That poor Delroy Lee

I move out The Day After Tommorrow

starring Dennis Quaid!
"I promise, I will save you from the frozen wastes of New York City and then help you move in with your four-cup coffeemaker and your tiny, tiny microwave!"

I still haven't packed most of my clothes.... I've been "doing laundry" today (my use of quotes should alert you to the fact that I'm actually kind of lying) but there's still quite a bit to do and I'm starting to feel the pressure. If you know me, then you know that I have a hard time with controlling anxiety, but I've been trying to keep busy enough--or at least distracted enough--that I don't spontaneously burst into flame, or worse, spontaneously burst into tears.

Of course, the tears might prove to be helpful in the end, considering the potential for spontaneous combustion.

In other news (literally) I read an interesting newspaper article today... When I was growing up in southern Illinois, I spent a few years at a small town called Mt. Carmel. We still have the Mt. Carmel paper delivered to us because we know just about everyone who ends up in it and we like to keep up with them. Today I was reading last Monday's edition of that paper and I found a slew of hilarious pictures where some idiot had, beyond all shades of reason and conceivability, driven her brand new 2006 Hummer over a ditch, up a sharp incline, through a chain fence, and straight into the heart of the city pool, colliding with the huge concrete fountain in the center of the circular pool proper.

I know sometimes I like to poke at some of the sorts of people who inhabit the South, the ones who put up the confederate flag, the thirty-something grandmothers in their denim cutoffs and belly-bearing halter tops, the God-fearing evolution-phobics, the guy in the broken-strap-overalls that they always find to interview on the local news--you know the one, the "An' then the dawg growed too-welve legs an' grabbed up Delroy Lee wif his lazey beam eyes" guy-- but you have to understand that the first town I lived in (a smattering of houses surrounded on three sides by cornfields and on the fourth side by a river) wasn't even large enough for a stoplight or a gas station, that the nearest Walmart was ten miles into Indiana and it was just a regular old non-super Walmart, and I'm only laughing and teasing like I do because I probably know someone in another part of the country who has done something even more absurd, and that I still get a town paper where the Hummer driven into the city pool is pushed to the second page so that the quilt festival can be on the front.

My eyes are set on "Stun"

Well it seems as though the French have escaped my wrath yet again. You get away this time, France, but I'll be watching you.









Jurassic Park III is on the TV behind me. These poor people and their continued run-ins with those dinosaurs. I just imagine Sam Neill on his knees in the mud and rain, his face turned upward, his fists shaking above his head in fury, screaming "Damn you Sir Richard Attenborough!"

I descended of them, too.

My computer is currently in France. Let's hope those cheese-eating surrender monkeys take good care of it, or there will be hell to pay, so help me God.

Oh, I'm only kidding, they probably don't all eat cheese.



Well Berry sent me a transcript showing that my classes all transferred from Dalton, and my grade average is currently 3.40 (ridonkulous, I seriously need to buckle down)and also it lists the classes I am signed up for in the fall, which is a good sign. Guess that means my payment temporarily slaked their thirst for the money of poor young adults and that beast shall sleep for another month until my second payment is due. It also means they aren't tossing out those classes for my lack of meningitis shot, but I wasn't really expecting that to happen, as they offer the vaccination on campus in those first few days anyway. Hooray.

Well this is good.

My computer was shipped today, HOORAY

They said ten business days, it has two days to arrive or I'm calling the Constable

Mundane and not so mundane

So it's been a week and a half since I last posted, a failing I apologize for. I hope you forgive me, though I don't suspect you actually have much say in the matter; whether I'm forgiven or not will not guarantee posts on a regular schedule any more than it will guarantee posts of worthy content. But for what it's worth, thank you for forgiving me.

Let's see, what has happened since my last update?

A plane crashed and everyone survived
President Bush indirectly endorsed the teaching of intelligent design
Peter Jennings died
The shuttle landed safely
The President of Niger denied there was a food crisis in his country
I paid a quarter of my semester tuition
and I utterly failed to get a meningitis shot.

Some of these things are bad, a couple are good, one is even a little of both, but the last was the only one I really had any sway over, and I promise you that I haven't failed through any lack of trying.

My (mis)adventure started over a week ago, when I called the Catoosa Country Health Department that is hardly a mile down the road from my house and said I needed the vaccination.

"How old are you?" the lady asked.

"Twenty," I responded.

"Hold on please." So I waited for a few minutes, doodling on a spare piece of paper until she came back. "Sorry, you wanted a-"

"Meningitis-"

"Right, meningitis shot. And you said you were twenty?"

"Yes, m'am."

"Well alright then, it's thirty-five dollars and you can just walk in."

So I brightly thanked her and hung up the phone. The next day I headed down to the health department with my sister, walked in and approached the desk. I politely told the lady at the desk I was there to get my meningitis shot. She asked if I was under eighteen, and when I said no, she told me, "I'm sorry, we don't give that vaccination to adults."

Hang on. Turn back. "But the lady I talked to yesterday told me it was okay."

"We're only allowed to give the meningitis vaccination to those under the age of eighteen. You'll have to ask your doctor."

Great, thought I.

I went on home without the barest hint of meningitis immunogen in my bloodstream. I called Dr. Greg, and he said they don't keep it in stock, they usually send people to the health department. So, circle completed in my county.

But luckily I live in a tiny county in a decently populated area, and so I proceeded to make the rounds. I called the Hamilton County Health Department in Chattanooga, but they couldn't get me in before August 22nd. I called the Whitfield County Health Department in Dalton but I would have had to go talk to a nurse about insurance qualification. A friend of the family suggested a certain doctor's practice (as they had the vaccine), but since I wasn't a patient there I'd need to first get a doctors visit, another fifty to a hundred dollars on top of the hundred twenty-three dollar vaccine. So at that point I was about ready to give up and just go get the vaccine on campus for a hundred and twenty five. But my sister's boyfriend's mom told me the Walker County Health Department in LaFayette gave adult immunizations, and so I gave them a call, hoping beyond hope...

"We don't have the vaccine in stock, but if you pay up front we can order it and it should be in in three or four days. The meningitis is a hundred dollars."

Hallelujah

So today on the way back from Berry I stopped over at the health department off of highway 27, with Kevin in tow. "Do you see it?" I asked, "Which building is it?"

He pointed. "I hope it's not the one with all the firetrucks in front of it."

"WHAT?"

So we turned around and came back past and sure enough
...firetrucks, lights flashing, people milling around, firemen standing about... That's right. You guessed it.

The building was on fire.