ase

Apparently this Halloween's theme is trick and not treat? East coast people, please stay safe from the high winds and flooding and the associated bad weather problems.

(Hurricane to snow in 150 miles or less. Ridiculous.)

Signs of the coming Apocalypse...

norabombay: how do you have more liqor [sic] than me?
ase: I LIVE WITH [R FULLNAME].

...or not.

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I miss my fashion consultants' counterbalance to my clothing experiments. This lovely Ann Taylor button-down in my size would be one of the great Goodwill finds, if it weren't so green. With a dark jacket, it's fine, but San Francisco has decided it's summer after all, so jackets - heck, long sleeves - are off the menu until temperatures move back to something reasonable.

Speaking of weather... ninety degrees? Seriously? This is why I moved. Ninety is too hot to eat. I think today is an ideal day to appropriate a beach umbrella and collapsing chair, and read some cell bio with my feet in the sand.

I don't think of myself as a picky eater, especially when presented with a ham sandwich. However, after peeling off the cheese, scraping half the mayo into the compost, and tolerating the dubious mustard intrusion into the bread / lettuce / pig parts trinity, I am moved to question whether my definition of "picky" is in line with the common use.

I am still not used to these "oh BTW, there will be rain, high winds and hail" weather predictions coming true. Especially the hail.

Snowfall stopped around 4 PM Saturday, and the sun popped out for a short while, favoring photographers with amazing vistas: highways reduced to one mostly-plowed lane, trees bent and broken under thirty inches of snow, silly people floundering through snow nearly hip deep. Despite a lot of NOAA noise about blowing snow, there didn't seem to be really high winds or vicious drifting; the sheer quantity of frozen white stuff made up for that.

I'm about the only person having a really great weekend: I haven't lost power; I made snowpocalypse Superbowl friends with neighbors; I'm getting a relaxing long break, with lots of cooking, baking and reading time. Tomorrow I'm going to launch an expedition to the grocery store, then make and freeze a bunch of chili, and maybe have an experiment with lentil soup. If I am good I will review my class notes from last week. Incidentally, neonatal testing is fascinating, and I want a tandem mass spec of my own to cuddle and love. I am almost too happy to read Regenesis, especially since I haven't marked the Good Bits version. Somewhere in the 600 pages of the hardback lurks a really solid 300 page novel.

Tangentially, Jordan Warrick breaks my heart in Regenesis. Maman isn't part of my family vocabulary, but every time Justin calls out to his dad, and Jordan is a crazy ass, it hits close to home and breaks my heart. But why shouldn't Jordan be a bit nuts? Twenty years under suspicion for a murder he didn't commit, stewing under close confinement? A blowout and bad attitude is not surprising, however disappointing. On a completely different note, there is the 1989/2010 technology gap.

Today I made it out to the grocery store, which showed the depredations of citizens bracing for snowpocalypse wave two. I am in ferocious denial of the next wave, and am counting down to clear skies and San Francisco (five days), and by "denial" I mean "restocking the freezer and considering the purchase of a hand-crank radio, should there be one left in the greater DC area." It seems arrogant to assume that, since we avoided an outage last time, we're probably safe this time. On the contrary, I expect stressed systems to go down even harder this time, and my number may be up.

( Two snowpocalypse Saturday evening shots. )

Every time I check the forecast, the snow totals have been revised upward. As long as the power stays on, I'm good:I have food, internet access and several novels. I'm trying to re-read The Riddle-Master of Hed, but I don't see what distinguishes the "riddles" from straightforward questions or investigation.

Snow has been falling since about ten this morning, but only in the last twenty minutes has it started to stick on the roads. I anticipate crazy bad weather tomorrow.

Today is it sixteen degrees Fahrenheit and snowing, which translates to -9 C and exactly one clothing option: my stepmother's hand-me-down winter field coat and snowpants. Armed with three layers, including water-resistant trousers, I was ready for anything, except DC drivers in wintery conditions. I thought I'd be sliding around the roads by my lonesome today, but I was wrong.

Usually, DC gets heavy, wet snow, since we usually see snow when it's in the high 20's or even closer to freezing, but this winter we're seeing a lot of powder. It's beautiful, and lots of fun to play with, and when it shakes off the pines I feel I'm a lot further west and north than a map would suggest. But the driving - I only saw one accident, but I also stayed way off the highways.

Thanks for the "what to do with shredded papers" suggestions: chucking in the garbage/recycling seems to be security-acceptable. (I would ask, "what would you do with my identity? I have nothing worth stealing," but I am certain someone would come up with an appropriately gruesome story. So let's skip storytelling hour and say thanks again for the advice.)

Tonight's attempt at ginger sugar cookies ended in a single, flat, burned "cookie" the size of the pan, that tasted like pure butter. Tentative guesses: overbeat ingredients, not enough flour (2cups flour to 1 cup butter seems...low). I may find another sugar cookie recipe and try adding ginger to it as a workaround.

Snowpocalypse has been a blast: the official snowfall was 22" - 24", but it felt more like 17" in my neighborhood. I had adventures in the snow on Saturday and Sunday, and took some lousy pictures that might eventually be photoshopped into decency. (Or cat macros. Is it still a cat macro if there isn't a cat?) Some of the drifts were hip-high, and I felt lucky I didn't have a car, at least until I volunteered to help dig out M's. Continuing what is becoming a tradition of practical gifts, someone is getting a snow shovel for Christmas. I have great hopes for January and February.

I am sitting, barefoot, under a fan which is whipping cool air with the bay-and-beef draft from the beef stew simmering on the electric burner. Tonight I ate leftover stir fry, but tomorrow's lunch will be eaten with a spoon.

Usually September rolls in with humid, sticky afternoons and warm nights, but this year school started and the weather broke barely hours apart. I like it; I am about the only person at work who is rejoicing.

I am on the countdown to my fall class - intro to medical genetics - and to vacation! I am going to have so much fun in S. F.: less than three weeks to go.

Quick stew conclusions: om nom nom nom, but needs more salt. Writeup to follow.

Okay, you know what I hate about the 'burbs? Everything closes early, at 9 PM. And I am not an early person.

In better news, hump day is over, and paypal un-choked on my seed account payment (YAY, and wow, two hundred icons), and the sun almost came out for the first time this week. It should be back, oh, next Sunday. My soaked shoes are looking forward to it.

I'm at least two and maybe four days behind my LJ reading list, so if your life has been amazing or not amazing, I don't know much about it.

Reminders about the evils of presenting:

1.) Do not read your powerpoint slides verbatim.

2.) Do not say "um" three times in a row.

3.) Try to remember your audience. A room of people taking an infectious disease class may have heard of MRSA just a couple of times. Make it funny if you can't make it new.

Cold, bottled unsweetened green tea is not disgusting. "Disgusting" is your first taste of Manischewitz wine during the sedar. Unsweetened green tea is just bitter and a total waste of $1.20, and only really drinkable with honey and soy milk. (And by "with", I mean 1-to-1.) So I'm not doing that again.

This is the first really hot weekend of the year: 93 F yesterday, and on track to match that today. Hence the cold tea. This is great weather, if you have nowhere to go and a cold drink on hand. If either of those conditions are not met, this is, in my opinion, not great weather. If both of those conditions are violated, it is lousy, sweaty, nasty weather. Can it please be October now?

Oh! I am traveling in May! I fly into Chicago on Tuesday, May 20th, and will be exploring the Windy City's summery charms until norabombay and I drive to WisCon on Friday. (I was a lot more excited about WisCon before RaceFail. Now I am reserving the right to sit by a pool with something more than water in my glass Sunday afternoon.) We roll out of Dairyland Monday morning-ish; I fly out of Chicago Tuesday morning. Because I am a genius, I padded my leave request (turned in before the end of February, thanks much) and will have eleven uninterrupted days off work. Chicago and Madison people: meetup? The only hard point so far is the Monday night Cubs-Pirates game.