Operation: Success!

thanks to the father, i am home. wahoo! 2.5 of the three hours were spent just on madison st., ever inching towards the freeway. yes. one street, an ARTERIAL road, less than 2 miles.

i am not even going to pretend to understand the logic here? anyone using their brains up in here?

so, once we got to the freeway and out in the 'burbs, the roads are pretty clear. yeah, probably because they use SALT. and SCRAPE the roads clear, instead of dump sand and hope it will "pack it down". (it's also raining right now, btw. who wants to bet those sand sprinkled roads full of snow and ice will begin to resemble a SHEET of ice in the morning?

but yes. i am hooooome! i love my family. check out what greeted me at home.

love it.

Operation Get Me Out of Here

will commence at approximately D Day 1600H. That's if The Padre can maneuver his adequately tired vehicle up this direction.

i ventured out and bought cat food and stuff because i'm totally going to abandon the batcats and let them rule the batcave. is that mean? Who knew just walking 4 blocks in the snow would be such an ordeal? Lots of icy patches, it took forEVER.

the fancypants car owner just returned with a shovel, sans scarf. He's now trying to dig his car out of this snowy nonsense. amidst the digging, another car just got stuck. according to the crazy cat lady count, we're up to 14 cars stuck literally RIGHT outside my window. this number may be inaccurate, given my newly minted crazy cat lady status. i may be a loser, but i also may not be paying enough attention to give adequate play-by-play.

did i mention i'm extremely OVER this weather? it's not okay, okay?

over and out.

it's a good thing

i bought all those dry goods that one time.

the snow just keeps on coming down. we're up to probably a foot or more on the ground and rooftops, 6" on the roads. since i'm a crazy cat lady with nothing better to do than gaze out my window, i watched somebody in a fancypants car get stuck, conveniently right in front of the driveway to our garage. he abandoned his car after getting a scarf out of the back seat. just a scarf. ummmm ok. the snow doesn't seem bad, but there's a good inch or so of ice beneath all the pretty white stuff, that's not a good combination with the hills. case in point:

i doubt i'll be getting the tires on the Death Trap replaced tomorrow morning between 6 and 9 am, that's for sure.

and now may i just say, i'm glad i caved in that moment of weakness and delusion and adopted the batcats. dealing with naaaasty kitty litter aside, they are great for curling up and keeping my toes warm, and i would be really lonely stranded here otherwise.

when you are home bound...

as a result of not wanting to end up like this poor schmuck
you notice things you wouldn't otherwise.

like how your upstairs neighbor apparently spends 1-2 hours each day from 11-1 either practicing for STOMP!, tap dancing, or doing some sort of high impact aerobics.

this is like deja vu from the briar house days, only this time i don't have an adorable landlord sending us chocolates and pizza and thank you cards for "putting up with disrespectful upstairs neighbors."

despite the fact that i want to throw a baseball at my ceiling repeatedly, it IS a good reminder / motivator.

bald.

my tires, that is.



this isn't a good thing when the roads are icy. this should come as no surprise considering it isn't a good thing when the roads are dry.

there goes another $700+. tell me again why i just had to have an audi?

sign me up

i know i'm s sucker for marketing, but every time i see this commercial i melt a little bit:



one time i was home alone at my parent's house in f dub and flipped on the tv. the movie pay it forward was on tbs or usa or something. i watched the whole thing (if you know me well, you'll know this is a pretty big deal, considering my attention span) and as the end credits were rolling, i just sat there in my parent's family room, in the dark, under a blanket, tears streaming down my face. stupid movie.

then my brother came home. he took one look at me, i sat up, and that was the end of that.

so i know it's cheesy, but i am glad i can support an employer who, while money definitely is the motivator, also cares about the common good.

this was kind of a strange week for me. i guess being completely disconnected from the world after 5pm(what am i in, 1982?) doesn't help matters, but i admit i've enjoyed coming home late and just curling up to a book.

ok, so the book isn't quite the type for "curling up" but you get the idear.

in somewhate related news, i mentioned the waterlogged cell phone and my awesome coworker said she had an old phone she was about to donate. she lives just a mile or so away from me on the same bus line, so i stopped off there briefly to see her place (really urban and cute, so jealous) and pick up the phone. it doesn't hold a charge but has one bar of battery left. i hope it will just get me through 2 weeks for "new every two".

in mostly unrelated news, the same aforementioned awesome coworker joined me for an early exodus from work and free SAM thursday. there was also an art walk down in pioneer square, but we weren't sure how that all worked out. either it wasn't well attended, or we were way too late. anyway, i saw edward hopper's women, a creepy piece made of human hair (ehhhhh) and a not so creepy piece made of thrift store sweaters and grandma's old crocheted blankets. i love working a block away from the SAM.

and in completely UNrelated news, ruby red grapefruit is only a quarter at fred meyer. YUM. i appreciate seeing the price of some things (like food, and - miracle of miracles, GAS is down to 1.99 in my neighborhood!) go down, because i just got my annual HOA budget meeting notice. while they fell well within their 2008 budget, and while they raised our dues 33% last year, they want to raise dues another 15% next year to 'plan ahead for repairs' and 'avoid future special assessments.' i don't know. i personally would rather be the one earning interest on my money than give it away to a condo association that doesn't know how to plan, much less plan ahead. i doubt 25k more a year is going to prevent more special assessments... but i have a feeling i'm the minority opinion for this one. boooooo.

so, to make myself feel a little bit better about being a sucker home/condo owner, i went to my favorite website, zillow, and was happy to see that while my "value" has dropped 15%, it's still higher than what i paid for the place. hopefully i can sell without learning a painful financial lesson.

and last but not least, in the spirit of thanksgiving, i'm thankful for not one, not two, but THREE coworkers who gave me our company's little "recognize and energize" amex card rewards. i really, really enjoy my coworkers. this place is like a morgue (a lot of people work from home various days throughout the week) but each individual coworker has been so nice to me and that makes all the difference. ahhh.

and on that note, i think i'll head home and remain cut off from society until comcast shows up on sunday between the hours of 12 and 5 to (hopefully) reconnect me to the interwebs (including my home phone line). ta ta.

and btw...

the interweb is still broken at home. AND...

the batcats knocked over a glass of water right next to my cell phone sometime in the middle of the night.... so i woke up to a cell phone that's totally waterlogged (still is) and nonfunctional. great. SO...

in the meantime, if you want to get a hold of me, i guess just send me an email and i'll reply when i get bored at work. and if i send an email asking y'all to update your contact info cuz mine's waterlogged and gone... please help me out!

xoxo.

TG part 2

Here are the pics.

en route:
it's a world very, very different from mine. but how cute are these kids?!
post-family pic meltdown. the acceptable children are the cutest kids, EVER. plus, check out those eyelashes!

Chapter 1108: In Which She Goes Over the River and Through the Wood.

I went to visit the Acceptable Children and their Acceptable Parents over Thanksgiving. It was great. I just got home last night. My mother was kind enough to pick me up from l'aeroporto. Kid Sis Z was kind enough to try and get me in the Christmas spirit (already? lights? UGH). Then came the dragging of the bat cats out of their temporary home at my parents into a pet carrier. That part wasn't so pleasant, but I'm not sure which was worse, the Christmas lights or corralling pets.

I was pretty tired last night and dragged my sorry carcass to work this morning, so once I get home and all I'll put up a couple of pictures and stories. Don't worry your pretty little heads, dear readers.

The condo is really, really quiet. Not sure if I like that.