The Myth & The Majesty

Another snow day out there? So that's, what, four and a half this school year? That's nuts. Why, back in my day ...

Worst. Day. Ever.

Many years ago -- almost two decades, actually -- my family moved to a new house in Sioux Falls. My parents had never been churchgoing folks, but they decided they wanted their kids to be raised in one. They ended up at Sunnycrest United Methodist Church one Sunday morning and liked it well enough. It was when they went back a second time a few weeks later that they got hooked; the pastor remembered them, their names, what they did for a living, and both of us little girls. He apologized for forgetting their last name. All three of us kids then got to grow up in that church, and the people there became a second family. Truly, that pastor changed the route of my life in ways I can't even comprehend -- simply by remembering a young couple that appeared one Sunday. Eleven years later, retired and not having been at Sunnycrest for nine years, he remembered who I was. I was sixteen by then, and obviously quite different than I had been when he had left but he called me by name, ...

... of the state of the world. ... of adults behaving in childish manners. ... of it being too wet for me to rake my yard. ... of P&IDs. ... of Wisconsin winter. ... of staying in town. ... of hinky group dynamics. ... of fluorescent lights. ... of the "humor" of mechanical designers. ... of Microsoft Excel. ... of highly excitable engineers. ... of my blog background. Hey, something I can change! Which means I have something to keep me busy tonight ... Assuming I get to leave this office, that is.

Update: Okay. So right now -- RIGHT NOW -- there are blizzard warnings, flood warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings, tornado watches, and wind advisories in various parts of the state of South Dakota. At least one section of I-90 is closed due to said blizzard. The state capital is under a blizzard warning and a tornado watch. (It's currently 62°F and sunny.) I'm alarmed.

Holy bejeezus. So the weather has been a little, um, "uneven" lately, even around here. Sixty one day, ice on the cars the next. Lots of complaining because we all want it to be spring already. (I was going to rake my yard on Saturday but woke up to an inch of snow -- so I didn't.) However! Yesterday in Rapid City: record-setting high of 80°F. Today: A blizzard with a foot of snow threatened. Oh, and lightning. Yeah. Some days I really miss RC. Some days -- not so much.

I wrote this last night from the comfort of my couch. Since I don't have a laptop and I didn't really feel like communicating with the outside world, it didn't get typed till now. Enjoy! It's the first day of spring and it snowed. In and of itself, that's not so odd. It's still March. Alas, last week at this point -- heck, three days ago -- it was in the sixties. The ground has thawed enough that all of that melt soaked in. My poorly-designed front sidewalk was no longer a pond. At 11:30 this morning, those fluffy mini-snowballs falling from the sky (the kind that only fall when it's weirdly humid out and juuuuust the right temperature) didn't bother me. They also, not coincidentally, didn't accumulate. The sun made a reappearance shortly after and all was right with the world. They warranted a whiny text message to a couple of vacationing friends but no more reaction than that. Then sometime after dark the snow fell again, this time a bit more earne...

This is one of those days where I've been running on nearly empty all day. I've got no enthusiasm about my job, no energy for this little fabric-covered box, and no desire to be here. Oh yeah. It's definitely spring. It's only going to get harder to be here for the next few weeks -- but that's okay. Then it'll be summer and there will be several hours of sunlight after I leave work every day (and I'll be thankful to spend my day in an air-conditioned office building). Funny how these things work.

So do any of you, my dear readers, have to deal with process and instrumentation diagrams on a regular basis? If so you will understand why, after spending six hours in a meeting yesterday and three hours in a separate meeting today reviewing P&IDs, I am starting to go cross-eyed. It's a long, long week.

I woke up Friday morning at my hotel room in Bath. I was a little thrown off because of a fire alarm that had gone off at 3AM, but surprisingly rested and ready for the day. Breakfast (where I was referred to as "the American," a label that would take some getting used to), a long walk, and then I called Anya to warn her that I was on my way, packed up, checked out, and walked to the train station for that day's adventure in public transportation. From Bath I caught one of their regular trains -- running twenty minutes behind -- to Bristol, and from Bristol to Birmingham and then I was riding into Derbyshire. It was 2:30 in the afternoon -- 48 hours since the Admiral had dropped me off at the airport -- when I hugged Anya hello in the Derby train station. Back out in the parking lot, I met her almost-husband Nathan and we hopped into his car and headed down the road. My first experience on British roads was probably the calmest I would have -- but it was still a...

It's been almost three months since my last road trip -- true road trip, with the driving and the gas stations and the tendencies toward caffeinated beverages -- and it'll be another 25 days before my next one. Which might explain why I'm going a little stir crazy. I like traveling in general; that much is obvious. England was fantastic, a vacation unlike any I've been on before, and it managed to hold just about every aspect of a truly adventurous trip -- airports, train stations, hotels, interesting food, and people I haven't seen in ages. However, it was missing what is generally my favorite part: the long drive. That's right. I love long drives. When I was shopping for a car, I had very specific road trip criteria -- a highly adjustable driver's seat, easy climate control, easy stereo controls, non-finicky cruise control, great highway mileage, quiet rides over 70 mph. Automatic locks and windows, the color scheme and horsepower came secondary to the thi...

Okay. I had a fantastic, hilarious weekend. Unfortunately it's completely destroyed my ability to concentrate. COMPLETELY. There's virtually no point behind my being here right now.

Okay. My weekend started on an incredibly odd note with a story that I'm not going to repeat here. Just trust that it was very strange and something that has never really happened to me before, at least not in the way it did yesterday. Vague enough for you? Great. Well, here's the thing. It's continuing to be odd. First, I agreed -- yesterday -- to go to a concert tonight. A country concert. It's been awhile. Then there was the chick flick night with M-Kay, something we haven't done in awhile. She'll be moving soon, which was probably part of the reason it happened, but I was also already planning to start in on my collection of chick flicks this weekend. I need a break and I'm taking it. Now, the concert thing is getting more complicated as the friend I'm going with has another friend visiting, and they could use a place to stay tonight that's not otherwise empty of people. (Trying to avoid any potentially awkward or significant-other-angering situa...

Well! It's Friday the 13th, sure, but around here we're celebrating Pi Day since no one will be here tomorrow. That's right. Pi Day. Which means that the break room is filled with baked goods as I write this. Sometimes being a nerd has its perks.

You know those days when things just fall into place? When even the weather cooperates with you? When things go smoothly and, even if the results aren't exactly something you like, they're something everyone can live with? I know those days. I'm not having one of them, but I remember when they used to happen more frequently. I'm not having a bad day. Things could be a lot worse. It could be blizzarding. I could not have a job. I could have not slept last night, or overslept this morning, or any other of a million things could have happened to make today much worse. All the same, I feel as though I'm chasing my tail, and it's getting tiresome. I'd blame it on vacation recovery -- I still feel completely behind -- but that's not all it is. Maybe it's cabin fever. Oy. In any case ... Hi. Next installment on the English Adventure coming soon. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow, if I have the chance and attention span simultaneously. Back to w...

This morning I was greeted by a very complete veneer of ice on Sophie. Opening the door actually made it crack all the way across the driver's side (and the bottom part fell off -- at that point I laughed pretty hard). In the meantime, it's still a couple of degrees above freezing, so it's continuing to rain. At least until tonight, when the temperature will drop. Ice. Greeeeat. I love March.

It's just another mugging Monday ...

More from my journal, this time in Bath. This is some measure of Heaven ... I'm having tea at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath. Basically? This is perfect for my English adventure. It seems only fitting that I order "Tea With Mr. Darcy" and specify the Russian Caravan tea. After this, I'm going back to the hotel and sleeping for at least a little while. Showering first, though. I stink. (How cliche -- I'm at the Jane Austen Centre and I'm writing. But just to shake said cliche, I'm writing about how I smell. Ha!) (Later, back in my hotel) I'm missing out on the night life and that's quite alright with me. No, I am come to Bath for my health, following in the original purpose of the town. I came here to escape the busy-ness of London and try to wrestle my body into the correct time zone. Alas, I've slept at odd hours -- even for home time -- but I needed it rather badly. After so long, I was quickly becoming utterly useless as a reasoning human be...

My plane landed at 7AM, English time. The Admiral had dropped me off at the airport sixteen and a half hours earlier; I had managed to get two hours of sleep on the plane, but that was it. I was tired. Thankfully, I had apparently been thinking when I set an itinerary for myself, because my first objective was to get out of London. After about 45 minutes of customs and immigration, I hopped onto a Tube train. From my journal (written in Paddington Station): For being the busiest airport in the world, Heathrow didn't seem like much. But then again it was early and the terminal we appeared in is under renovation. All I experienced was underground and involved only the passengers from my own flight ... and immigration agents. I have to wonder how tiresome their jobs must be. They hear everyone's travel plans in more detail than they would probably get from some of their own family members, and they don't even get the luxury of feigning interest. A one-minute barrage of questio...

And oh, by the way? Anyone out there who happens to be in the mood for a happy sigh, click here . Women especially. It'll be worth it, I promise.

Today started with a load of laundry and the Muppets. When I finally managed to leave the house, I stuck a card in the mail (bound for my accidental pen pals), bought a couple small baskets, drank a mocha, and then bought a blender. I should have owned one of those a long time ago. The next stop was a friend's house to grab the coat I left behind last night, then another friend's house to steal a chair off his front porch. He wanted me to steal it. He's moving in the near future and the first showing of the house is tomorrow. I've since been to Noodles, talked to Ashli, and arranged one of those small baskets with an assortment of tea that I didn't realize I had. It's just a little alarming. The rest of the day? Cleaning, Perspectives homework, a couple of movies, and more laundry. And somewhere in here I need to shovel that slush off my sidewalks. Oh, it's an exciting weekend, alright. Or something.

The downside to living in a house: Apartment complexes get plowed, salted, and whatever as necessary. Our sidewalks have fallen into seasonal disrepair. They haven't been adequately shoveled, at least not the ones leading up to our front doors. (The long one in front has been, chiefly because we're required to keep that one in shape.) However, once it starts to thaw, it doesn't matter how clear said sidewalks are ... because they're the low points in the yard. All of that water trickles down and pools in the middle of the walks, freezing overnight into super-slick solid chunks of ice. Then, when they start to melt again, these super-slick solid chunks end up with an inch of water on top, making them even more slick. Oh, and they slope to the middle. So if you're trying to walk on the far side (but not in the snow) ... you slide right back into the puddle in the middle. I guess what I'm trying to say is that my walk to the car this morning was an adve...

My whirlwind adventure is over -- has been for over a week now. So why don't I feel calm and collected? Oh yeah. "Real life." I'm headed out in about ten minutes to pick up the Brit and his girlfriend (who just arrived yesterday from England and will be in the States for a few months) so we can join the rest of The Crowd for dinner. And as soon as I'm done there, I'll hopefully be dashing out to go hang out with a few other friends who don't yet have blog code names. Did you know you can make jet lag work for you? Not just as an excuse (a good one, I'll have you know), but if you, say, have been coming into work later than you used to and you want to adjust that. When you start spontaneously waking up two hours earlier than usual, you can get to work much earlier. It's been handy. Particularly since Daylight Saving starts on Sunday. I won't get into that. I find DS kind of silly. In any case, I've been leaving work a little earlier this wee...

When I first considered going to Anya's wedding, even I didn't take myself seriously. It would be an expensive trip, there were a lot of details, I would be traveling alone. I threw the idea around for several months before I actually sat down and laid out a potential budget. It wasn't just money I was dealing with -- it was vacation time, and project time. All of that was going to come out somewhere. My one sold project was going to be well out of my hands by then, and with proper warning my boss would not assign any random presales projects that would come up due during the week I would potentially be gone. I could work it out so I would be around for part of two weeks instead of completely absent for one week; that might not always be beneficial, but it would work better with when the wedding was taking place and the savings on the plane ticket were phenomenal. Then, the Brit arrived. It would take another month before I brought it up -- "Hey, I'm thi...

For some reason, it's solidly in my head. "Oh What A World" by Rufus Wainwright: Men reading fashion magazines -- Oh what a world it seems we live in ... Straight men! Oh what a world we live in ... Why am I always on a plane or a fast train? Oh what a world my parents gave me Always travellin' But not in love Still I think I'm doin' fine -- Wouldn't it be a lovely headline? "Life Is Beautiful" On the New York Times ... ... Still I think I'm doin' fine -- Wouldn't it be a lovely headline? Life is beautiful ...