Geek Habitat

The weather is crap-tacular with ice, sleet and the potential for snow; temperatures have not yet crept much above freezing and are not expected to for another 24-48 hours. I’m camped out at my parents’ house, where I have been since afternoon yesterday. My brother came in from Austin late Monday, so I migrated over since we planned to celebrate Mom’s birthday a few days’ late. We did so, but now I’m sitting around wondering when it would be prudent to hit the roadways since I don’t absolutely have to be anywhere immediately… so why add one more vehicle to the potential slip-n-slide craziness?

The morning was eventful. I went outside and carefully negotiated the frozen grass out to my Ford Escape Hybrid parked by the curb. The Escape was already covered in a quarter inch or more of ice, and as I maneuvered my Motorola Razr phone to take a cameraphone pic of the frozen grillwork on my car, I slipped on a patch of black ice and fell forward into a deep puddle of water… I drenched myself down to all but my skivvies, and of course as luck would have it, I drowned yet another Razr cellphone. So, I had to call in to Cingular and request yet another replacement Razr cellphone, which means since this is my second replacement in a consecutive 12-month period (actually, in a 6-month period… ack!) my Cingular insurance coverage will cease. I think my next cellphone needs to be certified to MIL-SPEC, preferably something a Navy SEAL would use, because clearly cellphones in my posession are subjected to frequent dunkings in water.

Thankfully, only the Razr cellphone was hurt in the fall, by the way. Sprout and I are fine, although my ego’s got fresh bruises and I am going a little nuts sitting around staring at the worsening weather.

So, I am cellphone-less and mooching off my parents while Justin’s at a convention downtown, and my brother has been called in to work at a San Antonio-area store. It seems my best opportunity to drive home without the prospect of spinning out or getting hit would have been last night, because now my car’s covered in up to an inch of solid ice and the streets aren’t getting any better…

So, yeah, fun stuff… 7 months pregnant, no cellphone and this weather to drive home in? Hmph…