back to plan b

You will be disappointed to know that I did not win the Powerball jackpot. Had I won, I would have immediately shut down this blog, gone into hiding, lawyered up, and taken preemptive measures to protect myself and my family and friends from the degradations and disasters brought on by extreme wealth. And by that I mean I would have bought three hundred million dollars' worth of MREs and a 1972 Ford Bronco to serve as my bugout vehicle so that I could escape into the wilderness and evade anyone who might want to harm me for my winnings (see: prepping).

But I didn't win, so no bugging out, at least not today. Actually, I kind of did the opposite of bugging out - I left my parents' well-stocked country paradise, where there are no people and plenty of deer to eat (see: opposite of the Donner Party), to come to this godforsaken city, where there are plenty of people and I think I have half a jar of peanut butter and some potentially-moldy cheese to get me through a disaster. Yay. I woke up at 6:40, which is something I would normally only do when bugging out, but this was solely so that I could shower before random dudes showed up to steal our water (this really is sounding kind of apocalyptic, right? if your version of the apocalypse is fairly boring, I suppose). But I hadn't slept well last night, most likely because I tried to go to bed too early - so I got up at 6:40, showered, half-dried my hair, and went back to bed from 7:10 to 8:40. Then I got up again, dressed, made myself up (second rule of prepping: a natural disaster is no time to let yourself go), finished packing, and then went to Des Moines with my parents.

We had lunch at Johnny's, which was v. tasty - a cheeseburger sans bun and garlic fries were the right start to my journey. We also bought Powerball tickets, like everyone else in the convenience store was doing, although it was to no avail (at least for me, although I think I won $4). Then my parents kicked me out of their truck and I made the hard journey back to California. It was made harder by getting upgraded to first class on the first leg, which totally spoiled me for the second leg, where I wasn't even able to get economy plus (I swear, the people back there were savages!). I had an hour and a half in Denver, which turned into two hours, but I'm glad I got to SF, since we're in the middle of a torrential downpour system (so far I haven't seen any rain, but I read about it...in a book).

Terry picked me up, and we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in San Bruno, where we tried to catch up under/over/around/through the din of some singer caterwauling various Spanish hits + "Hotel California". We also dreamed about winning the lottery, since I had bought a second set of Powerball tickets to split with her at the foreign exchange booth in Denver airport (which was probably having its busiest day since the day when everyone realized it's cheaper/easier to get money out of a foreign ATM rather than exchange it in the US). But we didn't win, so we moped around the rest of the night. And now, I must sleep; I did some good work on Nick and Ellie on the plane, but I have grand plans to get much more done tomorrow. Goodnight!