FACT 141 – invisible woman

because not a single one of you will see this post when it first goes up. because? silly 1&1 is having a 500 error at the moment. this won’t stop me from making a post, though, because i said to myself the other day, self, you should make a blog post. so here i am, making one. i think mostly this is going to be a fotodump, but it’s also going to be a narrative of my trip to florida. which was awesome. by the way~ it was a glorious week of not having to listen to anyone, not having to worry if someone else was using the shower, putting whatever i wanted on the TV (which admittedly wasn’t much), playing whatever i wanted on the stereo, going to bed whenever i wanted, making as much noise as i wanted (which also wasn’t that much, but no one else was making noise that i didn’t want, so that was nice), and waking up whenever i wanted (although that was more like, whenever the sun wanted, since it was super bright). i left right on time (read: 7 minutes late) saturday morning and started out with vigor and enthusiasm (read: it was bloody 8:07 A-friggin-M and i should have been in bed, but the thought of spending an entire week away from my cell-mates made me giddy with glee). actually, the drive down wasn’t bad (lots of pavement, but some really awesome mountains in west/virginia) until georgia. i was on i95 at that point, and had been for some 6 or 8 previous hours (the entire drive down took me a little less than 17 hours, just as google had predicted) and then it turned out that basically the entirety of georgia was under construction. (>_<) wow, that was annoying. but! i made it. i survived, i entered florida circa sometime past midnight, and continued on my way. the vacation house i was staying at (super thanks to nora!) was in a place called Vero Beach, or at least, is just outside of a place called Vero Beach, which itself is about an hour south of cape canaveral. it's a place where all the houses look like they came out of the same catalogue, the Old People's Retirement Savings package. it was a pretty nice house, a little buggy at first, but after a little clean up action on sunday, it was all better~ (^_^) i put up a youtube video tour (round about wednesday/thursday, after i finally managed to get ahold of some batteries...)

so you’ve heard my creepy voice now. i shall have to kill you. (^_^) anyhow. so i killed the buggies, recovered from my crazy long drive, and settled in to a nice routinne of avoiding the humidity (which was hideous and oogly), binding books (eventually to be listed in my shop, but preview photo below), and watching pointless reality TV on discovery health (i.e. ladies who didn’t know they were preggers and doctor’s whose patients stumpted them until it was nearly too late). i did catch a few episodes of something called The Colony, where they stuck 10~15 people in a post-apocalyptic simulation area and let them go for it to rebuilt humanity. it was borderline obnoxious, but given my (slightly disturbing) interest in blowing up the world and/or otherwise bringing about the fictitious ending of civilization, it was like the best Research Opportunity i have ever seen. i watched about 6 hours of it before i felt like i’d had enough. (^_^) although, to my current shame, i have yet to write anything of any use about it. (T_T) anyway, moving on in my Week of Justice, all was going just ducky… until tuesday. the air conditioner broke. it was like 80 when i woke up, and after i tried all the troubleshooting things and emailed my mother for suggestions and emailed Lovely Nora for suggestions, it was 85. by that time, the suggestion was to call the repair man, since all our other suggestions had failed. so the repair dude came out and charged me $80 to tell me that the coil was frozen, i should try leaving it off for a while, and maybe turn it back on that evening, and they would call me in the morning to see if i still needed them. (>_<) so i did, and the air conditioner turned back on like it knew what it was doing, which by that point i seriously doubted, but i didn't really care that much by that point, because although the dehumidifier was still working (thank the LORD) 85 is no temperature for the inside of a house. so then i got back to work. i would have continued on my bookbinding flourish, but i ran out of paper. (^_^) so on friday, i went to the nearby McKee Botanical Gardens. it was really nice~ so humid that even god would have turned back (^^;) but really nice. i took about a dozen hundred photos~ and there was even a butterfly who stopped by just to say hello. it fluttered right in front of me, and perched down on a piece of grass right next to me. so i obliged it by taking its picture. a lot. and then i took a whole 30 second video of it. and /then/ it decided to flutter away. it stayed there for a long time. like, a looong time. it was very nice. like a send off. sweet~ anyhow, then i had to pack up and think about An End to The Vacation, and get all sad and stuff. (^^;) i packed up all my bookbinding stuff friday night, and then went to bed and woke up super disgusting early saturday, hoping to repeat my relative success of the previous saturday. and here’s where things get a bit interesting. my twitters from the car say it all: [who ordered this bullshit? (>_<)] [at this point, i’m just going to jump into the south brunswick. TRAFFIC JAMS ARE EVIL.] it took me an hour. to go ten miles. yeah. i wasn’t pleased. but! i recovered. i moved on. i finally got out of georgia. eventually, i got off of i95 and onto i40. i passed through two incredibly beautiful national parks, one of which i couldn’t really see, coz it was all dark by then, and i accidentally put my jesus christ superstar cd in the cd player when i meant kylie minogue. not entirely bad. (^_^) things seemed to be going ducky. i was getting close to ohio, i was eager to pass through cinncinati at night, coz i love that city, and especially the riverfront, and i knew that i was going to pass not terribly far from where i used to live. i pulled into probably the last rest stop on the kentucky side of i75 for a potty break and a stretch. and couldn’t turn my car back on. !!! luckily, some super nice trucker dude was there to help me out, but his diagnosis was as i had feared: dead battery. when i started the car up to go to those gardens on friday, the car hadn’t really wanted to start up, but after a second it had, and i sort of hoped that maybe it was just griping because i hadn’t used it all week. no, it was trying to warn me of Impending Danger. so the trucker dude and i got my car restarted, and he was like, ok, but you can’t stop, coz it won’t start up again. (X_X)! i’m like, fine, okay, i just stopped for the bathroom, i’ve got plenty of crackers, and i’m only three hours from home. i just have to get some gas and— oh. i can’t stop for gas. but i don’t have enough gas to make it home. yeah. so i phone my sister, thank god people in my house are up that late, coz by this point, it’s pushing 1:30 in the morning, and i’m like, ok, so if my car doesn’t start and nobody there can give me a jump, i may need you to come bail me out. she’s like fine, cool, i’m ready! super awesome shoutout to sister yobo of jewelry-ninja.com (which may or may not be working due to previously mentioned 500 error issue)! so i hold out as long as i can, i get a super awesome half-tour of the riverfront circa 2 AM, until finally, at last, i have to stop for gas or i’m going to run out in the middle-of-bloody-nowhere ohio. when ohioans say middle of nowhere, we mean like, there’s not a gas station for a dozen miles in either direction, there’s not a town w/in an hour’s drive, let alone a city, and in fact what there is is lots of corn, lots of children of the corn, and not even one single street lamp for about 50 miles. yeah. so i stopped for gas at what passed for Last Chance Gas Saloon and turned the car off. i filled up the tank, paced around the car, and prayed. super hard. SUPER hard. i get back in the car, i pray some more, i realize that there’s no one at this gas station. it’s me, and the the attendant. if i need a jump, there’s no one here to give it to me. i turn the key. it doesn’t start. i super pray really hard. like, vein popping out on my forehead hard. and it starts!!! zomijesus i’ve never prayed so freaking much in my entire life. i slammed that car into gear and sped off before my car could change its mind. (^_^) well, the final hour of my journey was much more pleasant than the previous hours. as long as my car was going, it would send electricity through the battery, and i could get home. if i had to stop for anything, for any amount of time, the car would probably stall out and there is no way in HELL i would get lucky like i just had twice in the same night. i couldn’t stop. even for traffic lights. well, that’s not true. i tried to stop for the traffic light at the end of the exit ramp, but my headlights dimmed significantly when i pressed on the break pedal, so i looked real quick and there was no one, so i went. luckily, my street is about one light from the freeway exit, but unluckily, it’s a left turn, and a very long light at that. i tried to stop, i really did, i swears it (^^;) but my car started making funny noises and the dude in the car next to me looked over like, wtf is wrong with her car? and so i honked my horn and ran the light and didn’t look back. i pulled into my driveway and frankly i’m not sure if the car didn’t stall out just a little bit before i managed to turn it off. sunday was spent buying a battery (and, actually, going on a bit of a spending spree, something that was sadly lacking from my vacation due to a miss-timing of paychecks) and having my dad install it. the car’s fine now, and looking back, it was kind of fun. i like challenges, i really like adventures, and even while it was happening, i was thinking that i had wanted a change from the normal, so that’s what i got. overall, i think it was a very successful vacation. mm? that wasn’t that many photos? well… that’s true. not that i don’t have the photos ready to go. just that this post is about 500 years long already. guess we’ll just save up those photos for another day’s fotodump. maybe a day when my blog is working. (T_T) ~meredeth. this post brought to you by 17 hour drives and dimming headlights. tally-ho! .

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