Sweet Catastrophe

Jeeze! Have you ever had one of those days when all you could do was sleep?

I hit the textbooks hard last night for a production test today and an in-class exercise today and did I go to class? No. I made it out of bed on time but I just couldn’t get going! By the time I got dressed and everything I already knew I was gonna be late but that would’ve been okay. What did I do? I crawled back into bed.

I slept some more and got back up for lunch. I had lunch on the couch, watching television. Take a guess what I did after lunch….I went back to freakin sleep and slept through my last class! It’s not a terribly huge deal. I’m gonna take a blow to my grade for sure, but not one I can’t pull up easily enough, but it still sucks. I have no wiggle room now.

I’ve been to sleep two more times since then! Each time I slept today was well over an hour! I got probably almost 8 hours last night. I don’t know what’s up! And honestly, I’m sure I could go to sleep now but I’m in the middle of doing some stuff to my computer so I’m occupied.

I think part of it was really just boredom. I’m used to multitasking. I’m hardly ever just sitting and watching something, ya know? Ryan had my computer at the shop today– the motherboard in my computer right now isn’t actually mine, it’s sort of just a loaner until they get in the connectors they need for mine, but this one has already been assigned a home and they needed to check some things out to make sure it’s compatible with everything it’s gonna be connected to.

I might take a sleeping pill tonight just to make sure I don’t just wake up in a few hours. I don’t want today to totally throw me off.

I’m trying out Redbox tonight. You may have seen them around your town; we have a Redbox kiosk in both of our Wal Marts.

It’s a little kiosk where you can rent a dvd for $1 for 24 hours. I think right now it’s sort of a small business franchise, I could be wrong, but they’re fairly new here so I dunno.

I’ve been sort of thinking on it. I signed up for a free one, but the code wasn’t cooperating so I just paid the dollar. I was probably doing something wrong. I’ll figure it out next time.

I rented Mad Money. They didn’t have an incredibly huge selection, but I see now that I can check out what they have online and you can reserve a movie too, so we’ll see.

I don’t like though that you only have until 9pm the next night before you get charged another $1. 9 is a common closing time so if you’re planning to drop it off after work, you’re outta luck. I think midnight to midnight would make more sense. It’s still a nifty idea though! It’s cheaper than OnDemand. Why not pick up a movie for a dollar while you’re grocery shopping?

A mile is a very long way to walk to get somewhere you didn’t want to go in the first place.

It’s longer when you’re sweating at 9 in the frickin’ a.m.

And even longer still when you really, really have to pee.

This isn’t a new lesson, rather, one I seem to re-learn every Tuesday and Thursday. I shouldn’t need fitness equipment with all this walking, but yeah, I’m not exactly melting away.

I want like, a Vespa or something. Really. I’m considering a bike, but I dunno, I’m just not a fan of biking. We’ll see.

As most should know by now, Gustav slowed down, so it didn’t hit catastrophically. Ryan’s mom and sister stayed at the home of the other people who were set to come here. They don’t have power, and the wind and rain has been rough, but they’re okay. There’s been no major damage that they know of.

We were under the impression that they had already left. Apparently they haven’t, and they’re not going to. They’re staying.

They’re actually in Slidell, which is on the eastern side of Lake Pontchartrain, opposite of New Orleans.

Blue star= Slidell, Red X= New Orleans

So Gustave is set to hit toward the western side of NOLA, but this doesn’t mean Slidell is safe. We don’t know where the storm will actually hit. If it stays on its projected path, if it keeps up its strength, the tropical storm winds will reach over 200 miles away from the center of the hurricane. And Lake Pontchartrain is huge…..

I understand how they could’ve talked themselves into staying, especially considering the alternative of traveling with 4 people–including a paraplegic, and 8 animals in only one vehicle. I just don’t know. I’m worried though. Really worried.

Ryan’s still gonna try to talk to them some more. It’s not too late to get out yet….

Ryan just sent a message saying they’re not coming. I’m not counting on anything because I can’t get in touch with him to find out the whole story. This could be coming from the middle of trying to make a decision on what to do; it could be that they’ve had enough travel with all the animals and are stopping elsewhere to stay, in which case they still may end up here depending on how long they have to be out of town. The only way this could be definite is if the family in Atlanta woke up and realized that they’re much better equipped in their full two-story home to take on the extra people than we are.

For now I’ve sort of put my preparations on hold. I’m still cleaning up stuff ’cause well, that needs to be done anyway, but I’m holding off on any major stuff.

So they can’t go to Atlanta because that’s where the other half of the family is going….yet they still have way more room than we do….(no I’m not bitter….)

The two extras coming are an older lady…Ryan’s thinking older than his mother for sure…we’re hoping he’s wrong, and her paraplegic daughter.

Aside from being emotional over all of this, Vanessa is really upset over their family in Atlanta not wanting them to come there. (I really don’t know what the deal is there; they’re really awesome people and they have a huge home so I don’t know what’s going on…) And Ryan (again his memory isn’t working at full capacity) thinks this older lady may be the family friend his mother told him just lost her husband a week or two ago. So we’re dealing with some big emotions here, and some challenges.

Best-case scenario they’ll be able to leave Wednesday at the very earliest, otherwise, we’re looking at at least a week.

I’m trying to get the ‘woe is me’ stuff out of my system now. I’m still a little in shock that all this is about to really happen. I know the situation for them, and everyone else in Louisiana is infinitely worse so I really don’t want to be focusing on how this is inconveniencing me when they get here. I just can’t help it at the moment though….it’s a lot to take in when it was just a few hours ago that I even realized Gustav was even something to be concerned with. Last I had heard it was still just a tropical storm.

Yeah so Ryan just got the call from his mom that 4 people, 6 dogs (all small), and 2 cats will be on their way HERE sometime tomorrow. I mean, I sorta knew their only options of places to go would be here or Atlanta as all the rest of the family are there right around the New Orleans area, but another part of me thought for sure that either through Vanessa, or Ryan’s aunt there, they’d have some other options. To say I’m freaking a little would be an understatement.

I have no idea where these people will be sleeping. I have no idea how we’re gonna accommodate all those dogs. I have no idea how I’m gonna keep Willow from freaking the hell out, and I have no idea how I’m gonna get any schoolwork or anything else done with all these people here.

I’m gonna go ahead and send off an email to my professors that have work due on Tuesday, just so it won’t seem like I’m making something up last-minute if I have problems finishing my work by then.

I’ve got so much cleaning to do. I’m so glad I already did some today. This is not gonna be pleasant.

Of course, I’m glad they’re getting out and they’ve got somewhere to go, but I just don’t do so well with last-minute inconveniences….

I got a really great night of sleep last night. I went to bed around 9 and probably didn’t make it until 9:30. I woke up about twice for one reason or another, but otherwise slept through till after 9am. It was great.

Tonight I’m paying for it. I’m alone for the weekend and apparently dreaming about clever home invaders who have enough sense to split up so I can’t climb out a back window.

I just want to sleep. Now I’m scared to. By the time I get over the dream, it’ll barely be worth falling back asleep before I have to get up for work.

I keep forgetting everything outside of school this week!

I need to pick up a gift for my dad and decide, for sure, when I’ll swing through town.

I need to make a few phone calls. I need to call about a prescription, I need to call my dental insurance provider to figure out a bunch of details on that and I need to call my vision insurance provider to find out how my allowance for glasses and contacts works. The breakdown isn’t very clear so I can’t figure out if I can only do one, or if I can go for both in one year. My contacts aren’t that expensive, but it’d still be nice to have a discount, ya know?

I really need to go to the store and pick up a lot of stuff I keep forgetting to get like pickles, shampoo, toothpaste, medical supplies, dishwasher detergent, etc….I finally made a list and saved it to my desktop so I’ll stop losing it.

Maybe I’ll go in a while and pick up some Subway before I leave. I’m addicted to their damn Scrabble promotion! I know the letters I need are rare and I seriously won’t get them, but I can’t help trying!