Completely Random Update

Yikes, I really haven't been keeping up with blogging lately... It's been a crazy few weeks, so I guess I'll just give all three people who read this a quick update on the world of April. By "quick" I mean that it will probably be long, though shorter than it might have been.

~ We had a fairly large ice storm last week... although it wasn't quite as bad as it was supposed to be. They closed our office last Tuesday due to the weather (hooray!), then the roads never got bad like they were supposed to. We had a lot of tree damage at our house, but thankfully nothing else was damaged. A lot of people in the area lost power (some communities still don't have power), but we never did, thank God... although our internet connection has been a little irritable since the storm. I'd much rather have irritable internet connection than no electricity, so I'm not going to complain.

~ I started Christmas shopping on Monday night. I finished on Tuesday night. I am, I must saw, very cool.

~ I finished up another semester of school. Only 15 or so more years until I'm done. Still got the 4.0... woo-hoo! I'm taking three more classes next semester, two of them online. We'll see how that goes...

~ In Topeka, there is a road called Wanamaker on which the bulk of commerce in Topeka occurs. There is a Walmart, a Target, a Best Buy, a mall, a Toys R Us and numerous other stores on a 5 block stretch of road. During the best of times (as in, not Christmas time), it is a busy place. During the worst of times (as in, Christmas time), it is an insane madhouse. My husband (who had gone Christmas shopping three nights in a row and is still not done) dragged me to Wanamaker with him last night so he could finish his Christmas shopping. (Except, he didn't finish...) We spent two hours at Walmart, including close to an hour in line, and when we drove to Best Buy, right across the street, it took us almost 30 minutes to get there.

~ I came up with a new word last night during the Walmart excitement. Wal-martians. I was trying to describe the walmart crowd and/or those running the Walmart scene and it just kind of slipped out. Unexpected genius.

~ I believe that I am a strange female in that I do not like to shop. When I go to a store, I wan to get what I need and leave. When I tell other females this and they tend to look at me as if I have two extra heads.

~ I learned how to make the most awesomest Mexican chili in the entire world.

~ I am looking for a new job. There are some employee issues at my current which make me, and most of my co-workers, very very angry and put a huge portion of the work load on a small number of us. It's been getting progessively worse for the last six months. I've been hanging on, thinking that it would get better, but it hasn't, and work stress has been creeping into my entire life, so I think it's time to move on. There's a couple jobs opening up after the first of the year, one of which sounds somewhat appealing to me... we'll see what happens.

~ I was driving in Topeka the other day in a part of town I'm usually not in and I came across a sign that cracked me up. It said... ready for this? "HILL" I was a little startled by this, because while Kansas is flat, I'd never think it was flat enough to require a sign alerting drivers to the fact that there was a not-flat area. Turns out, it's a really, really, really steep hill... There's a power line crossing the road about halfway down the hill, and before you come to the top of the hill, it looks like you're going to run into the wire... then you get to the top of the hill and the road pretty much disappears. So I suppose some warning for the hill is a good idea, but putting up a sign that says "HILL" in Kansas is just asking for mockery.

~ Next week is Christmas. That doesn't seem possible.

~ I've been working on my novel that I started during NaNoWriMo last month. My husband's given me a deadline of the end of the year to have the first draft finished (he thinks it's really going to happen too... ha!) and it's been coming along slightly better than other things I have written. Before anyone asks, there will be much editing before anyone other than myself reads it.

~ It's supposed to be 55 degrees tomorrow.

~ We're supposed to get three inches of snow on Saturday.

~ Kansas is weird.

'Tis the Season

Yesterday during my lunch break, I went to Target. After going to Target, my lunch break was mostly spent and I was feeling a bit hungrious. (Huh. I think I just made that word up and I rather like it. Hungrious. Anyway...) In front of the Target in Lawrence, Kansas, there is a McDonald's.

"Ah, yes," thinks I, "I can just go through the drive thru and get something quick to eat."

This particular McDonald's has a drive thru which I think may have been designed by an intellectually challenged individual. There is only one entrance/exit into the parking lot and after entering the parking lot, to get to the drive thru, one has to drive nearly all the way around the building. After getting the ordered cuisine, one has to then drive nearly all the way around the building yet again to get back to the entrance/exit.

So, I drive around the building and get in the drive thru line. There is a huge truck-like vehicle, I think it was a Tahoe, in front of me, and several cars behind me. I wait my turn, finally order my McChicken and pull forward... but the huge truck-like vehicle in front of me prevents me from pulling far enough forward for the guy behind me to get up to the speaker thing to order his own food. I can see that this does not make the man behind me very happy... he is drumming on his steering wheel and making irritated gestures.

The car in front of the huge truck-like vehicle pulls forward. The huge truck-like vehicle does not. This seems to irritate the man behind me quite a bit and his irritated gestures become a little larger.

The car in front of the truck-like vehicle pulls forward again. Still, the truck-like vehicle does not move. I'm starting to get a little concerned that irritated man behind me is just going to push his way forward and smash my nice little Neon into the back of the huge truck-like vehicle.
So I honk my horn.

This was not a lay-on-the-horn-move-you-idiot kind of honk. It was a quick little beep. The huge truck-like vehicle pulls forward to the window to pay, I pull forward as well, the man behind me can now order, everyone is happy.

As I pull forward to pay, I notice the woman who is driving the huge truck-like vehicle sticks her hand out the window. I'm not entirely sure at this point, but I has a sneaking suspicion that I have just been flipped off. I pay for my food and as I sit waiting for the line to move forward, I hear someone say, "So did that get you to the window any faster, you fruity breadstick?" (Note: those are not her exact words. I have edited them slightly to make them a bit more reader friendly.)

I'm mildly puzzled and wondering if I'm hearing things until I notice that the woman in the truck-like vehicle is giving me a look of death via her side mirror. She perhaps noticed my look of puzzlement and to make sure I knew I was the object of her raving, she flips me off again, this time, leaving no doubt in my mind that I have been flipped off.

She continues ranting. "You think that flowering beeping your friendly horn will get you to the dalmation window faster, do you, you fruity breadstick?" (Again, edited slightly.)

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

She continued raving until she pulls up to get her food. Once she gets her food, she pulls up just a tiny bit... and stops. I'm able to get my McChicken from the woman at the window by her leaning out the window back to me and my stretching forward.

I start to pull around the huge truck-like vehicle, and she moves so I can't get around her. There's only room for the drive-thru vehicles and one lane of traffic, and she drives down the center really, really, really slow so I can't pass her... slow enough that I'm coasting and having to keep hitting my brakes. She gets to the exit, which is divided from the entrance by a small median and has two lanes, one for turning right, one for turning left, and she stops in the middle of the exit, so I can't go either way until she moves.

And she doesn't move.

There are no cars coming.

And we sit there.

And sit there.

I finally went out through the entrance, smiling and waving at her as I passed her. She flipped me off.

Merry Christmas.