What the hell happened?

Number of miles I drove on I-80 in Iowa: Appx. 50
Number of vehicles I saw in ditches: 24
Number of vehicles that were semis: 2
Number of vehicles that were flipped over: 2 1/2

The one half is what appeared to be the roof and side panels of a conversion van. Something else was beside it. I really couldn't tell, I went by too quickly.

Note: This number may not be indicative of actual total, as the ditches to either side of the road were often deep, and cars could have been hidden entirely from view.

On other news, I got my domain back! You may have noticed that for a while, I was advertising for apartments in Chicago. This is because my domain expires every year on 11/28. This year that just happened to be the day after Thanksgiving, I got distracted, and I lost my domain for a while. Too much money got it back for me, and I'll be more careful in the future. I've had this domain for years. At least 4. I'm not giving it up, dammit. Not until I'm ready.

On a final note, tomorrow is Christmas. I hope everyone reading this is safe and warm and surrounded by family, friends and loved ones. Merry Christmas!

Who knew she was so filthy?

Nomi: Got any prospects?
Steff: No.
Steff: But I hope to...
Steff: I'm a single mother who is into kink.
Steff: Limited pool I'm looking to tap into here.
Nomi: Pfft, there are plenty of men who would bang you hardcore.
Steff: LOL

Get Ready To Rokk

I'm gonna go see Freezepop tonight at Ground Zero. My son is having a sleepover at his friend's house, i have a designated driver, good company lined up for the show and the beatings thereafter... good times should be had.

10 Inches? Ha!

Turns out that was nothing. Last Wed. - Fri. we got 17+ inches. (Probably closer to 20, but by Friday it had dwindled, I had to go in to work, and I stopped paying attention.) Biggest storm I've seen since coming to MN. Good times, good times.

In other news, I am kicking ass on Viva Pinata. Crackdown promises to be much fun, and Bullet Witch is pretty but so far plays sorta badly. Must earn more achievements and thus increase my worth as a gamer. Apparently I am making many faux pas in my shooter style according to the hubby, but it's a learning curve. Someday I'll be better. Surely I get points for trying.

I have a snotty neighbor who lives across the hall with what I assume is her boyfriend. She is snotty in that, when passing in the hall, a smile and a friendly hello is met with an averted gaze. She would sooner pretend no one is speaking to her than return what I consider to be common courtesy. So, fine. The other night I am woken at 4:00 by a loud pounding sound coming from somewhere outside my apartment. At first I try to ignore it and go back to sleep, but it keeps on going and going, and soon I start to think maybe someone is lying in the hallway bleeding to death and desperately trying to summon help. So I get out of bed and look through my peephole to see if I can spot anything. I see snotty blonde (Did I mention she is blonde? It seems typical... pretty blonde who thinks she is better than her neighbors. but I digress.) outside her door in her pj's and a robe, pounding with both fists on her door - she is clearly locked out and trying to get back in. I stick my head out the door and ask if she would like to use a phone. She says yes, so I hand her the cordless. After pushing an odd number of buttons several times, she says she can't get it to work. I am thinking maybe the battery is dead - it happens - so I take it back and offer her the other. She can't get this one to work either, and says so. I take it from her and ask for her number, and at this point I can smell her breath. She smells like she has consumed a bottle of rubbing alcohol. I presume this is why dialing the phone is so hard. So I dial her number for her, twice, and get voice mail both times. I mention that we could call the after-hours emergency number, and she says "I know he's in there" then stalks off to the stairwell at the end of the hall and disappears. No thank you or anything like that. So fine, I go back inside and try to sleep some more. This proves difficult, as she eventually returns to pound and kick on the door some more. By the time I finally get out of bed at 6, she is gone.

This amuses me for two reasons. One - You cannot be locked out of our apartments. the door unlocks when you open it from inside. the only way you can lock yourself out is by using a key to lock it up behind you and then lose said key, or if someone locks the door behind you from inside. Now, I don't know what happened, but I like to imagine that the boyfriend locked her out of the apartment for something at 4 am. Two - Now when she tries to be snotty and not look at me in the hall - I can laugh at her.

You can surely see your breath in Hell.

For those of you who are not stationed securely in the North, allow me to enlighten you: it is cold here. I know, you're saying to yourself "Well yeah, you live up north, it gets cold in the winter." Well, there's cold and then there's -2 for a high, and that's not factoring in the windchill which makes the temp feel closer to -20. Now, I love me some winter. I love to bundle up in sweats and thick socks, I love wrapping up in a blanket and feeling the warmth from my coffee mug seep into my cold hands. You couldn't get me to live anywhere that it doesn't snow. But this - holy crap!! I experience this kind of cold at least once every winter, but I have a short memory, so - Holy Crap! I'm frickin' freezing here. I know Phil supposedly didn't see his shadow this year... Spring, plz? Or at least something in the 20s?

In other news, I am so geekily into heroes that I went to the website and "applied" for a job at Primatech. I track people down on Tuesday morning and giddily speculate about the latest developments. I also get online during the show and take part in the whole Heroes 360 experience. I <3 this show, and if you're not watching it, you should be. Hiro and his love of waffles alone is well worth it.

Stand Strong

I just went to see Jet Li's Fearless with my dad. Jet Li is the freakin' man. Seriously. The movie was all deep and stuff, not exactly what i was thinking it would be from the trailer, but it was a good movie. I went to it all bummed out, because they kept saying it was his last martial arts movie, and it is, but it's not the last film he's making and it's not the last film with fight scenes. He sees a difference between action films and films with both fighting and philosophy. Anyway, it was rad and everyone should see it.

Somewhere a clock is ticking...

I don't know about you, but for me this is like looking at a train wreck. Horrifying.

It wasn't that hard...

Okay. Apparently I don't update this thing enough. (Shock! Horror!) I'll try and remedy that by posting at least once a week or something... but no promises.

Someone said something to me last night that made me think. They'd called while I was making dinner - it was an experiment, really... it didn't turn out all that badly, and with my cooking, that's about all there is to be expected. I am a terrible cook who currently aspires to become mediocre. So, I was cooking chicken in the wok, and about two weeks before Kris had made dinner and poured copious amounts of chili oil into it, enough so that for some time we were all coughig and gasping for air in the apartment. Anyway, I cook, I eat (again, mediocre, but given what I was doing I didn't expect gourmet cuisine) and shorly thereafter I start to feel a bit off. It took me about 20 minutes to realize that taste in the back of my throat was a hint of chili oil. No, I did not give myself food poisoning. The wok must have absorbed some of the oil last time... oh well. But, I digress.

So a friend calls while I am making dinner, and I say I'm doing just that and hand the phone off to Kris and retrieve it later, and they tell me that they were surprised to hear I was making dinner. (As anyone who knows me would be, right? I'm upfront about my lack of leet cooking skillz.) She was surprised because I was taking on that as well, and as she said, "You already do everything!" She said I work, I come home and help with homework, I am always there when I hear a cry, I am there every single morning putting my son on the bus, I clean, I do laundry... and now I was cooking too. She told me I was a model for what kind of a mother she wanted to be.

Now, as flattered and touched as I am, I shy away from that. When I look at myself, it's exteremely difficult for me to see anything but my failings. I do take care of things, yes, but I could do more. How is what a person does good enough to be proud of when you know you could be doing more? In this way, I am never satisfied, and I am never good enough. It' so hard, I look at myself as a person and sometimes it just crushes me, the weight of all my own failures... But someone else sees what I do and thinks it's at the very least something worth emulating. I am my own worst critic, but just maybe I am not as bad as I thought? It's nice, even if it's not precisely true.

Edit -

Oh! Also, my new apartment is super rad and I love it. I have a few pictures by way of my Mom, and I may post them if I can get past the fact that I am in them. Coerce me.

:(

One of my kitties has disappeared. He must have slipped out the door when we weren't looking. I want my kitty back. I miss my fuzzy orange boy. I'm so sad.

* I found my kitty! Best day ever.