I don't know where my sister got a truck and I never even noticed that the reason the auto insurance I pay every month went up because she'd traded in her whatever-it-was-fake-Jeep for a truck, but can you believe what the back of the truck looked like on Christmas Eve? Damn. That was a lotta snow they had.
Though I guess it hides whatever crap is under it.
My mother took this photo last week. It's the small road that leads up a hill to the house she and her husband live in.
Right now the snow is gone, but the road is covered in ice. I got up it in my rental car with just a little slipping, but Mom's Mazda stayed at the bottom of the hill the night before last. Her husband's 4WD makes it up and down the hill with no problem.
Tonight I have to drive to Washington DC to drop off my rental, stay in an airport hotel, and get on a six a.m. flight.
I hope the forecast for freezing rain doesn't cause me problems.
Months ago, I'd splurged and bought a train ticket for the holidays. My mother and her husband live in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The setting is beautiful but it's tough to get to. The Greyhound line through was canceled a few years ago and the train to nearby Staunton only runs a few days a week. And since I have to fly out of DC's National Airport at six on Sunday morning, I had to be able to get away late on Christmas. The train doesn't do that. And I couldn't drive my own car since I was flying back into Newark from my post-Christmas trip.
So I'd get to DC first and rent a car from there. I used points from one of my credit cards to book and pay for the car. I checked the Boltbus and Megabus sites... $20 one-way to Washington DC. But I'm lazy and it's slightly easier and faster to get to the train station in Newark from my apartment, so I forked over an additional $50 for the train.
The Amtrak _is_ more comfy than the bus. But the bus has wifi so it's kind of a trade-off.
I'd been packing and planning my post-Mom's excursion for months but somehow, the night before found me in a panic. I hadn't packed, hadn't graded my students, still had a ton of day-job work to do, needed to prepare my Hackintosh netbook with the right software and so on. I got to sleep at 1:30, woke up at 5, and made the train. Made the earlier train, in fact, which was the previous train running an hour late.
I was out of Union Station by noon and at National Airport a few minutes later. I was renting from Dollar.
My first surprise was the cost of rental car insurance. I have Amex premium rental car insurance, which means that normally I just pay for my car with my Amex, which then triggers a $24.95 additional fee that is primary, comprehensive rental car insurance. One fee per rental, not per day.
Well the Dollar lowest option was $29.
A day.
Bejesus. I might as well have rented the damn thing without mileage and used my Amex.
Then there were the taxes which were my responsibility. The total for my free car? $140.
AND I'd called a few days ahead to check. The agent had confirmed my reservation, said I was prepaid and only the insurance was my responsibility. And then had been cagey about the amount.
Now I knew why.
It took an hour to get the car, because for reasons I'll never understand, the desk agents must click a lot of very important buttons on the keyboard. Then the car keys were missing. Then the car wasn't in the right space. Then I found the car that matched the keys, but it didn't match the car on the contract. Then they found the RIGHT keys, but the car was in a totally different space, and finally I got in the right car. Someone had been cleaning it with something utterly toxic and it smelled like my face was being sprayed with Lysol for the next two hours, which meant I had to drive with the windows down and stop several times to get out of the car. That was some nasty shit. I thought I'd pass out... but it might have just been my lack of sleep the night before.
But in the end, I slid up the mountain roads to the Fonzie Apartment.
Now I just have to hope the weather cooperates for me to get out of here on Friday evening.
Since this is totally disgusting, I made the photo teensy. If you really want to see it, you can click and look at my bruised toenail in all its glory.
What is this? This is one of two bruised big toes that I am sporting, and have been since Roberta, Kraiger, and I went hiking at the end of October. My shoes were too narrow (I guess—I didn't feel it at the time until it was too late) and coming downhill somehow resulted in these bruises.
Friends who have had similar bruises tell me I have 8-12 months of ugly toenails ahead of me. At the moment, I have painted them a dark red.
Ick.
What the hell? I checked out the sales on my 3-D Atlas over the weekend. Look at the bottom price! Ha! 
Here's a close-up. 
I will happily sell every single one of my books for $999 each. Let me know if you are interested.
I rushed over to Target last night—and the power went out. Nevertheless, I was able to acquire the trail mix I was there for. I mean legally. No, I didn't take this opportunity to loot.
Then this morning, I hurried to do my laundry and pick up my supplies. Because the East Coast is due to get slammed with some serious snow. Mom is already snowed in and the blizzard is heading our way.
Later, I took a look at my supplies and had to laugh at myself. Here is what I acquired for a snow day:
-one golden apple
-one pear
-two bananas
-one jar of Goya pico de gallo
-a tub of arborio rice
-some blueberries
I'm ready, obviously. Bring it on!
Though so far, the snow isn't terribly impressive.
I just got in the 3-D atlas in Korean! It looks so cool. And has me thinking about Korean food for lunch.
Here's a sneak peek at a secret project I have been working on.
It's not finished yet. I still have to add some video, some recipes, and maybe a "What Bundt Cake Are You" quiz for Facebook.
Happy holidays from my Catalonian Obama, Castro, and TinTin nativity caganers, pink hippos, and all of us here at Bundt Zombie HQ.
P.S. I feel like an idiot for doing this but I just censored this for fear of getting one of those "mature readers" labels slapped on my blog. Ha. Very silly.
