It's cold outside.

I'm not really the weepy type. I consider myself a tough chick. I yell stuff at the "break a nail" women on TV about how they should suck it up and, you know, actually matter. I consider myself a Buffy type.

But it kind of hit me today as I opened the door to a blast of cold air: Angelica's been gone for almost half a year. I got a little misty. It wasn't because of anything big, like you see in movies; I wasn't carved out by sudden loss.

It's the little stuff. The devil's in the details. All that happened was I got a lungful of cold air, the same as has been happening to me for over 20 years. But this time it reminded me of how much Angelica hated the cold. It's stupid--I should see something that reminds me of something she loved, you know? Something that's associated with her, which I guess this is.

But it's like seeing a horse and being reminded how your best friend never rode horses. That's stupid.

Anyway, I might not get a chance to post something else until after Christmas. Jet and I will be celebrating by ourselves, since my mom's in one of her moods and decided I'm out of her favor this week. I don't even know if she reads this. Don't care. Hi Mom!! Merry Up Yours and Happy Ho-Days!

Sorry, dirty laundry. But looking at that last sentence makes me smile and helps me forget that Angelica hated winter. And when spring comes, I'll be reminded how she made fun of my allergies. Then summer will come and I'll remember how happy she was with the warmth and sun. And in the fall, I'll get weepy when the anniversary of our first meeting comes around.

I hate feelings sometimes. Merry Christmas (except you, Mom).
~R

The "new" washing machine

Doing laundry today. Yup--the glamorous life. It's been a while since anything really weird's happened. The last one was a couple weeks ago when that guy (or maybe "guy" in quotes) followed me and Jet to Giant Eagle.

It's annoying doing laundry with gloves on, but you know. Such is life. I loaded the washing machine, added detergent, all that good stuff, and walked away. I remember thinking specifically that the stupid thing better work.

Yeah, so back up: this is the new washer. Again, "new" in quotes. Angelica had some old front-loader since the dawn of time, and a month ago it crapped out--I came home to a small lake. Long story short: getting it fixed cost way more than I could justify, so the kid and I trolled Craigslist for a replacement and found this one cheap. Gabe helped us muscle it in, and I finally hooked it up today, since the laundry piles were getting embarrassing.

First load was done. It has an awful buzzer that sounds like a halfway point between a gameshow buzzer and a dying Jetta. But there wasn't a lake, so I figured it was a win. Until I opened the lid.

Not too proud to admit I screamed like a final girl in a horror movie. You would too. The first thing I saw was a thick pool of blood with most of what was left of some kind of animal swirling among socks and who-knows-what. I'm really hoping it wasn't someone's pet. The scream was part of the package where I dropped the lid and jumped back against the wall.

Steeled my nerves, reached for the lid, and opened it. That's the joy of being a homeowner, you get to do all the cleanup yourself. But you guessed it: nothing. Just a bunch of Jet's clothing, clean and nicely spun, ready for the dryer.

So this is my life. I don't know how long it'll take for this impression to fade from our "new" washing machine, but I'm pretty sure I know why we got it so cheap. It ate one of Jet's socks, too.

So this happened...

Jet and I were out getting groceries (hey, girls gotta eat) and this guy started following us. Probably drunk, I figured, since he was dragging his feet. I wasn't super worried, since he's not even remotely the scariest thing we've dealt with. So we just kept talking. I don't know what about--Avengers again, probably. Jet's still addicted to movies, and there's something about the superhero stuff that electrifies her.

Anyway, we kept walking and talking, and I kept doing that thing where you kind of reach back with your mind and you just know someone's there, right? And that guy was still there. I could hear the scraping over Jet's talking if I really listened.

We made it to Giant Eagle and did our thing. Jet: also still addicted to pizza bites. Don't judge me--I never wanted to be a mom, so it's double not my job to parent an orphan kid. I got her pizza bites.

We left the store with our crap, and of course I kinda looked around to see if our friend was still there.

Nope. Great.

Until we were like a block away from the store--seriously, the first alley we passed, and suddenly the little hairs on the back of my neck got prickly. I really don't need this sort of thing. It's not like I'm worried my heart's gonna explode from fright (just, you know, everything else), but when I'm having a quiet night with the kid, I don't want to deal with all the weird junk like we used to.

So I turned around, ready to read him off, and there's nobody there. I still felt that "you are not alone" feeling, so I looked all over the place. Jet was just confused, so I asked if she remembered the guy that followed us to the store.

She just stared at me like I was nuts, so I pointed out our old tracks in the snow, with the dragging tracks marching right between ours from where he was following us. I explained he followed us right up to the front door of Giant Eagle, and as we were following his dragging tracks toward the store, I noticed there were more dragging tracks coming back from it, right behind us. But the freaking tracks ended like four feet behind where we stood. They just stopped.

Yeah, so go figure. We went home, nuked some pizza bites, and watched the first Avengers movie.

If that guy follows us again, he's getting hit.