Sweet Catastrophe

Wow! In Michigan, a girl died from an asthma attack caused by secondhand smoke in the bar where she worked.

It’s the first case of secondhand smoke causing an immediate death.

She felt ill shortly into her shift and told her manager she needed to go to the hospital–she didn’t have an inhaler with her. She tried to use an inhaler given to her by someone in the bar, but was unable to.

Scary stuff. Having had my share of serious asthma attacks, that story pretty much terrifies me, if for no other reason than knowing about this will increase my stress level the next time I have an attack without a readily available inhaler.

I’m curious as to what this case will bring about. Granted, she had severe asthma, but I’m sure this’ll be used in arguments about the dangers of secondhand smoke.

Source

Yesterday was Ryan’s and my two-year anniversary. Funny thing–in terms of the time that he and I have known each other, we’ve been living together longer than not. I’d say that’s a pretty good sign. We work

I thought about writing up a sappy post, but I’ll spare you! I’ve had a post in draft for a long time about all the things I love about Ryan and us, so you’ll be tortured one day, just not today.

I had to be at work from 6am-1pm so that was a downer. Then I got home and there was some bickering over a misunderstanding that took away part of my anniversary. Stupid boys and their lack of brain-power.

Anyway, after all that was straight, we went and got subs and drove out to this really pretty place, only to discover the gates would soon be closing, so we just came home and went over to the park to eat.

It was cold, but not wanting to sit in the apartment with all the shiny distractions, we decided to go ride around for a few hours and just talk =) We ended up getting lost, which was pretty hilarious. We even made it out into no-cell-service-land! It was just nice.

We went simple on the anniversary. Valentine’s day is next week so we decided ahead of time which one we were going to do gifts for. We haven’t really decided what we’re doing yet, but I know this year there will be chocolate! Last year I only hinted at wanting chocolate, and I ended up with a great gift, but no chocolate. This year I told him in no uncertain terms that there had better be chocolate. Skip the hints, right?

I know he’s gotten something already, maybe some type of valentines gift baskets, or something?

I might need to remind him that flowers are pretty much needed as well and that it’s not too late to order from 1800Flowers. I don’t think the empty vase sitting on our dresser has quite done the trick…I wouldn’t say no to the “Love’s Lavish Luxuries” gift set they’ve got there either. *keeps dreaming…* But of course they’ve got every budget and love-level covered.

I don’t work next Wednesday or Thursday, so I might see if I can convince Ryan that it’s time to head back to the beach for sunrise or sunset…We’ll see! I’m pretty much shot on ideas right now other than that. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed–no surprise plans. So far Ryan hasn’t been so good at planning surprises…they pretty much backfire on him!

Ha–my biggest problem is that I live with boys. Keri (my roommate’s girlfriend) lives with a leech!

Keri pretty much lives over here, and we just added to that by storing all of Keri’s food here, too. Otherwise it magically disappears, heh.

Her roommate also borrowed a bunch of clothes from her back before they were living together. It’s been a year since I first heard about an attempt to get them back, and she still hasn’t gotten those clothes back.

Now Keri is coming into her apartment to find her clothes all over the place, after they’ve been borrowed.

I dunno how she hasn’t killed her. Not only is she ‘borrowing’ clothes that Keri wouldn’t normally say yes to, but she’s gotta go through her stuff to do this, ya know? And then leaving them all over the place? Omg I’d kill her….

I dunno if Keri has really confronted her yet. I know she’s considering putting a lock on her door, but that’ll just cause a confrontation if she hasn’t talked about it yet.

I consider myself lucky to have never had that all-too-common college experience of having to lock up all your stuff!

We’re supposedly in for some crazy weather in a bit. I think at this point they’ve tallied 54 deaths in the tornadoes that hit Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama yesterday. I think Missouri was barely missed by a few so all those Branson rentals are safe.

In my last class, one of my classmates told us that they were letting people at the base (Moody Air Force Base) go home–that generally lends to the idea that we may be looking at some serious weather here.

I got smart when I walked back to the apartment. I pulled in all the metal chairs and everything outside. If nothing else we’re almost guaranteed storms and severe wind. I don’t think anyone parked out front wants to find a chair smashed through their car window tomorrow.

I actually don’t mind bad weather, I just hope we don’t sustain any major damages. I’m planning on shutting the computer down if we start getting significant lightning.

I am a little concerned about Ryan though. He’ll be on the road between here and Tallahassee pretty soon and I don’t really like that. At least he won’t be alone…

It’s 62 degrees in my apartment right now. If it were 62 degrees outside with the sun beating down, it’d feel great, but it’s 62 degrees inside. It’s cold. And of course it’s 62 degrees in here. I only set it to be 70. That’s how things work in an apartment, right?

I get annoyed with the bathroom upstairs. It’s a nice enough place, but there are things that weren’t made with the right materials. They used things that stain too easily so there are stubborn stains all over the bathroom that make it look dirtier than it is. Everything has little rust spots. I’d like to get new chrome accessories, but it’s sort of useless to put that much work into an apartment I won’t be in much longer, ya know?

Then there’s the door. I our front door. Hell, I loathe the back door as well. The weather stripping on both of them is a joke.

There’s a little vestibule type area that you walk into and then there’s the doors for our apt and apt 3. Because of this, they apparently felt no need to put an outer door here. It’s basically an inside door–it’s incredibly thin.

Being here where everyone knows each other, it’s more like we’re all in one big apt and just in separate rooms. With the thin door, when anyone walks out of apt 3, they can hear us in here and they stop by. I get very little alone time anymore. It’s pretty much assumed that if I’m just sitting at the computer, I must not be doing anything. I must want to talk or hang out. I’m a social person, but jeeze! I like to have me-time too!

I blame this grumpiness on the fact that I somehow ended up with reduced sugar Froot Loops. How did that happen? Why were they even created? Who wants Froot Loops minus most of the sugar?!

Is there ever a time when everything is done?

A time when you’re caught up on bills, all your homework is completely done, the house is totally clean and you’ve got no errands to run?

Is there even a time when you can put a check mark next to two of those?

I think I’m probably tired. In a really big way.