Christa’s Neighborhood

Okay, so here's the thing--my creativity has been brutally stifled (long story) so I'm bringing it here.

I challenge you to post your prom pictures.  When you do (I refuse to say "if"), send me the post. :)

It's not a contest or anything.  Just something fun. :)

Prom1

This is me, 10 years ago, when I was little and cute.

Prom2

This is me and my prom date, Chad.  He's gay, too.  He made me lead when we danced.  It was not a super fun prom.

But I love my dress. :)

Monday night when I got home I found a mysterious piece of paper on the stairs saying that an electrician needed to get into "your" apartment for rewiring or something and to please move all furniture away from the walls, May 20 and 21. 8:30am-5:30 pm. It wasn't addressed to anyone...and it was sorta floating on the stairs on the floor like someone had dropped it. It also said to call the landlord if you have any questions so I debated forever about calling and seeing what it was about if it applied to everyone and such since normally things are taped to the wall by the entry like when they are going to put the stuff under the sinks for roaches and when they put the fence in back.

As of 11am Tuesday no one had showed up to invade my apartment so I continued to hope it was the guy across the hall from me or something because me moving all my stuff away from the walls is next to impossible...if not actual impossible. So I decided if someone does show up I would play dumb because a piece of paper on the floor is nowhere near sufficient notice for this sort of thing.

I heard hammering and sawing noises all day coming from downstairs. Then I went out to get a snack and there was a sign taped to the front door of the building (on notebook paper and taped with electrical tape...) that the electricity would be turned off in the building for 4-5 hours on Wednesday. That reassured me that no one would be invading my apartment, but still annoying they didn't mention WHICH hours that would be. And of course I half-joked to Travis that the electricity would probably go off in the middle of my shower because I am deathly terrified of dark bathrooms and then I would cry.

(Oh, by the way, in case you missed it, I have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off instead of Saturdays and Sundays.)

I woke up around 9:30 this morning and the electricity was still on. I hopped in the shower and, yes, I live in annoying stupid Chicago where it is May and still only 50 degrees, so I closed my bathroom door to keep the warmth in the room for when I get out of the shower.

In mid-shampoo the lights went out.

It was as dark as a cave.

I didn't cry, but I wanted to scream...but I was too afraid to scream. It was horrible. I want to cry now thinking about it. Some people are terrified of clowns, heights, needles....I am terrified of dark bathrooms...for reasons I made up in my head when I was a wee tot.

I managed to rinse my hair and step out of the shower to open the door to let the sunshine from the other rooms in...and I had to continue to shower because my hair would die without conditioner and what is the point of a shower without soap? haha it wasn't so bad after I opened the door but until I did I was freaking out on the inside. And I was rather upset because I really wanted a bagel but no power for the toaster oven! booo.

So then I decided to leave early because I was having lunch with Annie and wanted to look for shoes and needed some groceries, so I got shoes first which took no time at all (love when that happens...good ol Payless had exactly what I wanted) and then went to the post office and then to visit Annie. She had to finished up something before we ate so I hung out there. Then we ate and sat and chatted a bit. Then I headed home by way of the grocery. When I got home around 3:30 I still had no electricity! I was upset mainly because I am afraid my refrigerated goods could have been not cold enough during this time and are no longer good. Also I was anxious to do laundry AND do everything that required electricity.

Of course all other things were unappealing like reading and playing DS and washing dishes...I was sorta wiped and my eyes wanted to close so I half-napped on the couch with Hobbes for a while and FINALLY heard my refrigerator kick on! It was like angels singing!

So it ended up being off for around 6 hours, which is really annoying, but I'm glad it's back now! I would suck at being Amish.

I am eating a ripe, red strawberry as big as my head.  I can barely get my mouth around it.  Juice is dripping down my hand.

Just thought I'd share.

Show us the comic strip you read most often.

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Garfield Minus Garfield.  Funniest thing ever.  (Thank you, Rob.)

Life is good.  I got the special edition of Night of the Living Dead today (all new documentary and two commentaries, plus the movie is all remastered and supposed to look pretty and not grainy the way it did in my hideous $4.99 bargain bin copy) so I hope to watch that (and the National Treasure sequel) over my weekend. 

I'll probably watch Diary of the Dead too (still haven't seen it, because that's what I do--buy movies and then not watch them) so I might have an "... of the Dead" marathon.  Although I'll probably substitute the remake of Dawn of the Dead for the original because we just watched that in March at the convention.  So it'll be Dawn remake, Day..., Land... and Diary of the Dead. 

Oh, zombies, I love you.

I was discussing with JennyExiled the relative merits of gory scary movies vs. suspense ones.  It's easy to say that suspense is better and scarier, but for my money, Night of the Living Dead is one of the scariest movies ever, and that's also certainly very gory.    Lately, it seems like a lot of filmmakers will focus on the blood because that's all they have, but when they're done right, gory movies are awesome.

What I’m annoyed by today:

·      Cranky coworkers

·      Anemia – the exhaustion, headache, and coldness.  I’m going to take iron for a few days; eventually I should feel better.

·      My messy desk

·      Computer trouble that keeps me from doing my job and drives me to blog instead.

·      That the only color printer on this floor is under my desk and everyone and their brother knows about it and uses it, then expects me to drop what I’m doing and get their crap off of it.

What I like today:

I realized I haven't blogged in a while, and I was going to write a post about how busy I've been, but it would be lies! I am just lazy when it comes to posting.

Life's been chugging along. This weekend was ridiculously hot (100+), so I got a sunburn in the twenty minutes it took for me to wash my car. I also did some laundry, cleaned out my dresser, went grocery shopping, took a long walk to Starbucks for a caramel macchiato, watched an embarrassing amount of HGTV, took my friend Lori to see my new house, went to church, had dinner with my grandma, made lemon bars, and twice dreamed about a guy I went to high school with (not like that!).

And that's about it. See? No excuse not to blog. Then again...I didn't really have a lot to blog about, did I?

Oh! And I saw exactly the reason why this country is in such bad shape:

Setting: Kohl's checkout line.

Cashier: Would you like to apply for a Kohl's card today?
Woman: Sure! I don't think I'll be approved; my credit is bad. But what the heck?
[cashier runs credit check]
Cashier: Looks like you're approved! Your credit limit is $1,000.
Woman: $1,000?! Good Lord! Kids -- let's go find some more stuff!!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why America is so in debt.

This weekend I came across the story of Larissa Schuster, who was convicted of killing her husband of 20 years (they were going through a divorce) by knocking him out (with a stun gun, chloroform and the aid of a lab assistant), and dumping him into a 55-gallon drum and pouring hydrochloric acid on him.  The husband’s half-dissolved (err… the top half) remains were found a few days later in a storage facility she had rented.

My first thought was: I can’t believe that someone could do that do another person.

My second thought was:  With all the poisons and neurotoxins around an average laboratory, all you could come up with was a 55-gallon drum and HCl?  Seriously?

My third thought was:  Maybe I should have thought twice before eating that cupcake one of the minions brought me this morning…

*explanation: when I first worked for DuPont, their corporate slogan was "Better Living Through Chemistry" -- which made me think of the title of this post.  Really, I don't endorse killing through chemistry.  Or any other means.  Except maybe kindness...

Finished The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Don't be impressed; it's 189 pages.  :) 

The other thing is that Sundays are probably the slowest days.  I come in and there's enough to do for about an hour and a half of work (depending on how long it takes to do weather) and then there's a lot of downtime until it's time to cut more weather and write the reporters' stories and do the wire stories. 

I do the weekly slideshow on Saturday, so that's a much busier day. 

I need the downtime on Sunday, because Monday-Wednesday (well, not Monday so much, but Tuesday and Wednesday) are incredibly busy. 

Now though, I'm incredibly tired and I just want a nap.  I have to do laundry but I think the second I walk Sam and put the clothes in the washer, it's naptime.  I want to make sure I'm awake for the two hour season finale of Desperate Housewives.

John McCain was on SNL last night...I'd normally just cross-post my personal blog posting, but I can't do media embedding via MarsEdit when posting to Vox, so I'll just link to the embeds from my blog:

http://blog.kivus.com/2008/05/18/mccain-on-snl/