love yard work because at the end of the day they look at what they've done with a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. they may not say that exactly, simply because men who use the word "fulfillment" are rare. or they're dr. phil. come to think of it, actually being dr. phil is rare, too.
i, on the other hand, am not a man. thank god. i don't think i could deal with the social pressures. throughout my last two years, which conveniently happen to also be my only two years, of home ownership, yard work has been my bane. much to my own chagrin, i've mowed and mowed and mowed, never really improving the look of the place. apparently half-hearted dedication doesn't quite make the grade and i'm sure the neighbors never fully appreciated the resemblance my yard bore to a wheat field. i thought it was charming, but i have no intention of asking them what they thought.
then it happened. i pulled into my driveway late wednesday nite, and the weed next to the mailbox that was nearly as tall as me was gone. used to seeing it every day, i wondered if i was in the right place. not only that, but i also had no problem spotting the driveway because the grass growing in it was gone. well, maybe not entirely gone ... that's a job for another day ... but gone enough that i could see gravel.
and the backyard? the random grove of sumac trees was gone. 'nuff said.
a couple weeks ago my dad asked mike if he knew how to mow a lawn and mike said, "i know how to hire a lawn service."
did i know how to hire a lawn service? well, no. but my neighbor did. i don't typically have the propensity to ask for help, but i do have an impressive knack for looking pathetic, so it all evens out.
lewis stopped by yesterday to collect a check. he'll be back every two weeks until it's too cold for grass to grow. he likes my yard because it doesn't have a lot of obstacles and it's bigger than what you usually see in suburbia.
talk about a sense of accomplishment. sure, it took a long and painful time, but now i can read on the porch whenever i want knowing the neighbors are outside, too. i may finally fit in.
lewis and i are going to get along just fine.
