Fireworks! Both literally and figuratively.
Wow, what a weekend. I feel as though I did absolutely nothing all weekend, but the time just flew by. I had a ton of stuff I needed to get done, but alas, not much that I actually did get done. That's a holiday weekend for you, though. It's like a vacation from school, where you take home all the assignments you have due when you get back, but you don't even open your backpack, let alone do any work.
We did go to some fireworks last night, though. Every year they do fireworks at Lackawanna County Stadium right around the 4th, either after a baseball game or after a Philharmonic concert. We used to go to the concert and fireworks at the stadium (it's free), but for some reason, we stopped going when I was in high school. No idea why. It turns out that best spot to see the fireworks from is the Cinemark parking lot, anyway, not the stadium, something I found out when I worked there. You can even see them from the concession stand, so I got to see a lot of fireworks for a couple of years. Far away, quiet fireworks, but fireworks nonetheless.
The fireworks on the 4th were after the baseball game, so it was nice and dark when they finally went off. I remember last year, when the game went into extra innings, and there was an interminable wait for what ended up being some pretty sucky fireworks. This year's were much nicer. We had an excellent view, and I was able to take some pictures until Dad's camera stopped working (low battery). Maybe I'll post them soon, if he ever downloads them for me. Fat chance, since he still has my pictures from our Boston trip last year, and god forbid I borrow his expensive camera to download them to my computer. Whatever.
I'd say that despite the traffic getting out of there (OMGWTF, no one in the Scranton area understands the concept of merging traffic patterns! And those poor people who were trying to get in to go to movies!), it was a good time. But one thing I forgot about fireworks? They're really fucking bright. I mean, yeah, they're little bits of fire, but when your general experience with them is watching them on TV, or from inside, you don't really think about that. But standing fairly close and watching five minutes of continuous fireworks had me squinting. Halfway through I wished I had brought my sunglasses. I expected to have ringing ears or something from the booming afterwards, but I didn't expect the sensitive eyes.
At any rate, it was a good Independence Day. Today sucked, though.
First, I found out that my Dell rebate for $100 back on my computer warranty had expired. I am still royally pissed off at that. I swear I had until the sixth. Really, it's my fault for not filling it out, but I'm still pissed anyway. Grr!
Then, at dinner Mom mentioned that the woman who cleans our house, Ana, might have cancer (in reality, she's having a biopsy, so they don't know anything. Mom is just randomly blunt and harsh with news sometimes). Now, I'm not close to her or anything like that, but of course I hope she will be okay. I have a feeling she will be all right. Even so, she is still having the biopsy, so she won't be cleaning for us for a while. Honestly, she never does a very good job anyway, since her actual job is maintenance in the University building where Dad works, not cleaning houses. She just doesn't know how to clean houses that well. She and the person who help her do alright, but not wonderful. So, I've been asking Mom to look for someone new for ages. And after the biopsy was mentioned, I said that we should look into getting someone else to replace her. Mom says no one else will do it because our house is too cluttered. Then she and Dad proceed to blame me for it not being clean, and I guess for not cleaning up shit that isn't even mine.
I would love to declutter the house (no really), but most of the stuff isn't mine, and I'd end up throwing something out that someone else wanted, and getting yelled at. Mom never asks me to help her go through anything, but Dad assumes that, oh it's not done because I'm too lazy to do anything. It's not done because secretly Mom doesn't want to do it. She says she never feels well, which is definitely true some of the time, but really, sometimes you just need to soldier through the discomfort to get shit done. When we went through Dad's closet, I had to push her to do the work every time, and I was the one who did most of it. And I'm lazy. Excuse me if the work I am doing every day doesn't involve being downstairs in the house all the time! I am trying to organize my life and apply for jobs and shit so I can get the fuck out of here. But no one is ever supportive of me. All Dad sees is me getting up late in the afternoon, because I can't fall asleep until like 6AM. I'm not "staying up late" on purpose, it's just when I'm tired. I'm trying to fix my sleep schedule to something more "normal," but it's hard to do when I have nothing that needs to be done at a specific time. And jeez, I just finished school last week (granted two years late, but it's not my fault that I injured my back), it's not like I've been sitting around for the last month twiddling my thumbs. It does feel like it sometimes, though.
Okay, enough whining for one post! Time to get back to what I've been working on, so I can go to sleep and get up in time to take the kitties to the vet tomorrow for their check-ups. And then, billions and billions of stars loads of laundry. And Superman Returns!
We did go to some fireworks last night, though. Every year they do fireworks at Lackawanna County Stadium right around the 4th, either after a baseball game or after a Philharmonic concert. We used to go to the concert and fireworks at the stadium (it's free), but for some reason, we stopped going when I was in high school. No idea why. It turns out that best spot to see the fireworks from is the Cinemark parking lot, anyway, not the stadium, something I found out when I worked there. You can even see them from the concession stand, so I got to see a lot of fireworks for a couple of years. Far away, quiet fireworks, but fireworks nonetheless.
The fireworks on the 4th were after the baseball game, so it was nice and dark when they finally went off. I remember last year, when the game went into extra innings, and there was an interminable wait for what ended up being some pretty sucky fireworks. This year's were much nicer. We had an excellent view, and I was able to take some pictures until Dad's camera stopped working (low battery). Maybe I'll post them soon, if he ever downloads them for me. Fat chance, since he still has my pictures from our Boston trip last year, and god forbid I borrow his expensive camera to download them to my computer. Whatever.
I'd say that despite the traffic getting out of there (OMGWTF, no one in the Scranton area understands the concept of merging traffic patterns! And those poor people who were trying to get in to go to movies!), it was a good time. But one thing I forgot about fireworks? They're really fucking bright. I mean, yeah, they're little bits of fire, but when your general experience with them is watching them on TV, or from inside, you don't really think about that. But standing fairly close and watching five minutes of continuous fireworks had me squinting. Halfway through I wished I had brought my sunglasses. I expected to have ringing ears or something from the booming afterwards, but I didn't expect the sensitive eyes.
At any rate, it was a good Independence Day. Today sucked, though.
First, I found out that my Dell rebate for $100 back on my computer warranty had expired. I am still royally pissed off at that. I swear I had until the sixth. Really, it's my fault for not filling it out, but I'm still pissed anyway. Grr!
Then, at dinner Mom mentioned that the woman who cleans our house, Ana, might have cancer (in reality, she's having a biopsy, so they don't know anything. Mom is just randomly blunt and harsh with news sometimes). Now, I'm not close to her or anything like that, but of course I hope she will be okay. I have a feeling she will be all right. Even so, she is still having the biopsy, so she won't be cleaning for us for a while. Honestly, she never does a very good job anyway, since her actual job is maintenance in the University building where Dad works, not cleaning houses. She just doesn't know how to clean houses that well. She and the person who help her do alright, but not wonderful. So, I've been asking Mom to look for someone new for ages. And after the biopsy was mentioned, I said that we should look into getting someone else to replace her. Mom says no one else will do it because our house is too cluttered. Then she and Dad proceed to blame me for it not being clean, and I guess for not cleaning up shit that isn't even mine.
I would love to declutter the house (no really), but most of the stuff isn't mine, and I'd end up throwing something out that someone else wanted, and getting yelled at. Mom never asks me to help her go through anything, but Dad assumes that, oh it's not done because I'm too lazy to do anything. It's not done because secretly Mom doesn't want to do it. She says she never feels well, which is definitely true some of the time, but really, sometimes you just need to soldier through the discomfort to get shit done. When we went through Dad's closet, I had to push her to do the work every time, and I was the one who did most of it. And I'm lazy. Excuse me if the work I am doing every day doesn't involve being downstairs in the house all the time! I am trying to organize my life and apply for jobs and shit so I can get the fuck out of here. But no one is ever supportive of me. All Dad sees is me getting up late in the afternoon, because I can't fall asleep until like 6AM. I'm not "staying up late" on purpose, it's just when I'm tired. I'm trying to fix my sleep schedule to something more "normal," but it's hard to do when I have nothing that needs to be done at a specific time. And jeez, I just finished school last week (granted two years late, but it's not my fault that I injured my back), it's not like I've been sitting around for the last month twiddling my thumbs. It does feel like it sometimes, though.
Okay, enough whining for one post! Time to get back to what I've been working on, so I can go to sleep and get up in time to take the kitties to the vet tomorrow for their check-ups. And then, billions and billions of stars loads of laundry. And Superman Returns!