don't call it a comeback...

i'm such a lazy blogger. It's been busy times lately, what with 20 hours a week of Japanese class, plus my job at the firm. My great aunt Nilde apparently is in worse health than usual, and her baseline is high blood pressure and cholesterol, plus the burden of hating everything. After two trips to the ER, during one of which she apparently lost her pulse she is in a rehab clinic near my mom and has already alienated everyone, which is quick work, even for her.

This weekend I'm on my own, since the boyfriend has work and family obligations and my friends are elsewhere. I am supposed to be in Milwaukee right now at a Brewers game, but I overslept, then pedaled around Lake Monona on one of Madison's famous bike paths. It was sort of underwhelming, since I took "Lake Loop Path," which, for reasons I fail to comprehend, doesn't feature any views of the lake. Rather, it features the same sort of mid-century architectural follies one finds everwhere. It occurred to me at some point that I could very well be in, like, Carver, Massachusetts.

Then I approached Olbrich Botanical Gardens, where some thuggy little bee stung my inner thigh and ran. It was kinda cool, actually, since bee stings don't really occur too often in anyone's life, so it's kind of special that way.

Anyway, the bike thing is a big development. I'm in terribly shape and my crotch is in constant pain from the pressure of the seat, but I'll keep you posted. Eventually I'd like to be able to use it as my primary transportation without resenting it.

One way I almost died today

Well, I took a quiz this morning for which I was not especially well prepared ("not to be liTOTic", as my undergrad mentor would say) because my friends talked me into hitting "Cheeseburger in Paradise," Jimmy Buffet's theme restaurant, to make fun of people, instead of studying. Was it ever worth it! Livestrong bracelets and QVC heart pendants as far as the eye could see!

So after the quiz I went to work expecting a shitstorm as a result of a mini-coworker sabotage, but everything was cool. Adding to this, I finally got my summer stipend and have gone from poor white trash to relatively flush in a heartbeat, meaning that I can pay my credit card bill (for dog ER services) AND buy my bike so I don't have to ride the bus with the poor folks anymore.

I was driving back from the Verona Road Guaranty Bank (where the teller, when asked by a dude with $600 in quarters, "what's 1% of $100," answered "$10.00." I mean, shit! That's one of the FEW things one should really need to know to be a bank teller, right?) when I saw that the road split into two lanes, one straight only, the other right turn only. Though it was poorly marked, I shifted into the straight-ahead lane and was FOLLOWED by the minivan which had been in the turn-only lane, its driver giving me the finger, into the Home Depot parking lot, where she pulled up next to me and cursed me out since she apparently thought she had her left blinker on and assumed that that meant it was my job to yield while she shifted into the correct lane. It quickly became apparent that this obese bra-less woman, small black child in the passenger seat, was not only insane but a little drunk. Because I lack the "back off, it's not worth it" chromosome, I just kept saying, "uh huh, right. See, I had the right of way, though. See, you were in the WRONG lane. Okay, thanks, bye. Uh huh, see, you're wrong, though," while she insisted, "You don't know who you're dealing with" and, believe it or not, "YOU could have started an accident, and I woulda had you." WTF????? Because I cannot fucking help myself, as she drove off I yelled, "Okay, happy parenting!" which, needless to say, started Round II. I think I was emboldened by the number of witnesses. Anyway, then I bought my floodlights and was happy. The end.