Test 1, 2, 3.

There is a North Skunk Creek and a South Skunk Creek, but no Dead Skunk Creek.

There was a Dead Horse Creek in Wyoming (as well as a Crazy Woman Creek, which I side-eyed until I decided it was preferable to Dead Woman Creek), and just generally, Wyoming had a lot of creeks of the [Adjective] [Noun] Creek [Road] formula.

Iowa was the land of wind turbines. They had a whole gentle giant majesty going on especially when compared to the smoke stacks of South Dakota ejaculating poison into the air (seriously though, the phallic imagery was pretty epic).

Little Sioux had a billboard that seemed bigger than the town itself saying "Prepare to meet thy God". Um. Sure. I'll meet my god, who doesn't exist. Then Sioux City, and finally Sioux Falls where Bobby and Snowmiser conspired to trap me for the night with blizzarding and road closures. Though I guess if I was going to be delayed somewhere, it's nice that it was a place I got to make Supernatural references about.

This is the first time my car has ever gotten below 30 miles per gallon (27: yikes!), but I figure it was due to a combination of the car being weighted down with my stuff and the weather/windiness as well as spending a lot of time idling to warm up the car in the morning when it was below zero out. And the other numbers were in the 30s and I got as high as 37 on one tank, so not too terrible overall.

Driving in the wind is incredibly tense-making. Even with the extra weight, I had to make minute course corrections and got all hunched up over the steering wheel about it. I know some of the extra windiness was from the storm, but seriously, set up some wind turbines and you'd be set for power.

In other reference makings, I stopped in Bozeman, Montana for gas on the final day of driving. I seem to have a thing for states with future Star Trek history in them. Going from the future birthplace of Captain Kirk (although not in the alternate timeline of the reboot cuz there he was born in space), to the future site of the launch of the first human warp drive/first contact with the Vulcans.

I wound up spending a lot of time following trucks and sort of using their speeds as a reference to what would be best given the icy conditions and wind.

I did not get hit by a Semi when "Bad Moon Rising" came on the radio.

There were periods of no radio reception as well as only scary religious radio reception, and lots of country (which led to me discovering Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away").

Bootsie was of course NOT PLEASED throughout the ordeal, but he wasn't overly howly about it, and he drank and ate a little the second night so I didn't have to force water down his throat with an eye dropper like I did the first night (I was slightly less worried about dehydration since it wasn't super-hot summertime, but winter Bootsies need liquids too).

Being a "young woman traveling alone" (as both Dad and Aunt Flossie felt the need to warn me about) did not really seem to affect my travels in any way that I could tell.

I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff because well, three days of driving insanity almost two weeks ago, but that gives you a taste, I guess.

Of course when I finally got to my new apartment, they were still putting the flooring in and that made everything extra stressful and obnoxious, and Bootsie hid in the crate while they were there all the next day, which was a little ironic considering how it had gotten progressively more difficult to get him back in there.

But they finally finished, and the new floor is nice, and I got my stuff all moved in. I still have some boxes around that I should probably do something about, but I'm getting there, and my first week of work went well.

I am pro-Union all the way. Like, I will be joining the Graduate Assistantship Union-y doodles even though because of some funked-up Iowa law, you can still benefit from the Union without actually joining it and paying dues and such. Which strikes me as a rather douchey thing to do, but I know some Princeton Support Staffers would jump right on that gravy train (and still somehow find ways to complain that the Union isn't doing enough) because, well, people suck, and they are ignorant to just how epically screwed they would be if there were no unions.
But the really sad part of the Union presentation was that in addition to the Yay! Affordable Health Care! bits, their main selling point* seemed to be the 'social opportunity' of going to the (Union-funded) Happy Hour once a month. Meaning that my dues are going to [in part] be funding somebody's intoxication. Not cool.
I realize that I have a minority view in this regard, and "suck it up and move on" is really my only option given my stance on Unions and desire not to be a hypocrite, and I already filled out the Union membership card and turned it in and such, but it irks me, okay? I mean, if you want to waste your money on alcohol, you don't really need my approval anyway, so it doesn't matter that I think purposely impairing your own judgment is stupid or that I have zero sympathy for anyone with a hangover (because seriously, you did that to yourself there, sunshine), but when it's technically my money, that I would prefer to have spent doing labor-related Union-y things... it's just. There was a fleeting moment when I considered not joining because of that, and that irks me, too. And. Yeah. I realize it's probably not much in the grand scheme of my Union dues, but it bugs me, so I shall rant about it and maybe feel better afterwards.


*It's possible I'm overreacting due to my distaste, but it's my journal and I'll hyperbole if I want to. Also, to put this in perspective, it bugged me enough that I raised my hand and specifically confirmed that dues were in fact going to the aforementioned Happy Hour in a crowded auditorium full of people (and of course they answered 'yes' like that was a positive, though the one woman seemed to catch the snap and clarify that there were other beverages available which doesn't really help me since I barely tolerate sober people, so I sure as hell ain't hanging out in a bar with drunk ones.)


Aaaand now I have to decide whether or not I'm going to the Center for the Book welcome party thingummer for everybody in the program when I hate shit like that, and there will inevitably be alcohol there, too (though at least that won't be the sole purpose of the gathering-- of course the other purposes are food and social interaction which aren't exactly my strong suits either), but, like, I know I ought to go for the sake of social convention politening/pretend to be normal, but I don't wanna.

You'd think that of all the days of the year, the one where you might spend some time thinking about how we, as well-fed people, are wasteful of food, would potentially be the one when you spend your evening making PB&J sandwiches for homeless people.
Like, seriously, do you people actually do this with your own jars of peanut butter? I mean, if it's a jar of PB that you have bought and paid for yourself, do you really, honestly recycle/trash the jar with that much PB in it? Because that? Is a sandwich worth of PB, my friend, and here you are saying that the jar is empty.
Is it some sort of social stigma thing? Like, you would scrape the jar in the privacy of your own home, but nobody wants to be the crazy person scraping the PB jar in public?
(And it occurs to me that this is the one socialization event/gathering that I attend each year. Other people go to parties and bars and Cons. I... make sandwiches for Loaves & Fishes once a year. Where I am know to be or soon found to be the crazy person who scrapes the PB jars.)
Besides, aren't youwe supposed to be UUs up in here? How about some Respect! For the interdependent web of existence! Of which we are a part!
That perfectly good peanut butter lurking in the bottom and on the sides of the jar need some respect too, you know.

This was Friday evening. Appropriately enough, on Thursday evening, I scraped the last of the PB from my 4 lb. tub as a sort of warm-up as I made my two sandwiches (the usual lunch + one for dinner since I was going straight from work to church). So, I started the tub on February 6th and finished it on March 24th. Sooo I eat 4 pounds of peanut butter every 1.5 months or so.

Which is the only thing I wound up buying at the Quaker Flea Market. But C is also for Compliment, and I got two of those.
PUs were off funeralling, so I didn't carpool (another C-word) with them like I usually do, and instead went via BumperSticker Mobile. Which lead us to the first compliment: [rather cute] Friend directing parking said he was "digging the stickers".
I also got a good parking space in the front near the Troll Bridge instead of back behind the liquor store, so that was nice.
Second compliment was from one of the ladies with a table who liked my squirrel bag, which is a compliment to my darling sister as well, since she's the one who gave it to me.
So I wandered around, basically had the same complaint we have every year: too antique-y, bought a bag of Peanut Brittle Chocolate Chip Cookies at the bake sale, and then reunited with the [rather cute] Friend from before, who did the whole hand motiony thing to help me not hit the telephone pole as I backed up.

And I'm still all ridiculously smiley about this guy who I don't know, will never see again, and spent all of 2 minutes with, but then, that's probably why I like him. Because if we actually did spend time together, it would be Geordi-Meets-Real-Leah-Brahms levels of awkward with my sucky people skills and him being normal and me being me, but still, I enjoyed our moment.