Hurricane Irene

After experiencing my first earthquake earlier this week, Mother Nature thought it seemed fitting to cap the weekend off with my first hurricane, Hurricane Irene. Luckily both ended up only leaving minor damage to the DC area and I am just fine.

The boyfriend and I decided to stock up on some essentials on Saturday early afternoon so we hit up the local grocery store which was packed, but not nearly as packed as the 2010 Blizzard. It started raining in the afternoon and pretty much just rained and drizzled all day long. We did venture out to Starbucks because I wanted to get out and get a change of scenery, which was fun and provided some great people watching. After that we just stayed inside all day and watched Netflix movies.

When I woke up I didn't know what I was expecting but everything was fine. The world hadn't ended, the power was on, the house was still there. It was all good. Now I can tell my grandkids about how I experienced my first Earthquake and Hurricane in the same week.

FIRE

Friday, I was hanging out at the boyfriend's when he starts yelling at me to come look out the window. I go

Firefighters putting out the garage fire

over to the window, and the garage across the alley from his apartment is in a blaze of fire. I'm in shock, staring out the window when all of a sudden the boyfriend starts yelling at me to get my shoes on because we have to get out of the apartment due to the flames getting way too close to his apartment.

In my quick reaction skills, I start thinking "oh I need to get my iPhone, is it cold out? Where's that sweatshirt I was wearing earlier..." and proceed to take my good old time getting out of there. Due to my slowness and not being able to find my shoes, before we even made it out of the apartment, the firefighters showed up and
were able to put out the flames in less than a minute.

I learned that if there's ever an emergency, I suck at reacting. My brain shuts down and I can't think logically. Good thing the boyfriend was thinking clearly for the both of us! And, more importantly, no one was hurt in the fire.

Then, in case that wasn't enough fire action for you for one weekend, Sunday afternoon the boyfriend and I
were in Rosslyn waiting for the Circulator to take us to Georgetown, and the boyfriend says "look over there, I think that building is on fire". This luxury apartment complex had smoke billowing out of it, and about a minute later you could smell smoke. A minute after that, the roar of the sirens started and they were soon surrounding the building. I'm not sure what happened because the bus came a few minutes later and we got on.

Turnberry Towers on fire

Teeny Tiny

This lady lives in a 90sq ft apartment in NYC. Wow!

A Shit-Show

Last night, I was at home making dinner with my roommate Emily, when she goes to the front window and says "come look, there's a shit-show happening outside our house". I run to the front window and see 4 firetrucks outside our front door, one of which is the Arlington County Hazmat Unit:

Firetrucks

Hazardous Response Unit

We weren't sure what was going on, but something had happened at our next door neighbors house. We thought it was some sort of fire, seeing as there was no ambulance or police, only firetrucks. We watched outside from our front porch, trying to figure out what had happened, and when we saw the crew putting on hazmat suits, we got concerned. Then another roommate came home.  We sent her out to chat up the firefighters, and she said they had said that there was an oil spill next door in their basement. 

Worst picture ever, but if you look really closely you can see a guy in an all white Hazmat suit

Then our final roommate and her boyfriend came home, and they went outside to talk to our next door neighbors. Apparently they had a 100 gallon oil drum in their basement from when the heat used to be oil. When the heat was converted over, the oil drum was never drained, and it started leaking last night. Since the oil is a hazardous material, the hazmat crew had to come clean it up.

Running wires through our yard to the neighbors basement to try and get the oil out

The trucks finally left around midnight, I'm not sure if they got it all cleaned up, but I haven't seen them back since, so I assume so. The neighbors also said that the county would pay for them to be put up in a hotel if they wanted (it smelled strongly of oil), so that's good to know if you ever have a hazardous material spill in your house.

Speaking of dinner, it was supposed to be the highlight of my post, but then the shit-show took over outside. I made steak and Emily made me pan-roasted potatoes and an avocado salad. It was delicious, healthy, and thanks again Emily for cooking for me!

No Heat

Yesterday my roommate was home and smelled gas in the house. She called our gas company and they came out to inspect. They found that there was nothing wrong with our gas, but that our furnace was emitting high levels of carbon monoxide. The technician placed a "Danger- Hazardous Condition" tag on the unit and said that the heat may absolutely not be used until someone comes out to fix it. This means that since yesterday afternoon we have had no heat.



After not getting back to us all day yesterday, our landlord finally got in touch with us today and had the heating people come out to the house to look at the furnace. Apparently now the entire furnace needs to be replaced, meaning it will be at least a few days before we get our heat back on. Thankfully it is not freezing like it was last week, and despite the highs being in the 50s this week, it still is getting down to the 30s at night.

I have never been so happy to go to work before, seeing as our heat actually works there. Hopefully this will get taken care of soon, otherwise I will be staying at the boyfriends place for a few days.

This Just In

For those of you who haven't heard, they added a 13th Zodiac called Ophiuchus, because something about the moon's gravitational pull on Earth changing the alignment of the stars. I'm now of the lucky few who now fall under this Zodiac. First of all, I think this is so stupid. I was born a Sagittarius, my personality fits with a Sagittarius, so that is what I'll be. As my roommate put it, "I am grandfathered in" to being a Sagittarius.

Also, why did they feel the need to change this? There was 12 zodiac signs before, why do we need a 13th? And how did they choose Ophiuchus. And couldn't they have picked one that people could pronounce.

On a happier note, I have a 3 day weekend and although I have nothing special planned, I'm so excited! Not only do I get an extra day off, I then only have a 4 days week next week!

Almost the Weekend

When I got home yesterday, I had a furry little friend chilling in my bed. What a cutie!


Speaking of furry friends, the other morning I was awoken to scurrying sounds by the window. It sounded like an animal was burrowing his way into my room, but it turns out it was just some squirrels climbing on my window screen.

Massive Reorganization

I decided that I had too much stuff and I needed to reorganize all the stuff that I do have. So I hit up the Container Store and bought a bunch of storage containers that all arrived yesterday.
I also bought a over the door shoe rack (that is me assembling it), and thanks to the help of my wonderful (and patient) boyfriend, it is now assembled and hanging over one of my closet doors. The closet doors were too short for the full length of the shoe rack, so we trimmed a bit of it off, which was surprisingly easier than I thought. Now I just need to decide what to get rid off...


When I started assembling the shoe rack, I saw that I would need a hammer, so I asked my roommate when she got home if she had one that I could borrow. She said she didn't have one, but knew where one was. This is what she gave to me to use:

As the boyfriend so eloquently put it, "I didn't know a hammer could be girly". In case you can't see the picture very well, the top of the hammer is covered in a floral print, and it's hard to tell from the picture but the hammer is miniature sized. But it did get the job done, so I guess it did serve it's purpose, even if it is "pretty".

Just What Those Needed

Have you ever been eating a Skittles and wondering what they were missing? Did you ever think "these Skittles would be so much better with some sugar on them!" Well you are in lucky because the geniuses over at the Wrigley Company (I had to look that up, had no idea they made Skittles), did that just that. Introducing new Skittles Fizzl'd Furits.

They taste similar to sour Skittles, but with more of a rotting your teeth of feeling. Also, the traditional Skittles flavors are replaced by Berry Punch, Melon Berry, Raspberry, Strawberry, and Wild Cherry.

On a side tangent, what exactly is the difference between Cherry and Wild Cherry? Is this all just a marketing ploy to make it seem cooler than it is?

Personally, I didn't see anything wrong with the original Skittles and would prefer those any day to these sugar-coated "fizzle in your mouth" candies.

Big (And Expensive) Oops

I just bought a brand new iPhone 4 on Thursday evening. Saturday evening I left my phone in a cab. Oops. The phone has not been recovered. Luckily I bought the phone on my American Express Blue card, and they refunded me the full purchase amount. Unluckily the phone costs $599 to replace (original purchase was $199). After work tonight, I'm going to the Apple Store to buy a replacement phone. I'm hoping that they will super nice to me and give me lots of discounts. If not, I'm going to turn on the tears and hope that works (they will most likely come regardless). Also, you should get MobileMe (Apple already offered to waive the fee for me when I purchase my new phone) because if I had purchased MobileMe originally, they could have (potentially) recovered my phone for me. You live and learn I guess. Just wish my lessons didn't come with a $599 price tag.

Thursday Tip

So I'm not good at math in my head (despite the fact that my job is in Finance), but I know enough to know this isn't right:

Oh My...

Introducing Winkers Decorated Pants($169-579). Here's how it works: you send in a pair of your old jeans to Winkers, and for between an arm and a leg, they'll decorate the backside with eyeballs and other assorted things to make the junk in...your trunk appear to "wink" at all the boys in your yard when you walk by: