still sick...

So it's been more than a week and I'm still sick. Ugh. I guess this is just one of those colds that I'll have to wait out. The biggest bummer is that I'd planned to be on vacation right now--made it a 4-day weekend to go camping. Having Monday off will still be nice, though. I thought I'd send a photo of the not-so-scenic view I'd been seeing for much of the week. Enjoy.

Geeks

Another funny overheard conversation on the train this morning...I don't know nearly enough about Star Wars to quote them, but two apparently college-age individuals (a guy and a girl), were debating the finer points of the training process for Jedi knights. It was hilarious because they were talking about it as if it were the subject of one of their classes, or something that was actually real--not an inane trivial aspect of a fictional story. (Apologies to all of the die-hard Star Wars fans out there--but it is fiction.)

Disaster

When I got home yesterday evening, I had been there for a while before I walked into the kitchen...and saw that the freezer door was open. A quick check confirmed that it had apparently been open all day, and everything was completely thawed. Adding to the tragedy was the fact that we still had some Omaha Steaks left. Plus a bunch of salmon, chicken, pork chops, burgers...the popsicles are not a big loss, but my yummy frozen pasta dinners are. My best guess is that it's between $100 and $200 worth of food. I guess this is yet another hazard of shopping at Sam's Club.

There was "meat juice" running all over the floor, too. I was hoping it was a melted fruit bar, but it didn't smell like fruit. Yuck. The liquid had made it all the way across the kitchen floor (8 feet away), via the grout between the ceramic tiles. Eww... A rather unpleasant cleanup job. Oh, well...at least now the floor and the inside of the freezer are clean.

Ugh.

Never a dull moment, take 4

Usually when I hear sirens near my office, it's no big deal--I think we're near a fire station. But when I start to hear helicopters hovering overhead and the sheer number of sirens keeps increasing, I start to wonder what's going on. Today there was a subway train that derailed just blocks from my office, then a fire. There were hundreds of people who had to be pulled from an underground tunnel. Fortunately, I ride an entirely different kind of train. And apparently I was one of the lucky few who were able to get out of the area after the accident. The whole thing is pretty scary--they had the multi-colored triage tarps on the ground, with soot-covered passengers grouped by their injuries. It sort of makes me feel a little better about the city's ability to respond to a major catastrophe, though.

Never a dull moment, take 3

Last night after 10 p.m. I heard the sound of a truck engine idling in our alley, so, being the curious type, I went to see what it was. It was a tow truck that pulled in and out of our parking lot twice, then the parking lot next door, then proceeded to back all the way down the alley and around the right-angle turn to get back to the street. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say that he left after seeing me in the kitchen window. Not a minute later, when I heard the truck again, I left the light off and watched again. This time he backed into the lot of the apartment building next door, and attempted to tow a bright red Camaro parked there. He lifted it 4 feet off the ground, then set it back down. He got out, adjusted something, and then drove off with the car.

The owner of the car is one of those guys who appears to love his car more than life itself, and carefully cleans it after every rain, or every time he drives it. But there was no one around when the car was towed, and the whole thing seemed suspicious. So we called the police, who responded and took our statement. According to a neighbor, the car's owner was out of town, but it could have been repossessed since he was leasing it. So that was my excitement for the evening.

Thank You Ma'am

How old does one have to be in order to be referred to as "ma'am?" Someone on the street just called me that, and it made me wonder. I don't really feel old enough for that. Though I'm sure he was just being polite, and I really do still look much younger than my age.

Does anyone read this?

I recently enabled comments, and I don't have any yet. So go ahead and leave me a comment if you stop by. I will still post even if no one reads this, though, because I need an outlet for the random thoughts that constantly swirl in my head. Have a great day.

Oh, the irony...

I saw a guy today whose arms were totally covered in tattoos. Not that unusual. Featured prominently were communist images, including a large portrait of Chairman Mao. This is probably not that rare, either. But the great part of the story is where I saw him--in Starbucks, a chain that's a huge capitalist success story. How ironic that this guy who idealizes marxist and communist ideology enough to have them tattooed all over his body likes to enjoy the simple pleasure of sipping an iced coffee beverage in a corporate-run coffee shop in downtown Chicago.

I love America. You can think whatever you want and live however you want, no matter how inconsistent or illogical.



(Bad picture, I know...I wasn't going to pull out my real camera.)

Creepy Guy

So I sat next to Creepy Guy on the train. I don't usually expect to get a seat by myself, so the challenge is finding a seat where someone isn't either hogging the seat with their bags, or yelling into a cell phone, or eating fast food, or emitting a strange odor. If they're sleeping, that much better. So I wasn't expecting the otherwise-normal-looking guy next to me to stare at me half the ride home. Every so often, he would turn his head and stare directly at me for waaaay too long, then look away. Then again. And again. People on the Metra train, which is the suburban commuter railroad, are usually very normal. This was the exception. No big deal, of course, just rather uncomfortable. It was daylight, I had something to read, and I got off before he did. Still, it really made me wonder what his deal is. I love the city.