Honk if you need rollers!

°o° On this day in 2002, Cinderella II: Dreams Come True was released.

I am thoroughly disgruntled. I left the sponge rollers I always sleep in (the ones with which Dad jokes I can get radio reception from Tokyo) back home. It seems like an exceedingly simple oversight, but now I have to worry about styling my hair every day. Yuck.

The seemingly endless brigade of snot crammed into my sinuses is gleefully continuing on its downward march, but only through one nostril (the left). When I blow my nose, it adopts such a volume that I fear others will start looking around for geese.

This morning I got to my traditional parking spot and had deposited half a day’s worth of quarters when the meter decided to misfeed and go into “No Parking Allowed” mold. Grr. I had to go to another spot and cough up more quarters, which is the rough equivalent of hacking off some portions of my ear.

Splat!

°o° On this day in 1996, www.disney.com was launched!

I would like to say I am not the most insane Disney elder by any stretch of the imagination. There’s a guy who spent a night in the Cinderella Suite yet has no family or children. Ha.

This morning I walked down my stairs, turned the corner and SPLAT, slid on a thin glean of ice like some wide-eyed wolf tumbling through the air pursuant to stepping on a banana peel in a Tex Avery cartoon. Boom, down on all fours, feeling like a knob with giant splatches of wet on each knee. Then - then! - I get to school, and it happens again. This time I went down on my face and landed on my elbows, but thankfully I wasn’t toting any cargo, so it wasn’t as disasterous as it could have been. It’s really quite dangerous outside. Cars attempting to stop at lights or signs are frequently sliding a good four feet before managing their objective

Life in a Shaking Snowglobe

°o° On this day in Disney history, for the very first time, absolutely nothing happened.

“And the mouse is there going, ‘Yeah, I”ve got this plan... it’s not my best-laid plan...’” - Eddie Izzard

It was very strange to drive back here last night because at home the snow has initiated its recession to the point that patches of grass are available for our viewing pleasure, but here we still have mounds o snow up to four and five feet high. One can only presume the sidewalks still exist, as not one in the city is visible, and on most roads we’re still diving on a good four inches of packed snow rather than a road. Odd.

It was also intriguing to enter my apartment last night. There were so many strange things that I now recognize as indicators that I really was not feeling well on Tuesday - my rollers were sitting on top of the dryer in the laundry room, my pajamas were on the shelf with my shoes rather than in a drawer, and my garage door was open (not really an issue because there’s nothing in there, but it’s the principle of the thing.

I had a major breakthrough last night - I finished my first container of Woolite.

So here’s the timeline for the snowstorm, just for posterity’s sake (because the last time the U of I cancelled classes, the deans of the law school were enrolled as students).

Monday evening I glanced outside to see an environment akin to one of those snowglobes at Christmastime that my sister shakes and shakes and shakes, without pause, until all you see is a blurry white.

Tuesday morning, I walked down the stairs against a wind steadfastly determined to shove me back up a few flights. I actually feared I would take flight, in Mary Poppins fashion.

I got to school (slowly, with my brights on) at 8 and at 8:30, our scheduled class start time, only ten of us were present. We sat there like idiots until 8:45, when people started walking out. At 8:50 the e-mail came from the Chancellor of U of I, saying the entire university would be closed for the day. The rest of the students peeled out, until at last only Karina and I were left. She phoned her fiancé in the math department across campus and they complained heartily about the wimpiness of the staff and our fellow students, effectively echoing my sentiments.

At 9, the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs peeked into the classroom and said we should leave, as police would soon be closing roads, so we might be stuck at the law school and “If the power goes out, it goes out.” I called the police, who apparently harbored no such intentions for the near future, so we stuck around.

Around 3, the police issued a statement on the radio that wherever we were at 5, we would stay for the duration of the night. I crawled home through the whiteout and managed to pull into my garage. Then I figured I ought to go get my mail, so I pulled back out and got stuck in a patch at the end. Thankfully, one of the apartment’s plow trucks happened to be passing, and the maintenance men helped dig me out. “I don’t know what’s so dang important that everyone’s gotta be out in this weather,” the elder one drawled. (Umm... graduate school?) Then I mulled nearby as they fulfilled my request to clear the path to my garage. I weathered the weather and trudged over to the clubhouse until it closed at 5, and then trudged back home.

Upon entry to my apartment, I discovered that the lightbulb at the top of my steps had exploded (presumably from the cold, or perhaps the wind) and that small patches of snow had piled up in the corners of all my windows. Additionally, a massive wet spot had appeared in front of the door to my patio, and as I stood in front of it, snow continued to pour in and fleck my entire body. So I spent a good deal of time taping plastic over the entire doorway. It looks totally redneck, but it worked.

At 11:30, the law school issued an e-mail that classes at U of I would again be cancelled for the ensuing day. The following morning, as I walked down my steps, I discovered large patches of the siding of the apartment building littering the path to my downstairs neighbor’s door. A massive portion of the insulation of the building was exposed. And so.... I burned rubber. Just in the nick of time, too.

White Out!

“I’d like to end tonight by talking about the Big Bang. The Big Bang, yep. Everyone stood well back.” - Eddie Izzard

Driving home last night, it was 30 degrees - thank the Lord! It’s amazing how much more pleasant, not to mention easier, everything is when you’re not afraid of catching frostbite on any inch of exposed skin, and stepping outside does not induce instantaneous rigor mortis.

I can’ t believe the Texas dumbos won three of the big Grammy awards last night. I kept thinking of that line from Toy Story when Mr. Potatohead overhears that Andy has received new sheets as a birthday present: “Who invited that kid?”

I stopped at a gas station to go to the bathroom and afterward grabbed a Diet Sierrra Mist to keep me company sans caffeine. So I’m standing at the counter and hear some locals approach like a pack of wolves. One of them growls in a thick Southern drawl, “Are you lookin’ for a problem? ‘Cause you’re fixin’ to get a problem.” Another, meeker, voice responded, “No, no, I wasn’t talking about you!” in a massive backpedaling attempt. I didn’t turn around to look at them, but it was just like something out of Rebel Without a Cause, where locals with nothing better to do are scouting out for trouble. There was a Dairy Queen attached to the gas station, with like half the town loitering about inside. Talk about a small-town hangout. It was right out of the Alabama song: “See what’s shakin’ at the Dairy Queen... down home...”

The Weather Channel has issued a Winter Storm Warning for Champaign - we’re going to get 8-12 inches tomorrow. That sucks. I don’t even know what to say to that. Sheesh. Hopefully, since it’s supposed to happen overnight, the plows will get their act together and get their butts out on the roads and get them clean before morning...

Pipe Dreams

°o° On this day in 1943, Saludos Amigos went on general US release.

Considering it’s black history month, I think it’s appropriate to recount my favorite poem, “Dream Deferred,” by my favorite poet, Langston Hughes. For the unenlightened among you, he was black.

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

I don’t know why it popped into my head today... I guess because I was thinking about drawing. During my “lunch hour” I dipped into an empty room and put Eddie Izzard’s Definite Article on my computer to listen to while drawing and munching. He’s absolutely brilliant.

I am so tired today, I just want to lay down and veg out in front of the television. I guess it’s possible, because Gilmore Girls is on today, but I have to play tennis. Sigh. I would love it, but I’m horrible. Ugh. But- I’ll get to watch Gilmore Girls when I get home, and it’s new. Hoo-rah.

A modicum of hope: I met with Professor Smith yesterday about my research paper and mentioned that my ultimate goal is to work for Disney. He thought I would need to get a job at a big firm first and then weasel my way in-house from there. I mentioned that my goal is to get to the coast, Orlando or Florida, and then become an in-house counsel, and added, “I know that’s a pipe dream....” He said, “No, I don’t think that’s unrealistic.” Rah!

Snowbird

°o° On this day in 1934, Ingersoll patented the first Mickey Mouse watch!
(Peter Pan was also released in 1953, but I really did not care for that movie at all...)

“You know what a Snowbird is? It’s one of the people like us who, as we were walking in to class today and our faces froze, thought, ‘Oh my God, I wish I were in Florida.’” - Professor Beckett

It was so cold this morning, the parking meters would not accept money. I’m not kidding. I called the little “help” number on the meter and they said if I received a ticket, I should just call back tomorrow and they’d nullify it. I tried four different meters... so looks like a free day of parking for me! I’ll take that.

I’m so glad I have garage. It was 21 on my car thermometer this morning when I pulled out. By the time I hit the main road it was at -5. But it was so nice that my car had some decent temperatures to “sleep” in.

I’m so bummed my hammock didn’t pan out.

Constructive Criticism

°o° On this day in 1989, Hollywood Pictures launched.

Well, I went in to speak to my Income Tax professor from last semester and he basically told me a few concurrently encouraging and discouraging things...

1- In terms of issue-spotting (determining what issues need to be dealt with given a laundry list of events, circumstances and happenings) and selecting the applicable law. I was in the top 95% of the class.

2. I assumed too much intelligence on the part of the reader. Apparently, I would spot the issue and apply the law without stating the law first. I thought because it was printed in the statute it was obvious, but apparently not. He said he obviously knew I knew the law, but I had to state it to receive points for it. Considering each statement of the law was 4 points, we’re talking a good sixty points lost here.

3. I applied all the laws correctly except for one small mistake that cost me about three points.

4. I totally left out one issue, the section 1031 exchange of the piano for the violin as a nonrecognition transaction. I distinctly remember leaving it off because I ran out of room, but I figured my stellar analysis in the remainder of the exam would suffice. Whoops. This was worth about sixty points.

He said either fulfilling #2 or #4 above would have given me a straight-up “A,” because only 20 points separated my score from the A’s.

Sigh.