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Countdown: 12 days in CT, 6 days at PB.
Hmm, it's been awhile. I'm trying to decide if I should recount my vacation or not. It was fun, but may be a little boring if I regurgitate it to you all. I guess I'll just give a general breakdown and maybe elaborate on it. So...right before I left there was a day spent in Manhattan where my sister left me to wander around for 3 hours by myself. How kind of her. On to the trip to Illinois: I arrived (with little trouble getting to the airport or through the airport) then there was the Christmas Eve thing, then the Christmas thing, then a day at Uncle Nick's (complete with shopping with my mom and aunt), not much then shopping then dinner with Jaime on Thursday, trip to my mom's work then the law firm I worked at then my uncle's on Friday, dinner with the fam on Saturday (with my German Chocolate cake from Patisserie!!!), Red Lobster and shopping then dinner with Laura in Evanston on Sunday, shopping then coffee with Rachel then party with Shelly on Monday (New Year's Eve), back to CT on Tuesday (with little trouble once again). That was the vacation.
Now for at least a few details. I got to sleep in my old room while I was there - my mom finally fixed the water bed heater, which made me not want to leave said room, even though none of my things are in there anymore. Why couldn't the heater have been fixed during the 2+ years the bed was mine??? Jeez. Christmas with the fam wasn't so bad - the Candlelight Service at church finally, FINALLY put me in the holiday spirit. Took long enough, I swear. It was kind of cool, because Suzanne managed to bring Cornell into her sermon (only I knew it though) - she mentioned seeing a friend of hers - Kirsten Merrick - and Kirsten was the woman who interviewed me when I was applying to Cornell - I remembered being so shocked that someone who went to Cornell lived in my town, and as it turns out, my neighbor and pastor know the woman. Such a small world. So yeah, once the holiday spirit hit me, I started IMing everyone on my buddy list with holiday greetings - such fun! Yippee! Christmas presents included rent money (as I refer to cash as), a scanner and some PSP merchandise (key chain, mug, license plate thingy) - there goes my theory that my mom doesn't know the name of my fraternity!
I enjoyed seeing my friends. I got to see Jaime's engagement ring - makes me wish I had a diamond (or 3) on my finger, though I'm in no hurry to get married and don't even have a prospect of a groom. She confirmed that I'm going to be a bridesmaid, along with her twin sisters, and that the dresses will be "Thunderbird Blue" as her fiance Jeremy dubbed the color. Other than talking about the wedding (Jan. 4, 2003, as of now) we talked about people from high school (memorable line from the night: "Who did we go to high school with?") and what news we had on people - same thing that Laura and I talked about (though we talked about different people). It's funny how hardly anyone keeps in touch with anyone else. I saw 4 people while I was home and that's like a record among the people I did see (though Eileen is dating someone from high school so she sees more people). Seeing Rachel was good, since I hadn't seen her in quite a long time - it's funny how we can sit there and talk for hours, even though we weren't talking at all for so long.
My family did eventually drive me up a wall. My mom manages to get into these moods and then doesn't snap out of them for days. In the meantime, everyone acts like they're walking on eggshells around her. ARGH!!! She yelled at me for installing my new scanner on her computer because it somehow screwed up her printer. I go in there, not 15 minutes later, and lo and behold, there's nothing wrong with her printer - someone was just trying to print to the wrong printer (why does the computer say that there's more than one printer installed anyways?). She rents a car for a week, so that Kim and I will have something to drive around (almost out of necessity, considering we only have her car and my dad's truck right now, and there were 9 of us in the house) and then expects something in return. Whatever happened to people doing things for other people and not expecting anything? Jeez. And of course the sisters annoyed the hell out me - Kim told my dad on Monday that she doesn't like the way I treat people - anyone else want to complain about that? I tend to think that in general, I treat the vast majority of people fairly well. Perhaps I'm wrong.
New Year's Eve was pretty awesome. I went out with Shelly to a party that one of her friends threw. The best part of the evening: hot tub!!! So...this hot tub was outside (and I bought a new swimsuit for the occasion: a green tankini) and yes, it was about 10 degrees outside. The worst part was going the 10 feet from the house to the hot tub to get in - otherwise, it was bliss! It was so warm, and taking my arm out of tub didn't even feel cold. It was like, is it really cold outside? And then I would touch my hair and feel the ice in it and realize, oh yeah, it is! But it was great, being outside, nice and warm, looking at the stars and the trees and the snow. I thought getting out would be really bad - it was so cold and I was wet - but since the warm water must have raised my body temperature a couple of degrees, it wasn't at all - and there was a roaring fire going on inside for me to dry off by! So, even though I got 3 hours of sleep that night (had to get up for my flight) I had a great time! Props to Shelly for taking me! Of course, I didn't like being hit on by drunk, stoned guys, but I think I'll just forget that ever happened....
So in conclusion, while I love the Chicagoland area, I do not love staying in my house (especially when my mom threatens to charge me rent for the one week I'm home) and I do not love the weather there - it was no more than about 20 degrees all week! That's way too bitter! It caused me to conclude that Chicago has worse weather than Ithaca (it only took 2 1/2 years to come to that conclusion....). And as much I dislike Connecticut, I do have to admit that the peace and quiet when I got back was very very nice. Now I just have to get through the next week and a half and it's back to Ithaca with my friends!!! Yay!!!
- Lizzardie, at 2:35 PM
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