All-Exclusive Family Vacation

Tomorrow morning the fam will head south to visit family, leaving me with a list of duties to make sure get done while they're gone. They're very simple things, such as getting the mail, checking for phone messages, watering the lawn, and taking out the trash. But they're things I don't normally do. Any bets I'll go a few days forgetting some of them?

Also, they'll be taking our best vehicle, the newer of our Buicks. It makes sense, considering the distance they're going. Then I'll get to drive our second best car, the little Saturn I used to call mine that my brother now uses. (That's right, the one that made friends with a deer last fall.)

We're a strange family, swapping vehicles as the occasion calls for it. The first few times my boss saw me come to work in one car and leave in another (because a family member switched cars with me partway through the day), he seemed to get a little confused. I guess it does confuse even me at times. A few days ago I filled up the Buick's tank only to realize that it did me no good (because it will be out of the state for a week). Phooey. I hope the Saturn's full. Even if it's not, though, it'll be much less than my usual "boat-of-a-car" Buick fill-up.

Driving...driving...driving...

Wow. Two posts in one evening. But they're more complaints than anything else, so don't get too excited. We wouldn't want that.

Driving to and from South Bend a few days a week is starting to become old. I know people who drive more, but that's them, not me, and I'm only thinking about me right now. I mean, you can only listen to the same top 40 songs on the radio so many times.

It hit me this evening that maybe I should get an audio book and listen to that. It's worth a try. I'm thinking something cutesy. A year or two ago I listened to a Scott Adams (Dilbert author) book while doing this or that and found it so funny that I actually laughed out loud on occasion. Maybe I'll see what I can get of his.

Converging Paths

Last night, part of me was thinking I might be carried off by a tornado. The night sky I was driving into wasn't just storming. It had a smattering of that crazy, hazy yellow along with dark, menacing clouds that made me think of "The Wizard of Oz." The radio station would occasionally pause to warn of weather that could form into tornadoes passing from Marshall county's southwest corner to its northeast corner. Our paths were converging.

So as I was driving, I:

1) continued to listen to music, but turned it down on occasion so I could catch any possible strange noises that might clue me in on an approaching tornado.

2) looked around me for funnel clouds that might start to form.

3) made sure there were other people on the road, too. (The fail-safe "if everyone else is doing it, it must be okay" thought.)

4) prayed that God would keep me safe and I would know what to do if something happened.

5) told myself that if I saw a funnel cloud approaching me, I would pull over (hopefully by an empty field with little around me) and lie down in a ditch (making sure to take my purse with me but leaving my sweater in the car so it might avoid possible damage... me and my sweaters).

6) pictured scenes from the movie "Twister."

No, I'm not completely crazy. I have lived in Indiana all my life, so the thought of tornadoes doesn't freak me out. But when there's the possibility of their formation, I'm normally in my house with family, not driving on a road alone.

And then my brother almost hit a deer last night on his way home from work...

Self-Injury Counter from Tuesday

Paper/Filefolder cuts: 3
Stabbings w/ mechanical pencil: 2
Stepping on a notebook and slipping like I was sliding across ice: 1

I don't know what situation I am most unsafe in... The office, my bedroom, the classroom, an ice rink, driving in winter weather... No matter what the environment, there's always something that can become dangerous.

Hickspeak Revisited with Snow

Okay, my friends... Remember when I was poking fun at my dad's side of the family for how they pronounce some words as if they might be hicks? Well, I might be a hick, too.

Yesterday evening my Advanced Tax Topics group gave a presentation on illegal trust schemes. Whenever I was supposed to say "illegal" I ended up saying "eellegal!"

Maybe I should just give up and let my hick side envelop me, much like how Peter Parker gave in to his dark side in Spider-Man 3.

On my drive home there was enough unplowed snow that I needed to significantly lower my driving speed, but it was worth it... pretty snow! I love it when you can see the individual flakes softly falling from the sky against the backdrop of the night.

In honor of the first decent snowfall of the pre-winter season, here is Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye, and some other person singing "Snow" from "White Christmas."

I'm Dreaming of a White Veteran's Weekend

I drove to South Bend this morning to work on a group assignment. Man! All throughout Kosciusko County it was WHITE! Fog or whatever you call it. Some idiots didn't have their headlights on. You could hardly see lights at intersections, etc. Not long after entering Marshall County it was better.