Life

Each evening, I get off of work right around 9:30. I set the alarm, lock up, and start walking down the street to my bus stop, which is about four blocks away. As I’m walking, I walk next to and then underneath one of the I-5 off ramps (Exit 162 to Corson and Michigan, in Georgetown), so there are always cars and trucks driving by.

Last night I was walking my merry little way along, when suddenly I heard an absolutely horrendous sound over the music from my iPod from behind me — the scream and cry of tortured metal. I turned around just in time to watch a car that had just made it off of the ramp skid to a stop in the middle of the street with sparks flying out behind it, as its front left tire went rolling and bouncing across the road, eventually swinging around and rolling to a stop about twenty feet behind the car. Luckily for the driver (and anyone else), it was a slow night, and no other cars were around when the tire fell off. The scene was still for about ten seconds, when the driver’s door opened and the driver got out and started walking back to retrieve their tire.

Kind of scary, and not a little impressive — that’s just not a sight you see every day. As there wasn’t much for me to do (I know jack all about cars, don’t carry a cell phone to summon help with, and the driver appeared to be okay), I turned back around and continued on my way to the bus.

Man that was a nasty sound.

One of my cost-cutting measures of late has been using my phone line as something almost unheard of in this modern day and age — as a phone. Nothing else. No call waiting, no caller ID, no voice mail, no fancy goodies of any sort. Just a phone. If someone calls when I’m home, I pick it up and answer it. If they call when I’m out, then they’ll just have to call back later. To my mind, it works well.

When I lost my job and had to go back into job hunting, though, I knew that that wouldn’t be the best approach, so I went ahead and signed back up for voice mail. It worked fine while I was job searching. I’d get home, pick up the phone to see if it beeped at me to tell me I had messages, and I’d call back the few that weren’t telemarketers anxious to make a sale.

Once I became gainfully employed, though…well, voice mail just isn’t for me. Due to the combination of an evening schedule that has me operating at hours quite different from a lot of people I know, a very small group of friends local to me in Seattle that I’d want to call anyway, and my own general semi-hermit lifestyle, I almost never pick up the phone to make a call. One of the few times I’ll call out is when I’m in a mood to order pizza, and then I’m dialing almost as soon as the phone leaves the cradle, and long before the handset reaches my ear. Hence, I never know if I have messages or not.

So this morning I actually checked my messages. There were two on there — one a telemarketer that had tried to get ahold of me Dec. 4th, and one from Rick, who wanted me to call him as soon as I got the message so we could clubbing that Friday night. Friday, Dec. 5th, that is. Well, he wanted me to call him as soon as I got the message, so I did (and just got his voicemail), but I think the verdict is pretty clear.

I’m a dork. :)

And I should probably pick up an answering machine and turn that fool voice mail off again.

Mom and Dad just got back to Anchorage after a trip to Florida and Indiana to visit Mom’s parents and Dad’s family, respectively, and Dad just posted his pictures with commentary. The picture of the stop sign made me laugh, and for the same reason that it amused Dad — yet another indication of just how alike we can be at times.

A picture of Dad’s brother Doug, who I haven’t seen in about three years, also caught my eye when I noticed just how much he and Dad resembled each other — something that I’ve also been noticing about my brother and I more and more as we age. Apparently the Hanscom genes run strong in our family!

It is sad to hear that, as tends to happen over the years, age is starting to catch up with some of our family. Mom’s parents will soon be moving into an assisted living facility, as Grandma is essentially blind, and Grandpa has, quite unfortunately, started to find his mental faculties declining. On Dad’s side of the family, “Uncle” Bud (my Dad’s uncle, my great-uncle) is battling liver cancer, and there are fears that the treatment may be as difficult to get through as the disease itself. However, all three of them are still getting along, and as no-one on either side of the family could deny being described as “strong willed”, I expect all three of them will continue on as best they can for as long as they can.

My cousins appear to be doing quite well, too. Eric has just graduated high school, and both Hannah and Kayt (“Katie”) are as gorgeous as ever (and I do mean gorgeous — Kayt is becoming one heck of a knockout, and she’s only thirteen…the boys don’t stand a chance).

All in all, it looks like a good trip, and while I’m not always in touch with my extended family very often, it’s always good to be able to catch up vicariously through Mom and Dad.

Wow — scary stuff. Apparently there was a fire at James and Stacy’s apartment complex in Anchorage yesterday afternoon. Marc was kind enough to let me know about it in a comment here.

Thankfully, according to Stacy, everyone is okay, including the cat.

Anyways, aside from being just another exciting day in Anchorage, Alaska, we’re doing okay. […] The fire marshal called us and was pleased to tell us that our apartment was not the source of the fire. He couldn’t talk any further about it, but I suspect my neighbors are going to get sued because they left a burning cigarette on their back porch that happened to catch a cardboard box that was holding their ashtray. There was also a propane canister explosion. […] It was the explosion that woke James up, but the fire was already filling our apartment with smoke and the fireman ordered him out before he could get the cat. But THE CAT SURVIVED!

I’m just glad that everyone is fine. You all know that if you ever need a floor to crash on, my place is always open! Oh, sure, there’s that little matter of me being 3,000 miles away and all…but the offer stands anyway. :)

Also, a PayPal donation account has been set up courtesy of ShyWickedPixie. As James and Stacy may have just lost everything in their apartment, I’m sure they’d appreciate the odd buck or two tossed their way! I only had \$3 in my account to send off, unfortunately, but it’s something. :)

(Thanks to OccipitalDruid for pointing out the PayPal link!)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

And don’t forget to eat that turkey…

…before it eats you!

Vogue regulars I met tonight that I should remember the names of:

Ron: spoke with him up in the DJ booth for a while, on everything from the Vogue to Seattle weather.

Rhonda: friends with and works with Trish.

Sylvie: had the cute purple knit hat with fur trim to match her coat (because they both had fur trim, not because the colors matched). Has a boyfriend whose name I didn’t catch.

Christina: great 40’s (?) style hat. I complimented her on her hat, then Sylvie introduced us. Sylvie then proceeded to embarrass Christina by remarking that she had “great tits” (I certainly wasn’t about to argue, but rather than agree and make an ass out of myself, I merely kept my mouth shut), encouraging me to talk to Christina, and then declaring that I should be taken home by Christina and Josh, who was also talking to Christina.

Josh: the aforementioned person also talking to Christina, who wearing a top hat. Apparently this was a good night for good hats.

None of this will mean anything to anyone else. It’s mostly here for my own reference, in a (probably futile) effort to drill the names into my head for more than a few hours.

I’ve had my first week of training at a branch of the business on Broadway, the main thoroughfare of Capitol Hill. That’s not where I’ll be once training is over with, but it’s been an entertaining week, and in some ways, I’m going to miss being able to wander up and down Broadway on my breaks. Some of the random encounters that go on can be fun.

Walking along the street during lunch, I’m approached by one of the many street denizens. He opens his spiel for money with, “Hey there, sir — you look like a fellow American.” “Yes, I am,” I reply, and walk past him and across the intersection.

A ten minute conversation with another person about my leather trenchcoat. His was cooler, of course, up until it got stolen out of his closet at a party. But mine was still pretty cool.

Passing one guy as I walked along, he asked if I could spare some change. “Sorry, man.” The next guy along, just a few feet over, heard the exchange. As I passed him — “Spare an apology?”

Watching a woman walk up to a pay phone and make call. “Hey, Jen? Yeah, it’s Kerry. I just got out of jail!”