quality assurance has got some splainin to do

I see your thundersnow and raise you some freezing fog.

(Okay, thundersnow totally is cooler, but you work with what you've got.)

I'm leaving town for the weekend (on Thursday, how chic), and should be back on Sunday, at which point I will tell you about the wonder that is dimethicone. Which is wholly unrelated to why I'm leaving town.

one year of crying and the words creep up inside

I think that complaining about the weather is fundamentally stupid. It's cold in winter, it's hot in summer, and January thru March can pretty much make you hate life. And yet, I will go on to say that this weather blows worse than W. (Haha, I kid for effect. It is not worse than W. It is worse than getting kicked in the shin, though.)

First: snow! Yay! Could've used it at Christmas, but I'm really not complaining. I like snow. Then: sleet. More sleet and freezing rain than I had ever seen in my entire life in the midwestern US. Sleeted for a whole day. Not enough to cancel classes (heaven forbid), but enough to leave a 2"-thick sheet of ice/snow on top of 6" of snow. Let set overnight, and you get a yard that crumbles when you put about half your weight on it.



Then: a wee bit more snow. Then: temperature goes above freezing, everything drips everywhere. Sog. Drip and sog. Squish and sog. Sog sog sog. Which: fine. Snow begets sog. We know this. The carbon-encrusted slush that could be either frozen or melty but either way is definitely slippery; the packed snow turning to ice when it gets below freezing at night; the drips off the gutter that somehow always manage to hit the exposed part of your neck when you're fumbling with your keys: this happens.



But THEN. Rain. Rain all day. Ungh. Uhhhhngh.

Rain all day, plus the preexisting sog, equals the parking lot is drowning. It equals a yard that supports half of your weight and then drops you into 3" of standing water. It equals a layer of water on top of the ice for extra slippage.

It will probably equal, once again, the vents flooding and the possible Black Mold of Death that almost certainly has to have been accumulating in said vents since the first vent flood about 4 years ago. The landlord claims that the hot air of the heater is enough to dry it out sufficiently.

I am skeptical.

Paris green one-two

I was going to save this for the 100 Things (yeah, I'm still planning on posting that at some point, don't blame you if you've forgotten about it, and don't really think you should hold your breath over it) because I felt - not thought, felt - that it was too personal and that at least you should have to dig through a list of inane and irrelevant facts to get to hear about it, but then I realized: it's not personal at all. And I haven't written about anything even pretending to be substantial in weeks.

So!

Once a year, on the same day, I play the lottery. Pick four. I decided to play pick four because I/Other & I had a four-digit number come up several times in several different circumstances. Three years ago, I picked a random day (feb 19), and purchased a straight ticket and here we are. Last year we were in NYC and it was a Sunday, so I didn't play. This year, President's Day: buses running? No. Lotto drawings? Yes.

It's not like I think I'm going to win - it's just a thing to do.

But if I do win? YARN BINGE.

paranorma

It is taking just about everything I have not to google Jenna Fischer's blog. I do NOT need to read Jenna Fischer's blog. But ever since I heard her mention it on one of the commentaries, the idea of it has been haunting me. I don't even like spoilers! Or teasers! I hate them!

I wonder if Jenna Fischer writes about going to the grocery store...

brain - shut - down

today i took some excellent footage of a squirrel eating snow. with the movie setting on my digital camera. it was chowing down. someday i may figure out how to post that here.

COME ON!

Most of y'all have probably heard about this storm that's hitting the entire midwest, right? Well, this morning we woke up to the radio listing no fewer than five universities in an hour radius around us, in every cardinal direction, as closed, plus our school district and every major school district I've heard of, and NOT US. Aaaaaarrrrggggh.

It's all fun and games until a distinguished professor slides into a utility pole and dies because "we don't cancel classes."

I guess that's why I haven't been posting - I've been too busy praying for a farfin snow day. Technically I suppose there is another 46 minutes in which they could decide not to make us risk our lives to go to work today, but I'm going to need every second of that to find my snowpants, unearth the car, and drive two miles.

She doesn't solve crimes, though.

Actually, Isaac Mizrahi, I think you probably don't know how I feel when I shave my legs.

In my dream last night, an author was reading aloud from his work, and said, in the middle of a sentence about Senate appointments or something, "The chocolate Santa was appointed delicious." And that was one of the funniest things I had ever heard. In my dream, I laughed and laughed.

free goo

Lou doesn't come when he's called. He comes when Jane is called. So this morning, we called Lou and he didn't come. We had slept in a bit (I for the second day in a row, which hasn't happened for a very very long time) and were still in bed, half-asleep. Finally he sauntered in and put his paws up on the mattress, towering over Other. "Hey Lou, what's wrong? You look like you just barfed. Or are going to barf," I said. His mouth was making funny puffing noises, and he was looking at us sideways.

And guess what? I was right! We got him pointed away from humans and their sleeping areas before the critical moment, but didn't get him to any sort of linoleum-ed or tiled surface, unfortunately. And, as Other pointed out, Lou totally would've barfed on him if we hadn't intervened. The dog gets more charming every day.

And finally, I couldn't have said it better myself:

Chez Orooni Just Got A Lot Louder