Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Columbus Day Storm

So Thursday night I get home and everything seems pretty normal. The power is down in a few houses down the street but our apartment complex is still well lit – yeah!. I get home, follow my usual routine: turn the laptop on, change my work clothes, play some music in my ipod and sit down to check e-mails.

The storm started around 2 pm that afternoon, and by the time I left work my car was already covered in snow. What is usually a 20 min drive from work to home took around 45 minutes because everybody was driving so slowly – the streets were slippery and visibility was an issue.

By 9 pm we already had around 5 inches of snow all over the city and the suburbs, something unprecedented as never in history we’ve had a snow storm so early in the year – it’s just mid-october, for god’s sakes!

Around 8:30 pm, sitting in my living room browsing the net, the power went out. Just as the lights went off, N made it home, and just a few minutes later we decided to go out to pick up my brother from work – we knew it would take somewhat longer to make it to UB because of the weather, but we really had no idea of what would come.

9:05 pm, N’s car (a mini SUV) is stuck in the snow. After several minutes going back and forth we managed to drive out of the snow and towards the road. We made it to UB around 10 pm – a drive that usually takes 15 minutes took about 40 min. that night. We picked up Bill and headed back home. The snow was falling so hard for three times we had to stop in the middle of the road to clean the windshield because the snow was getting stuck under the wipers and we couldn’t see anything beyond the front of our car – dangerous situation. By quarter to 11 we made it home and watched a movie.

I knew I’d have to wake up earlier to clean my car to make it to work on time, so I woke up at 6:15 am on Friday, took a shower, and as I was getting ready I looked outside my windows and this is what I saw (see picture). The radio said that the whole Buffalo area was in state of emergency, driving ban was on place in five counties, schools were closed, and by 7 am almost two hundred thousand people didn’t have power at their homes.

Ok. No biggie. I went back to bed, and laying there the first thing that came to my mind was all the food we had in the fridge! About $200 in food was about to get spoiled, and that, my man, is a lot of money. Anyway, I sort of relaxed when N told me that if we didn’t open the freezer our food would last a couple of days frozen, but little did we know that it would take for days until we got power back!

The last phone call we received on Friday was from my boss telling me to stay home because there was no power at work either, and all our phone lines were down. Yupi! No work today! – I thought. About a minute after this phone call our phone lines went down too, so we turned off all our cell phones – except one, for an emergency – and ventured out looking for something for breakfast.

N and I dressed in our snow gear and headed out to the store. By the time we got there –walking over snow that was up to my knees high– we gladly found out that actually Wegman’s was open, and they had what looked like zombies working at the cashier. You see, it happened that the night crew at the store never actually went home, so those people hadn’t slept in more than 20 hours – they looked awful.

After shopping for a while we headed back home. Friday was kind of fun overall. After we came back from the store we stayed home all day, we read a lot, slept a lot, ate a lot, and at night we played Monopoly (I so much rule at Monopoly!!!) and then we went to bed. Of course, without power our heating system wasn’t working so I went to bed wearing thermal underwear, pajama and a sweater – the three of us had a very good night in spite of the cold.

By Saturday morning we were already missing our dear electricity. We hadn’t seen the news, heard the radio, checked our e-mails, played music in almost two days. We took a two minutes shower each (we had to save hot water just in case power didn’t come back by Monday) and headed out to the shopping mall. We had lunch at Jack Astors (too much garlic for my taste, but the boys seemed to enjoy it) and we went shopping for a while and then to the movies. We watched that dull movie, Man of the Year, the last one with Robin Williams (there was nothing else playing at the time we got there), so I guess that was alright just to keep us away from the dungeon (this is how we call home now that is dark and cold).

By the way, each day that passes our house gets 5 degrees colder. We are in the lower sixties by now, so we have an extra cover in our bed and I’m wearing thicker socks and am thinking on getting my gloves from storage.

On Sunday morning I woke up a little cranky already. We had nothing to do at home, we couldn’t eat any warm food because we have an electric stove (no power, no stove!), we can’t shower –and without a shower, I won’t get out of home, and already I had a splitting headache for reading by candle light. As I had nothing better to do I started to clean our place – I didn’t get too far as I couldn’t use our vacuum, but at least our kitchen and bathrooms are clean!

Then I thought, “well, to hell with self cleanliness! I’m going out without a shower!” So, looking like a refugee, I headed towards the city to get something to eat.

Well, it seems that I wasn’t the only one with such a bright idea – everybody in Amherst was eating out! The lines at Tim Hortons were an hour long; the lines at the sandwich place at Wegman’s were even longer! I need food in order to keep my blood sugar up (otherwise I start shaking and eventually lose all consciousness) and I was already feeling hot and shaky for not having had anything to eat in almost 12 hours.
I picked up some sushi, some Chinese food, some bread, a gallon of green tea and a bottle of chocolate milk and went home. In the way back I almost hit a car –well, that’s what the other driver told me, because I didn’t realize it until this huge guy comes down from an SUV towards my car and starts yelling at me through the window; pretty scary, I know.

So now I’m afraid to drive, I sort of hate people, I’m cold, my hair is a mess (blow-dryers need power too!), my fridge stinks (haven’t taken the food out of the freezer yet), my floors are dirty and I’m running out of clean clothes to go to work.


Ok. This section up here I wrote in a moment of fury (hehe).
By the time we made it back from work this afternoon, power was restored in our apartment complex, yessss!!!
I finally cleaned up our fridge and all our food went right to the trash – it was rather sad, let me tell you.
As a manner of celebration for having electricity back, we went out for Indian food, and now we are washing all our clothes.

As a summary of the whole ordeal, most people already have power back in the area. Almost two hundred people suffered carbon oxide poisoning caused by generators kept in non-ventilated areas. The whole city looks awful – the trees, that were the most beautiful trait of this place, are mostly ruined. The weight of the snow broke most of the trees’ branches and now we have branches and trees all over the streets.

I know it couldn’t have been worse, but these four these were pretty insane overall. We all need another weekend to recover from this past one, and after this storm we are all starting to fear the winter that is coming over us – everybody says it’s going to be a tough one.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Como si nada.

Te vi esta tarde, Darío.
Trabajabas en la sección de testing en mi oficina. Estabas vestido de trabajo, con kakis y camisa de rayas. Super formalito, con el cabello bien arreglado con gel, caminabas por los pasillos saludando a la gente en forma profesional. Al sentir mi mirada en ti regresaste a verme, te sonreí, te pregunte como andabas y luego cada quien a su cubiculo, a seguir trabajando.

Evidentemente el muchacho de esta tarde no fuiste tú, y no se acerca siquiera al que ahora eres. Como me gustaría tenerte cerca. Te extraño.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

World of Warcraft se ha robado a mi macho!

Es oficial. World of Warcraft me ha re-emplazado en la vida de N como pareja preferida en las noches y fines de semana, y temo que en muy poco ese maldito juego tomara cargo por tiempo indefinido la mente de mi novio.

Estoy jodida. Me voy a dormir por las noches sola. Me paso webeando los fines de semana y revoloteando al rededor de un ser que no tiene ojos que no sean dirigidos hacia la pantalla. La cosa esta tan grave que el dia de hoy, por ejemplo, la oracion con mayor emocion que he recibido de parte de N ha sido "mira mamor! mi hipogrifo esta volando! - que graficos que bestia!" y luego, como si nada, ha vuelto a hundirse en ese mundo virtual al que por el momento no tengo acceso.

Ok. Dado mi instinto practico y bien dirigido, a buscar soluciones se ha dicho!

Solucion 1. Cortar la electricidad de la casa
Problema a la solucion 1. No tengo velas, no me gusta leer sin la luz necesaria, y ademas me quedo sin laptop y sin cargador de ipod.

Solucion 2. Destruir la maldita computadora!
Problema a la solucion 2. Pierdo todas las fotos y musica que aun tengo en esa maquina y no he tranferido a mi laptop.

Solucion 3. Empezar a jugar yo misma, hacerme maestra en el juego, ganarle mil y una veces hasta que se despeche y asi recuperar a mi macho.
Problema a la solucion 3. Es una solucion a largo plazo. No he jugado nada desde que Prince of Persia era hecho a base de tres colores y los pasitos del man sonaban 'tahj, tahj, tahj'. Ademas, el ganarle y hacerle despechar del juego puede causarle una depresion mortal y lo ultimo que quiero es un amante deprimido.

Solucion 4. Andar llucha por la casa hasta que me pare bola!
Problema a la solucion 4. Mi hermano vive con nosotros.

Solucion 5. Aguantarme por hoy. Joder y seguir con la lucha el dia de manana.

... Y como soy un ser logico, luego de medir los pros y cons de mis opciones, me voy ehj por la shinco, Polito!

No es que me estoy rindiendo, pero estoy cansada, tengo suenio, y quiero leer Wicked. Asi que tamanana!

David Sedaris - Ya van tres

Esta noche, por tercera vez en dos anios, he tenido el absoluto placer de ver a David Sedaris leer sus obras en SUNY @ Buffalo. Sedaris, como he mencionado antes, es un fabuloso autor satirico, renombrado en montones de lugares como uno de los mejores escritores de comedia contemporaneos, y se lo conoce como lo mas cercano a una estrella de rock en el mundo de la literatura.

La sola idea de pensar en ver a Sedaris de nuevo me ha tenido con el corazon dando saltitos y buscando minutos en los que escaparme de mi trabajo para re-leer sus piezas. Ya se, ya se, ya se, soy una absoluta nerd. Quien mas se emocionaria de esta manera por ver a un escritor? Pero asi pasa cuando ves a alguien a quien admiras montones y quien definitivamente merece tu admiracion.

David Sedaris nacio en algun lugar de Western NY, y luego fui a vivir con su familia a North Carolina. De descendencia griega, Sedaris crecio en una familia con una madre bastante efimera y ligera de cargas emocionales, y un padre notoriamente mas plantado en la tierra. Como apenas uno de 5 hijos, David y sus hermanas buscaban formas de llamar la atencion de sus padres a travez de bromas y travesuras que al parecer resultaron bastante eficaces en desarrollar sus instintos artisticos.

Entre las piezas que Sedaris leyo esta noche estaba una de una lora periodista y un cochinito gordo, una ninera que parecia salida de una prision de mujeres (u hombres), y una historia preciosa en la que trataba sobre las ideas de los heterosexuales sobre el sexo homosexual. Me gusto, por cierto, una mencion que hizo hacia un comercial que pasaban en Londres a principio de este anio; iba algo asi:

Tarro de Vaselina - $5
Caja de condones - $20
Revistas Pornograficas - $45
Hacer creer a tus padres que tu hermano es homosexual - Priceless.

Cague de risa, no? Lastima que no se me ocurrio antes!

Ah, y la mierda es que como tengo que trabajar manana no me pude quedar a pedir su autografo :( - pero igual no importa tanto por que al fin y al cabo tengo todos sus libros autografiados y estoy casi, casi, casi segura que si le veo una vez mas el man se va a acordar de mi nombre ... hahaha, dream on !!!

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Otrito...

Bueno, estoy matando tiempo hasta que el N llegue a sacarme de los pelos de la casa para ir al gimnasio.

Nota: N no me saca de los pelos de la casa para ir al gimnasio por que soy una gorda asquerosa, sino por que le pedi esta tarde que sea lo que sea que tenga que hacer, me lleve a pegarme un trotesito en las maquinas por al menos una media hora por que me siento hecho un plasto y yaf.

En fin, como no he escrito hace tiempos como que me dio ganitas de contar webadas mientras espero. Asi que aqui van:

1. Mi hermano es un cague de risa. Pasamos cague de risa. No nos vemos mucho, pero cuando nos vemos es un goze total.

2. Ya estoy harta hasta morir de Buffalo. El fin de semana la pasamos en Toronto y fue como un respiro revitalizador el caminar por calles llenas de polucion, homeless, y gays. Tenemos que salir de este sitio por nuestro bienestar mental, o sino voy a empezar a matar republicanos en cualquier momento.

3. Quien se imaginaria que los chinitos, tan cagues de risa que parecian, sean tan hijuepuktas cuando a negocios se refiere. Tengo un cliente que es un infeliz hijo de su perra madre que me regatea precios de inspecciones por mierdas 20USD y me mata de iras por que no es un cliente tan importante pero igual no puedo putearle por que osea, no valefff. En fin.

4. Que babosadas puedo decir a veces. Yo soy la primerita en mandar a la mierda a la gente cuando se ponen a generalizar webadas sobre razas o religiones, y yo primerita mandando a la mierda a los chinitos. Por si algun chinito lee esta webada, lo siento de corazon.

5. No se si han leido las noticias, pero en las ultimas 3 semanas han habido como 5 tiroteos en escuelas de USA.Esta sociedad es una verch. Tengo que salir de aqui !!!!!!!!

ya.. ya... ya.... !!!!

Ayer, mi mejor amiga me escribe y me dice que se casa. Bueno, ya era horita. La man vive de semi-legal en un pais extrangero (que no voy a decir el nombre por que ahi si que de ley que van a saber de quien estoy hablando) y por fin va a legalizar la cosa a travez de un cuasi-matrimonio que tienen disponible en dicho pais sin nombre.

Y ya, osea, no estoy en shock por que me parece muy buena idea el arreglar los asuntos de documentacion a travez de un simple y comodo arreglo marital, pero que bestia ... si es el fin de una era. Ya todos casandose, y los que no estamos casados estamos metidos hasta las patas en nuestras parejas. Me imagino que en unos meses/anios van a empezar a corretear todos los mini-me por aqui y por alla y de ahi empiezan los divorcios, claro. Pero tenaz... osea, y si mejor todos nos dejamos de webadas y paramos esta farza y de una vez por todas nos regresamos al colegio? digo, no seria mas facil?