Weathering Storms

Tuesday, December 21, 1999

9:30 PM

Well, we just spent $100+ at Sam's Club (that's a 'warehouse membership store' for those of you not in the USA) this evening, and we didn't buy one electronic gizmo, piece of clothing, or Christmas present. We bought food, and lots of it. We're now set for about a week of being stuck here in our apartment, in case of a storm, maybe longer. It's weird... that's just something we never had to do when I lived in California. Yeah, sure we had a gallon jug of water and some flashlights, etc, in case of an earthquake, but you don't get snowed in on a regular basis in the Los Angeles area. At least not in my 22 years of experience there.

Poor Jev had to do most of the work, unloading things and putting them away; I had a rotten headache/neckache earlier this evening, and my Advil wore off just about the time we got home with groceries. I feel bad, but Jev tells me not to worry about it, as always. What would I do if I had to manage on my own?

We had another argument last night... mostly my fault, I think.... I got annoyed with him because he stayed almost three hours late at work, and the first two times I called him, it was "I'll just be another fifteen or twenty minutes." The third time, he told me he was installing Linux on his machine at work, and I jumped to the conclusion that he was just doing it for fun, because he'd tried installing it here on the desktop this past weekend and it didn't want to cooperate with our CD-RW. So, naturally, I felt like I was being ignored and left alone just so he could goof off on the computer. We both said things we regretted, and at one point, I took my pillows off the bed and came in here on the daybed to curl up and cry.

It took a while for us to straighten it all out, but in the end he explained that he wanted to use Linux for his programming work there, and run Windows as a Virtual Machine under it so he could have access to the company's Lotus Notes server system. (I know that's a lot of technical babble for many of you; suffice it to say, he did have his reasons for wanting to do it, and they were good enough for me.) We made up, and ended up going to bed around 9 PM, so we could just curl up and be together.

He woke me at 3 this morning -- I don't think he really meant to, he was just covering me because he'd stolen all the blankets -- and he was upset and worried about losing me. We curled up again (we still haven't figured out a way to actually fall asleep together comfortably) and cuddled for a while, then drifted back to sleep... or I did, at least; I hope he did, too.

So, we weathered one storm, and we're all set for another. It's looking like snow sometime in the next couple days, and depending on how things go, we may just have a nice, cozy white Christmas at home this year. I wouldn't complain.