Holiday update

It's not even the main event, yet most of the madness has passed without incident. The Half Acre bike team party last Friday went really well; it was nice to meet the rest of Dan's team mates, and to see the ones I already knew. Sometime during the night I managed to smash my left ankle with the dishwasher door, but that didn't really diminish the fun; it turned a lovely, almost festive, shade of royal purple after I skated last night - just in time for rocking a skirt and heels at my in-laws Christmas Eve church thing. It isn't a holiday if I didn't look like an abused wife - right?

Saturday's family dinner at our place went awesome. Things were a bit hectic and tense leading up to the big event, mainly because I'd never been insane enough to prepare a dinner for 12 before, but Dan and I both came out alive with some amusing, mashed-potato-flinging moments to laugh about later. Everything turned out great: roast pork, sweet and sour cabbage, curried butternut squash, twice-baked potatoes, potato biscuits, asparagus with cheese sauce, salad, and gołąbki. I actually managed to forget the gołąbki warming in the cooler to the side, so we didn't eat them for dinner; no worries because there was enough food on the table that nobody noticed that they were missing. They will be making an appearance at Bernie and Jean's on Christmas day instead.
Desserts were also plentiful. I made my first successful cake ever (I'm a lousy baker): mint chocolate with mint chocolate cream cheese frosting.
It was a nice way to honor my grandmother, whose recipes I almost solely relied on for the entire meal.

Now it's time to regroup, wrap gifts, and get ready for brunch with my parents tomorrow, and a stay at the in-laws tomorrow night. After that, the morning of the 26th, I'm off to meet my best friend Claudia in Vegas for the evening, and then accompany her back to Chicago to surprise her family.

So, happy holidays and safe travels to everyone - catch you all in a few days.

Livid

I love snow. Really, I do love snow. I even like driving in snow. However, what I had to deal with today was absolutely batshit crazy. I left my home at 12:45pm to drive to meet my mother-in-law up in the northwest burbs (usually about a 45minute drive) and there were some lite flurries coming down. As I turned onto the ramp for 90/94 I saw it was already gridlock - "no worries," I thought, "this always clears up after the exit for 290."

Wrong.

Dead wrong.

THREE HOURS LATER I limp into the parking lot where my poor in-law was milling around trying to keep busy while she waited for me. OK, I shook it off, figuring that it was a fluke that I hadn't seen a single plow or salt truck going either way on 90 the whole time I was creeping down it, and guessed that things would be more under control after a couple hours of hanging out.

Wrong again.

I didn't even have to wait to get to 90 to see that things were still completely screwed, if not worse, because it took me a full hour to get down 53 to get there; I watched the odometer and never saw it go above 5mph, with about 2mph being the average. Again, no plows.

I get to I-90, and it is a parking lot. There were ridges of snow literally two feet high between the lanes, and no ruts to speak of to drive on. Average speed again, 5mph. At 7:45pm I finally saw my first plow of the day!.... and then passed it and never saw another. There was a brief, mind-blowing ten minutes after the O'Hare turnoff and before 94 joind 90 where I was able to hit about 35mph, but that was it; parking lot resumed.

Fast forward to 10:35pm when I finally get off of I-90/94 onto 31st street - hey, guess what? SHOCK, the city streets weren't plowed either! W...T...F?!

So, did Rod go ahead and sell of all our plows and salt trucks while we weren't looking? What exactly are my taxes paying for? I'm absolutely furious. A total of over 7 hours in my car to go a round trip distance of less than 80 miles? You have got to be kidding me - get your shit together, Illinois.

As of 4:41am

I was officially done with my semester. True to form, it's been another long night of last minute, semi-delirious paper writing. I feel like the post-bar drunk who has just kicked the evening's fling out in order to get some sleep before stumbling to work - I know I just did something, but I'm not sure if the 'beer goggles' made it look better at the time than it really was. I think it went really well, but that could just be the sleep deprivation talking! I guess the grade will tell me whether or not it was a good lay.... err paper, or not.

So, as of right now, I have only one more semester - about 5 months - between me and freedom. I will be so very glad when this is all over. I just interviewed for a graduate assistantship position as an archivist at The History Makers in Chicago and am waiting to hear back about that any day now; with any hope, my last bit of school for the foreseeable future will not only give me some cool classes, but some much-needed on the job experience. As always, fingers crossed...