Holy dishwasher, Batman!

Yes... the laziness that hovers like a cloud over my apartment has gotten thicker with the acquisition of a brand-spanking-new countertop dishwasher.

Currently it is living in the kitchen on my former jewelry cabinet munching away happily on the bits of food from last night's dishes.

I really would like to say that this won't actually change the level of cleanliness in the apartment (implying, of course, that we are merely buying the item to save time). But really it is the only thing that is currently standing between us and a wall of dishes that threatens to spill into the rest of the apartment and smother us while sleeping.

Of course, the novelty hasn't worn off yet - so we'll see how this works out.

In the meantime, the boy and I have instituted our no-holds-barred-smack-down battle against the mess in the rest of the apartment. Last night we kicked it in the nuts when we took all the furniture out of the bedroom and FINALLY laid down the Oriental rug that has been living in the corner since October. This evening we intend to step on it's neck with vicious mopping, cleaning of the bathroom, scrubbing of the kitchen, emptying of the sunroom, and possible pruning of dishware.

Hopefully it won't get too ugly.

Also, with the novelty of the new dishwasher supporting me, I have attempted to make 3 steaming pots of food in hopes that they will sustain us through the week. Currently cooking are: Curried chicken stew with butternut squash, spiced carrot soup, and spaghetti sauce. The apartment smells really good.

So, cooking and cleaning and cooking and cleaning. This weekend will suck, but man - next week will be delicious.

Katie's shuttle service.

Every morning I get into my car with 1-3 passengers to make the trek to HP. Almost every morning this trip takes an HOUR AND A HALF. and I STILL DON'T MAKE IT TO MY CLASS ON TIME.

This, clearly, is insane.

I want to make it clear that I am traveling a total of 15 miles to get to hyde park. In Wisconsin if I wanted to take an hour and a half to travel 15 miles I would need to drive to this place, put my car in reverse and drive back home, and repeat this several times.

Today was a traffic nightmare. Multiple accidents on lakeshore made everything slow down to barely a crawl and when I fled for the sake of my schedule I spend a further 15 min just trying to get TO a road that wasn't jam-packed with idiots attempting to turn left from the rightmost lane in front of me.

Then it took a further 45 min to actually make the crawling trek through the city (from lawrence to fullerton) and another 15 to get back to LSD under the accident. Which really got me to where I should have been (still north of the loop on LSD) about... oh... an hour after when I should have been there.

Add this to the absolutely pathetic filling of potholes on that stretch of terror, the road crews that have been blocking off lanes for weeks on the curve in front of the drake for apparently NO reason whatsoever, and the morons who were changing a tire IN THE MIDDLE LANE of LSD (a 4 lane highway) in the middle of rush hour, and suddenly road rage is starting to make a lot of sense.

I hate to make generalizations, but Chicago drivers are psychotic.

Perhaps I should just strap Magneto to my hood and we can play Vehicular Moses.

I need a harpoon for my car.