Thank you, Birmingham. May I have another?

Worst. 12 hour drive. Ever.

Granted, I've had longer drives to and from home that were just as miserable, but this should have been an 11-hour trip tops, because I was making such awesome time. However, people in Memphis and Birmingham have forgotten how to drive altogether. And, oh:

Plus rain.
Plus construction.
Plus Droopy Eye in the back who didn't sleep much, despite being sedated.
Plus not stopping for food at all until 6:00 p.m. (after eating a banana at 6:00 a.m.).
Plus crappy phone reception.
Plus Thanksgiving weekend traffic.
Plus not piggybacking with Rob and Micaela, who didn't leave Mannford until I was already in Arkansas.

Yaaaaaaaaaaay, home! I'm not leaving you at all this week.
Except for work.
And trivia.
And gymming.
And whatever else should come up.

fortune from pre-trip "i'm too busy too cook, but i'm starving" chinese delivery:

You will enjoy doing something different this coming weekend.*


As long as it doesn't involve working or taking Chester to the vet, I'll be happy. Though, in order for it not to involve work, I should probably do some of that before I start packing.

Good Lord, where did the day go?

*This is particularly entertaining to me, given tentatively scheduled event(s).

Do you ever find yourself doing something ridiculous, but just you can't stop?

Because I'm so paranoid about my house getting broken into while I'm in Tulsa for Thanksgiving, I have decided it's a good idea to catalogue my DVD, CD, book*, and record collections, just in case I need to provide State Farm with a list of stolen items.

Seriously.

While it isn't taking as long as I thought it would, I have about a hundred other things I should be doing, like, say, more laundry so I at least have something clean to wear on the drive out. Earlier today (when I was organizing and listing the DVDs), I got sucked into watching The States on the History Channel for an embarrassingly long time.

What is my malfunction?!

Other ridiculous things I plan to do before I leave, because I'm so paranoid:

make sure my renters' insurance is good to go

copy all music purchased from iTunes to DVD, or at least make a list of it

copy all pictures from the desktop onto DVDs, in case vandals steal my desktop

copy all writing/poetry stuff from desktop to laptop, also in case of desktop theft

move something heavy to block the back door from a would-be intruder (though this might cause some trouble upon our return, when Chester makes a mad dash for the back door to pee)

ask/tell the landlord about putting a lock on the gate

*...Yeah. I'm not going to have time to do this part. Like, ever. But I need to at least do some of the really, really old ones that are worth more than the new paperbacks.

Oh! P.S. I found one of my two my most favorite Christmas CD ever in the history of time, remembered that it's getting to be about that time, and started listening to it on repeat...which I will no doubt be doing until 2009 (minus road trip time, because that would be breaking the rules). For those curious...here it is.


originally posted here.

"I'm comin' outta tha boooth!"

So, I'm going to preface this story by saying I already know how lame I am for staying at home alone on a cold, Saturday night. And really? I'm okay with that. I'm just going through a "warm, cozy, and alone" phase. It'll pass, I'm sure.

Anyhoo. On to the exciting part.

I was sitting on the couch with Poobears, watching Iron Chef and thinking about going to bed and reading, when I saw Chester's ears perk up at a noise outside. I didn't really think anything of it...it just sounded like a door slamming. And then it happened again. Being overly paranoid about things happening outside (like, cars getting vandalized and strange men with machetes poking around yards), I decide to snoop by not-so-delicately pushing the mini-blinds on my front door to the side and staring.

At first it looked like someone was dropping off one of the neighbors and the person being dropped off was hanging through the passenger side window of the SUV chatting. Seemed like an awfully long chat...for a freezing cold November night...with the engine turned off...

Oh. Lookie there. He has a flashlight.

That's when I decided to turn on the front porch light. That scared him out of the Mountaineer, but then he peered into another car parked slightly farther down with his flashlight, so I hit my car's automatic lock button to make the lights flash and the car beep. He took off toward MARTA rather quickly.

By the time I was able to unlock my front door and walk down to the sidewalk to "check the mail", he was already long gone (or hiding). It has to be the same guy that broke into my car and Lisa's car back in late September/early October, because this time he broke into the neighbor's van, skipped my car, and then broke into the neighbor's son's Mountaineer parked right behind me*.

The difference this time?

I caught the guy in the act and actually got a pretty good look at him, for it being pitch black at 10:00 p.m. and all. Hopefully he jumped on MARTA, because as the cop explained, there are security cameras all over the station, and chances are he hopped on the bus or train. This means there might be some security camera footage that I get called in to look at, which might help to identify and catch the guy.

Yipeee! I love the Decatur police station. Having already been there once (and having only the Mannford police station to compare it to) I have to say, it is rather nice. And deceptively large. I'm kind of looking forward to this jackass not breaking into our cars anymore. Or at least...not for a little while.

*What did he take? Oh, glad you asked. The neighbor deduced that I probably scared him off before he could get to the good stuff in the back of the car, because he left a whole lot of loose change, CDs, the Wii, the laptop, and various electronics in the backseat and instead went for the 12-year-old girl's curlers and braid spray out of her designated hair bag. So, while the 2 police officers were taking reports and prints and whatnot, we were all cracking jokes about the vandal.

"Can you describe the guy, ma'am"?"Yeah...he looked skinny and hungry, but man, did his braids look awesome and shiny."

*Originally posted at the other one.