Even the Polar Bears are Gone

It’s so cold outside that Santa called in sick. We’re having temperatures on the negative Fahrenheit scale, compliments of Siberia. Today when I tried to scrape the frost from Steve I accidentally hit my frozen finger and I was sure it would shatter like glass, that’s how cold I was.

I’m pretty sure man wasn’t meant to live in climates like this. It’s so cold that the squirrels in the park are throwing themselves at the electric fence. If we were meant to live in a place like this, we’d have been born with a coat of fur and a big cup of hot chocolate. And a personal electric fence.

In other news, I’ve moved in with M. The apartment is a huge mess now with all of my stuff all over the place. M went to Estonia this week and was gone a couple of days. I tried to unpack as much as possible while he was away, mostly because if I did it while he was away I could get away with throwing out a bunch of his stuff. M, if you’re reading this, I have no idea about what happened to your cutlery.

Sadly I didn’t get a whole lot of unpacking done so we’ll have to finish it tomorrow. Tomorrow we’re also going to go steal buy a Christmas tree and make a gingerbread house. My family is coming over on Sunday to celebrate my Bachelor’s degree that I received a couple weeks ago so on Sunday the apartment has to look like I have everything under control. Here’s to hoping mom won’t look under the bed or in the oven. Not that I would ever cram a bunch of junk in there to hide it. Nope. Never.

I’m exhausted after a week of working and moving, so I think I’ll head to bed. I just have to wait for my pajamas to thaw out first. Oh, and does anyone need some free cutlery? Not you, M. *

Even the Polar Bears are Gone

Good Thing I Bought the Death Machine

Not only do my teeth hate me, apparently Steve hates me too. For those of you who don’t know me Steve is my car. He’s an 18-wheeler disguised as a Volkswagen Vento. Steve is a great summer car. He’s reliable and steady and while he can’t hold on to his license plates worth crap, he’s always a nice ride.

During the winter he goes from being a wonderful car to being a pain in the ass. See, Steve doesn’t like the cold. Past winters I’ve had to crawl in through the passenger side door and crawl over the center console to get in behind the wheel. We haven’t really had much of a winter over here yet, but the past couple of days we’ve had temps below freezing and today Steve decided he didn’t want to play.

I was on my way to work and like every other day, I shoved the key into the door lock. Except the lock was jammed with ice, so I only shoved the key half way into the lock. I tried a few times and finally got the key all the way in. Then, like every other day, I turned the key. Except, the key wouldn’t turn because the lock was still jammed with ice. I tried the passenger side door – also jammed. I tried the driver’s side again. Then the passenger side once more. Nothing. At this point I realized I was getting late for work, so I ran back inside to find the lock de-icer in M’s apartment. While searching through his stuff I was silently praying that he actually had lock de-icer at home or I’d have to carry a pot of boiling water out to the car.

Thankfully I didn’t have to boil water, I’m not all that good in the kitchen. I found the de-icer and ran back out to the car. I de-iced the lock and shoved the key back in. The damned key still wouldn’t turn. I tried again, nope. I tried the passenger side. And then the driver’s side. And then the passenger side once more. This time it did turn and the central locking system opened.

I took a moment to swear over being so late for work, and then, like every other day, I opened the door and stepped inside. Except, the door wouldn’t open. It was frozen solid. I tried the driver’s side. Wouldn’t budge. I tried a couple more times, then realized I wasn’t strong enough and looked around for someone stronger. Sure enough, on a lot nearby a group of strong manly male workers were, well working.

I stepped up and asked for help. They looked at me a little funny, then one of the manly men came to my rescue and yanked the door open. I use the term open in a very loose capacity here as he mostly just yanked and rocked the car back and forward like it was starring in a film about an earthquake. The door still wouldn’t open. After a couple minutes of playing “Shake the Steve” I thanked the guy for being of no help to me at all and called M see if he’d let me borrow his little silver car.

M came running home from work to give me the keys to his car and saved the day. My knight in shining armor, he is. I made it to work almost on time and when I got home after work my knight had made me dinner. Let’s all say it together: “Awwww…”

Now I just have to wait for summer and Steve to melt so I can start driving my own car again. *

Good Thing I Bought the Death Machine

Damn Those Hyenas

Am I the only one who feels like there are too many Mondays in a week? It was touch and go there for a while last week, but I made it. I finished the essay on time. And my reward was a Bachelor’s degree in political science. I now officially have a degree and I am on my way towards a Master’s. I want to say “yay!” but I know how much work I have left and it doesn’t feel like ”yay!” at all.

At the moment I’m sitting in M’s apartment, trying to do homework, but I'm mostly just listening to his washing machine. As are probably all his neighbors. It spits water and fire and it sounds like he’s stuffed a couple of wild hyenas in there and they’re now battling it out for their life. And they’re probably eating my socks as well. I can’t wait to get my own quiet non-sock eating washing machine over here. I swear, I have two legs and two feet, but somehow one sock still goes missing from every pair. Damn those hyenas.

It’s been a busy weekend. Yesterday M’s parents came over and helped us put together this:




It looks deceptively simple. A couple of doors, a frame and a few shelves inside, how hard can it be? Seems pretty straight forward, right? You’re wrong! It took M and his dad hours of blood, sweat and tears to put that thing together. Luckily, my job was mostly just to make dinner and to give completely useless advice. But by the end of the day our bedroom was pretty much done, and all that’s needed now is some art on the walls. Now that feels like “yay!”

On Saturday M, Muschu and I went to visit my parents. When my Grandpa was still alive Muschu, my brother and I would make a gingerbread house together with him every year. It used to look something like this:




Last year Grandpa was too ill to make the house with us, so Muschu and I took it upon ourselves to help our little brother with the house. Turns out when Muschu and I are let loose on a gingerbread house, not even a 13-year old boy can stop us and we tend to go all Barbie on it. Last year’s gingerbread house, in all it’s pink glory, looked a little bit like this:




This year Grandpa is sadly not with us anymore, so on Saturday Muschu and I once again helped our little brother with this year’s gingerbread house. Turns out Barbie wasn’t enough. This year’s house looks like a My Little Pony chew it up and spit it out all pink and white and fluffy. I’m not sure our very macho teenage brother is all that happy with how it turned out, but he’s the one who ate all the green candies so he can just blame himself.

*

Damn Those Hyenas

43 hours, 26 minutes. (Not that I'm counting...)

Very quick update today. This essay is killing me. I probably shouldn’t have sold my brain for some candy bars and toe jam, I’m thinking that was a bad idea after all. I have 16 more pages to go and less than 44 hours to do it. If I don’t make it the world will collapse into itself in proper 2012 style. Or I’ll fail the class, I’m actually not sure which one, I’ve lost perspective completely. One of these days I’m going to realize that procrastination is a bad thing. It’s what Satan uses to drive people crazy.

Clearly that moment hasn’t come yet, as I am obviously procrastinating again. Just shoot me now. And wish me luck.

M – I know you’re reading this, and I’m sad to tell you this, but you’re not allowed to come home from work today, I need peace and quiet. Thanks.

*

43 hours, 26 minutes. (Not that I'm counting...)

U R Mr Gay

Happy birthday Muschu! Today my wonderful little sister will be 23 years old, officially making me ancient. Yesterday I baked a cake for her and gave her a kick ass present (telling her she’s adopted was not the present, that was an accident, the Super Mario Galaxy Wii game was the real present) and today I took her to the movies to see New Moon. M left to get his ass kicked for karate camp on Thursday so I was planning on spending the entire weekend working on a 25-page essay that is due on Wednesday. So far I’ve done a whole lot of celebrating Muschu’s birthday, a whole lot of procrastination and whole lot of nothing on the essay.

And my tooth is having its revenge. The dentist apparently left a tiny little sharp edge on the tooth that I didn’t notice while I was there. Now I can’t stop running my tongue over that insanely sharp edge and I keep hurting my tongue. Here’s to hoping I’ll hurt my tongue enough that I can’t eat and I’ll lose a little weight. (I had a LOT of popcorn at the movies today…) The tooth and I are officially tied at 1-1.

I’m really hoping tomorrow will be a better day for essay writing, it’s clearly not happening today. I swear, I’m even thinking about doing the dishes and cleaning the bathroom. But I’m at M’s place and technically I haven’t moved in here yet so even though I’ve contributed to the mess, by my reasoning, I shouldn’t have to clean. Yet. That makes sense, right?

A Johnny Depp movie just started on TV. Looks like I won’t have to do the dishes after all. That’s a relief. *

U R Mr Gay

Ziva vs The Tooth: 1 - 0

I’m back home, finally. I’m not going to eat for an entire week. That is of course a total lie, I’m already craving Chinese food. And with my brand new tooth, I’ll be able to chow down on whatever I want. See, I just got back from my favorite place on earth, the dentist’s, and she fixed my tooth! This is only a temporary fix, but as of right now my tooth is not a big gaping hole in my mouth. I’d call that a success.

I was already entertaining nightmarish thoughts about my future. I was going to end up alone and living with my 32 cats, cause no one could ever love a girl with a tooth from hell. M told me he still loved me and my tooth, but I think he was lying. I was going to end up as that old lady on the street that all the kids are afraid of. But not anymore!

One thing that sucks, though, is that I was already making plans on how to make good money on my teeth falling out of my mouth. When I was little my mom would pretend to be the tooth fairy and whenever I lost one of my baby teeth, she’d buy it from me. I figured with inflation, the new currency and everything else, my teeth would be worth a smallish fortune by now. And if they came out half a tooth a time, I could easily make some good money off of them. I have no idea what mom needs all the teeth for, but I can only assume she’s secretly into voodoo. *

Ziva vs The Tooth: 1 - 0