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Baby, It's Cold Outside

Classes are canceled on campus today due to bitterly cold temps and high winds.  It snowed most of the night, but the sun is out this morning, and it's coooollld out there, with wind chills in the minus 30s.  I only had the one class today, but the real question is whether Brando and I will make our 6:30 flight out of the rinky-dink Marquette airport for our long-awaited return to NYC for the AWP convention.  Keep your fingers crossed.

   

UPDATE 1/31: We did not, alas, get out, and now it looks like the trip will have to be canceled, since there are no flights out today, either.  New York, as always, will have to go on without us.

All I Wanted for Christmas...

...was an uneventful ultrasound, and as B is reporting over on his blog, it was in fact blessedly normal.  A relief for people who've been through years of infertility hell.  The mental stress is still with us, however, as I am listed as Advanced Maternal Age (oh how I love those sensitive doctors!) and we need to be checked for every chromosomal abnormality under the sun.  That's coming up in four to six weeks, so wish us luck that we dodge this last significant bullet.

Do you remember last year?  When nearly everything that could have gone wrong did, and in ridiculously spectacular fashion?  Yeah, this year has pretty much been the exact opposite of that in every way.  I got a great new job and B was allowed to keep his, even if it meant we moved halfway to the Arctic Circle.  Our house sold in six hours in the worst housing market in twenty years.  And now good baby news.  It goes to show that life really does go in cycles, and that the answer to your prayers might in fact be the second-snowiest city in America, a new snowblower, and a little luck.

My Ears are Ringing

"Tired" is the buzz word for the last couple of weeks.  By the time I get home from work at night, I'm barely keeping my eyes open.  I'm hoping that's a good pregnancy sign, because other than that I'm not having a lot of symptoms.  But no bleeding at least.  Yes, there is that.

Lots of things going on the past few weeks.  B and I celebrated our 20th year as a couple, though honestly five of those were spent living in separate time zones as we did the college long-distance dance.  It probably made it easier for him to put up with me, though, so it wasn't all bad.

My much-maligned Missouri Tigers are the No 1 college football team in the country, at least for another half an hour, and to get there they beat the KU Jayhawks, one of the bitterest rivalries in college sports.  That game was extremely fun to watch.  Honestly, when I was a student at Mizzou (1989-1993) you only bought tickets to the football games because you had to in order to get tickets for the basketball games.  I was, however, on the goal line for the infamous 5th down game vs. Colorado, and I can tell you that even if Colorado hadn't been given a 5th down, that guy did not break the goal line.

Anyway, I know you, my beloved readers, do not stop here for football news.  You also come for the bitching.  And this time I have a doozy: Our new cleaning person stole my cell phone. 

I plugged in the phone Sunday night before bed because I keep getting a lot of political calls (the number is still registered in Iowa) and so forgot to take it with me Monday morning.  I remember this vividly because I needed to make a long-distance call to the pharmacy where I get my progesterone injection meds Monday but couldn't do it from work because I forgot the phone.  When I got home B told me he'd left me a voice mail.  But when I looked for the phone, it was gone, AND SO WAS THE CHARGER.  The cleaning person did, however, leave a good number of dust bunnies behind the door in my office.

I thought it was suspicious, but I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and look for it in the house on the chance that I had a brain aneurysm and forgot I put it someplace else.  I looked everywhere in the house--even the freezer.  Every drawer, every shelf.  It was not in the house.  It was not in the car.  It was not in my office at work.

I called the number, and even though I never, ever turn the phone off, it wasn't ringing: The calls went straight into voicemail.  Hmmm.  Suspicious.  I also could not hear it ring anywhere in the house.  I checked my messages, and there was B's voicemail.  Nothing else.  I called Verizon, but no calls have been made since Sunday when I saw it last.  I can't cancel the service without affecting B's minutes as well, so I decided to leave it on and see what happened.  I sent a text message telling her that I know she has the phone, and I want it back.  Nothing.

Yesterday I called again.  The phone was magically turned back on.  I called the cleaning company to tell them I was canceling the service, and when they asked why, I told them I was pretty sure their girl had taken my phone.  But I have no proof, and I could tell the woman on the phone didn't believe me.  "Oh, you'll find it somewhere," she said, in that maddening Upper Midwest denial-voice that makes my head feel like it will explode.

It really frosts my cookies that someone would come into my house and take the phone.  It's not that I can't replace it, but I would seriously like to hunt the bitch down and remind her why Thou Shalt Not Steal.  Grrrr.  Call me a goody two-shoes, but I've never taken something that didn't belong to me and never would.  It's a violation of trust.

And I was going to give her a Christmas bonus.  Guess she took it for herself.

UPDATE 12/4: The cleaning company called me back today to follow up.  Looks like Miss Thing is going to be getting a grilling from her boss.  There's nothing they can do--she'll deny everything, of course--but I feel better knowing that at least someone's going to ask her about it and she'll have to sweat it a little.

Thunder and Lightning

During the middle of my Advanced Novel class today, we had to scurry to the basement for a tornado siren.  Apparently a twister was spotted west of us.  When we got downstairs, I heard a low rumbling sound, not unlike the noise I heard the night the tornado hit our house.

It freaked me out.  Until I realized it was coming from the boiler room behind me.

Can anyone say "paranoid"?

Overheard in Iowa: U haz funnel cloud?

B, on going out in the middle of last night's thunderstorm to the grocery store: If I die out there, I want you to take $10,000 of the insurance money and play the World Series of Poker in my memory.

Me: I can't do that.  I'd be in mourning, I couldn't play poker!

B: I know you'd be sad, but you'd get over it.  You'd meet someone new.

Me: I don't want to meet someone new.  Think of it--I'd
actually have to work on a relationship.

B: Yeah, isn't it nice to have someone to take for granted?

One Year Later

It's one year today since the tornado hit our neighborhood.  Yes, I know I continue to whine about it like a mule, but if a big effing column of wind hit your house you'd be slightly concerned, too.

Many of you have already seen my take on what happened.  Here's my neighbor's take.  A little post-traumatic stress aside, everyone seems to be doing much better.  Although today is Friday the 13th, last year it was a Thursday night when we came up out of our basement to see our street transformed by downed trees, smashed cars and crushed houses.

As you can see, some things have changed.

Before


After

Before

After

Finally, FINALLY the repairs are complete, though the mess, as you can see from the amount of mud in the backyard, is not.  The expense and effort have been enormous, at least by our standards.  Final bill: $32,155.35.  And that doesn't include the cars.

The neighborhood is slowly coming back to itself.  Though most of the old trees are gone, the houses, at least, are looking a might bit better.

Before

After

Apparently there's a shindig tomorrow in the neighborhood to celebrate the anniversary, or else huddle together for warmth, because yesterday when I woke up there was snow on the ground.

Never a dull moment around here.

Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting

Last night we had a massive ice storm, which caused us to cancel our weekend plans in Chicago with friends and family.  In the middle of the afternoon we lost power for about fifteen minutes.  Then again, around 4:30, the house went silent except for the sound of bits of ice hitting the walls and the occasional blast of wind.  Another fifteen minutes passed, then another, then another.

Without the ability to cook for ourselves, and still disappointed that we missed our evening out with friends, we decided to brave the elements and go out to dinner.  So many places were closed or without power that we ended up at a chain restaurant on the Coralville strip, which was packed with people in the same boat as we were.  Outside the ice turned to snow and started blowing harder and harder.

As dinner was winding down, a blue-green flash of light lit up the sky outside the restaurant.  Then another.  A loud exclamation of surprise and fright from the restaurant patrons followed each.  I told B it looked like the tripods were coming for us.

The undergrad girls next to us were freaking out, so I manufactured some b.s. about it looking like a transformer had gone down.  Oh, yes, I said, sounding completely knowledgeable, it looked the same as it had when the tornado hit in the spring.

Afterward we went back out into the weather and went home to the still-dark house, lighting candles and worrying how our eyesight would hold up if we tried to read in the dark.  But just as we settled in for a night trying not to freeze, the power came back on.

I was going to take pictures of the ice-covered trees and post them here, but this morning everything's melted except for the new layer of snow covering the daffodil shoots that had started to peek out of the ground after last week's heat wave.  I've decided that nature is a neurotic bitch, and I'm tired of cleaning up her messes.