Two nights ago (and again last night, but they were fairly mild and I slept through them), severe thunderstorms moved through the area. They moved in quickly -- first there were a few flashes of lightning and some distant rumbles of thunder (something that doesn't necessarily mean anything's going to happen here, really) and then...bam, full-on horror. I'm guessing that there were some lightning strikes 300-400 yards from the house, and the street became a river. My neighbors' yards turned into small ponds. I had to scramble outside to put my car in the garage because some rather large hail was hitting for about five minutes or so, and in the dark and torrent of the storm I don't even know if I got the car in the garage straight or crooked -- only that I got it in there and closed the garage door quickly. There's no longer a working light in my garage or outside my bottom door, so I did it all on faith, really (only my head/tail lights gave me anything to work with). My internet went out at least twice, and power in my house flickered for several hours -- while I was cooking a late dinner, the lamp in my kitchen flickered three times, and I looked out the window to see that all of the houses around me for several blocks, streetlights included, were completely dark. I must be on a separate grid than they are. An hour or two later, they were back on before I went to bed.
The storms raged for about two hours and then stopped almost as quickly as they'd started. When I awoke earlier this afternoon, there wasn't a cloud in the sky (there still isn't) and it was about 85 outside.This is all apparently to be short-lived, however; more storms are predicted tonight, and again almost every day for the next week. It figures that we'd have two years of crippling, horrible drought and 110+ degree temperatures every day in the summer, and then this summer it becomes monsoon season.
Aside from that, it's been rather quiet around the house since Daisy went back home a few days ago. Yesterday, I folded and put away all my laundry, and washed the bedsheets/pillowcases. Today I haven't done much of anything since I woke up. Much of my days now consist of waiting for things to happen -- for example, I'm still waiting on the English department to tell me if I'm going to get any other classes for the fall (I haven't heard anything yet). I'm also waiting on an interview subject to get back to me and answer my questions for an article I'm trying to write for the paper (he accidentally deleted my last email). I'm waiting as long as possible to go to Walmart to get some groceries and other necessities so that I don't spend any more money than I have to. Etc. In the meantime of all of this waiting, I do (and can do) relatively little; leaving the house to go do something means I'll spend money, and I can only clean or do so much laundry before it either becomes too hot or boring, or I run out of those things to do. Eh. So it goes, I suppose. Ironically, I need to write out the check for my water bill and stick it in the mail today, so even while staying at home I'm still spending money in a sense.
I don't spend a lot of money when I don't need to or have to; for example, I have had twelve dollars in cash in my wallet for well over a month, since I returned from Omaha after the 4th. Part of it is that I don't use cash that much, and part of it is that I don't usually go out anywhere. When I do go out, I tend to spend more than $12 (shopping trips, gas in the car, even a movie at the theater -- all more than $12), so I don't use the cash. Most of the time in the past, the only time I've used cash is to order a pizza with (or something along those lines) so that I didn't have to use my card. Now that Papa John's has my credit card info saved, it's basically a two-click order when/if I get anything from them. I've also had gift cards before, gift cards for years that had balances on them (most of them under $5-10) that I never used the last of because there wasn't much I could do with them. I found a Visa Gift Card I'd had for a long time (can't remember exactly where it came from) and checked the balance on it today -- I had $10.01 left. Nice. I can use that for something.
I also checked the balance of the Walmart gift card my parents got me for Christmas, and it has $8 left on it. Nice as well. That'll get me a tub of cat litter or something along those lines the next time I have to go shopping.
I don't spend any more money than necessary. Never have, really. This past year I've gotten a bit of clothing (all of which I needed), some shoes, underwear, and a few t-shirts. When I go grocery shopping, I get only what I absolutely need to survive for the next two weeks or so, unless I'm with Daisy -- we tend to get more when we're together shopping, if only because I cook much differently when she's here. And you folks already know how mental I get over turning off lights, not running the AC, not using any more water than necessary, etc, when it comes to the bills. I have relatively few expenses in life, and like to keep it that way.
I may have mentioned this before, but when I was on campus last week to pick up my diploma, I was able to fill out a form to get me five free transcripts from the university, since I've now graduated and those transcripts are incredibly useful. After next month, they charge former students a nice chunk of cash for transcript requests (and mailing of said transcripts, as well), but until then, they're free. Those transcripts arrived in the mail today, sealed and stamped. I have put them away for safekeeping, as I'll need them -- high-end teaching jobs will require official transcripts at times, and I now have five of them on hand. I also need to see if I can get a digital copy of them as well, in order to be able to include it with applications I have to fill out online. So far, I've been using an unofficial transcript for those, which is all they've required. However, that may not always be the case, and it would be very useful to have a digital one on hand -- an official one.
Regardless of how many courses I'm teaching this fall, whether it remains the one or several, I know (as Daisy knows as well) that I can't do the adjunct thing forever, since it only barely pays the bills. Additionally, I don't want to do it forever -- as mentioned before, adjuncting this fall at the university is basically a last-ditch-plan sort of thing, a stopgap to prevent total hemorrhaging of money. During the fall, no matter how busy I am, I have to keep filling out applications for better positions for the spring, and hope that some of those applications -- regardless of what they are -- are in the Omaha area so that I can get out of Kansas and begin my life with Daisy. However, as optimistic as we both are, she also realizes that this may not be possible:
Kansas officially got notice that he'll be an adjunct professor this fall from the university he graduated from and was a GTA at. Sure, it's not where we planned to be, but, it works and it definitely has its perks. I'll have the opportunity to enjoy one last fall/beginning of winter with my friends. Sure, we, Kansas and myself, could end up in Omaha after this semester, but, I'm not counting on it. Although, regardless of whether or not we're living in Omaha we are getting married here. It's not that I don't love Kansas and want to be with him, but, right now that's not how things are and I'll be damned if I'm not going to find the good in this situation.
Even Daisy acknowledges that I may not be able to find anything up there, or anywhere close for that matter, during the fall semester. She's planning a last few months living in the Omaha area, if necessary, because (presumably) if I don't find something around there (or I find something somewhere waaaaaay out of the area) she's either going to be moving here or we'll be moving to wherever the job is. I couldn't tell you which of those three possibilities -- me getting a position in Omaha, me getting a position somewhere else, or me being forced to adjunct again in the spring as well (due to no other options) -- have the biggest chances of happening, because I can't see the future. What I do know is that all I can do is keep looking and keep trying. I also know that Daisy doesn't want us to be apart any more/longer than possible, and that we can't feasibly plan a wedding for next summer if we're living five hours apart and I'm teaching full-time up to a few weeks before the wedding actually occurs.
All of this, of course, is hectic and frantic, and will all have to be figured out quickly and more than likely with little notice. Again, there's a lot of waiting involved. It's not like we live in the Harry Potter universe, where I could wave a wand and say Makus Shittus Happenus! or Financialus Stabilicus! Because that's not how the world works.
As an aside, Makus Shittus Happenus sounds like a spell someone suffering from constipation might cast.
As much as I love teaching, having no option but to adjunct again in the spring in order to be able to pay bills is a nightmare, as the semester will lead right up to shortly before the wedding. I don't know what's going to happen if that scenario comes into play. Daisy doesn't want to live in Kansas any more than I do. The only reason I'm still here is because the university is the only place that's offered me livable employment. Yet, if that scenario occurs, neither of us really have any other options, and we both know it. Daisy is happy for me that I'm teaching this fall, as you can see above, but I can say with at least reasonable certainty that if nothing else comes through before December, she's going to be considerably less happy if adjuncting in the spring is all I can do. We simply can't prepare for a wedding with both of us living so far apart, and it's so not going to work if I was to go up there for a weekend, get married, and then return to my house here in Kansas a husband alone. Um, that's not how it works. Decisions and choices must be made long beforehand.
And, of course, there's also the issue of being able to go back home for a week or so to have the big reception there that my parents are planning. I'm considering scrapping most of the wedding registry and saying "Yeah, just give us cash, seriously, because we'll need that much more than anything else." Daisy at least has a reliable job with decent job security. I have a decent job with security for sixteen weeks at a time that allows me to pay my bills and not do much else.
Tonight's Powerball jackpot is something like $425 million. I sent an email to my mother telling her that she should probably play it on the way home, and told Daisy to do the same. I myself am probably not leaving the house for the next 48 hours or so; the car is still in the garage, I don't have to do any shopping for at least another few days, and more storms are starting to fire up across the state -- the last thing I want is to leave the house and leave the car uncovered in a parking lot for it to be pelted with hail. It's already beat-up enough as it is; I don't need to add busted windows to that as well.
Some of you may be asking "if Daisy or your parents won the Powerball, would you still teach this fall?" And the answer to that would be, of course, yes. Do you know how long it takes for Powerball jackpots to clear taxes and processing? And it's not like I myself would have any claim on any of that money. So yes, I'd put on halfway respectable clothing, I'd get into my beat-up car every day, and I would continue to drive back and forth to teach this semester. Duh. Again, responsibilities.
But in the spring I would totally be building a small mansion. For my cats.
The large one would be for me and Daisy, of course.
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