Monday March 9th, 1998

Friday, February 6th, 1998

As I was finishing my bowl of Team Cheerios (yum!), the noise happened longer and lounder than before? Was the flew open? No! The flew wasn't open; why should I be hearing wind noises in the fireplace? Suddenly, I froze, imagining a huge tarantula walking around in the fireplace, so big that it's legs clanged against the metal grate when it walked. 'AHHH!' I stared at the fireplace from 10 feet away. Nothing visibly moving. I stood up from the couch and creeped forward, eyes wide. I was ready to run at the first sight of movement in the fireplace. Then again, the noise, but nothing moved. Confused, I stepped right up to the fireplace and slowly moved the chain link curtain closed. As I did this, I was surprised nothing came jumping out at me. Even though the fireplace curtain was closed, I really didn't feel much safer. There was quiet. I turned to get my empty cereal bowl and header for the kitchen sink to rinse it out. Noise -- this time for about 5 long seconds. Realization flashed before me.

"AHHH!" I exclaimed. 'There's a rat in my chimney, just above the closed flue. It's trying frantically to get out.' Again, the trapped animal desperately tried to escape its dark, deep prison. That's when the thought came upon me that it might be a bird. I thought I heard the distinct sound of wings flapping. It could be a squirrel. I went in my bathroom to brush my teeth. As I brushed a horrible thought came to me. What if it was a skunk? OH MY GOD! Any second that skunk trapped in my chimney might get really pissed off and spray! AHHH! I thought about the devastation it would bring to my new apartment and furniture and everything. I thought about my brother's car and how he ran over a dead skunk and how his car stuck for YEARS, even despite his efforts to get the smell off. Could you imagine if that smell sunk into my carpet? My curtains? My couch? My clothes? There would be NO way to get it out. I'd have to burn everything I own-- moving would not be enough. As I got carried away with my skunk horrors, I noticed the animal started fighting less and less.

"It's dying!" I exclaimed with dismay. I told myself that the animal was not a skunk, but a bird, helplessly trapped. I had the option of saving it. What kind of bird was it? If I opened the flue (which is about the size of a CD), would it fall through to my fireplace? Or would it still be stuck? Again, my mind pondered...

If I opened the flew, one of many things could happen. One, the bird would fall through, panic, attack me and fly around my apartment, getting my nice white walls all dirty with soot, and make me mad the rest of the day. Two, the bird would fall through and lay there with a broken wing and I would try to save it, and failing, I would be sad the rest of the day. Three, the bird wouldn't fall through and the only way to get it out would be to reach my hand up there and pull it out, hence resulting in either one or two above. Four, the bird would fall down and sit there nicely and let me carry him outside and he would chirp a pretty song for me, then happily fly away. I figured after all that banging around, the chances of the latter happening were very slim. So as I saw it, I was doomed no matter what. After a few more seconds of consideration, I decided to leave the animal and let the apartment maintenance people deal with it.

I continued getting ready for work, trying to contact the manager's office every few minutes, with no luck. They must not open til 9. So, before I left the apartment, I listened for some life still left in my little friend, but heard nothing. Maybe he was resting. Yes, saving his strength. Just in case, I decided to shut both bedroom doors. If he escaped, I certainly didn't want him hiding in my sheets or something.

When I got to work, I called the complex and told them to hurry and get the animal out of my fireplace. Perhaps it wasn't too late to save its life. I explained to them that the thought of having a dead animal above my flew wasn't a pleasant one.

Around 4:00 I tried calling the office to see what had happened. I truely hoped the animal escaped with its life without any harm to my clean apartment. There was no answer.

That night when I got home there was a pink work order on my counter stating: "A bird was stuck in the flue. The bird was removed." Removed? Was it removed alive or dead? I walked over to the fireplace and looked for any signs of a struggle. Yet there was nothing but a blue flashlight to ever signify that the bird was, indeed, once here.

I thought about calling the next day to find out exaclty what happened to my feathered friend, but I decided I'd rather live with the the happy fantasy that the bird was gently taken outside to fly another day.

Now, I'm thinking back on the whole thing. I hope that the bird truely was removed from my flue. I mean, if the maintenance guy really wanted to, he could have just WROTE that he removed it. I mean, maybe he was chicken to stick his hand up a flue, I know I would be. If he didn't remove the bird, I can see it all now... my next party where I have a cozy fire going...

"MMM... what is that you're cooking, Katie? It smells like... like... roasted pheasant or something."

Friday, January 16th, 1998

But I'm livin' the high life now, I tell ya! So, let's see, what is there to tell?

I got pulled over yesterday on my way home from work. I came flying out of CompuCom's parking lot and continued up the road where I came upon a red light and switched lanes quickly to get into the one without any cars so I could kick some ass when the light turned green. So did the car behind me. Hmmm... I looked in the rear view mirror to get a closer look. Were those lights on top of the hood? (It was dark, I was praying it was a luggage rack or something). Nope. Shit, it was a cop.

For those of you who don't know, lucky ol' me received my first-ever speeding ticket (gasp!) on Thanksgiving a month and a half ago. Dude, if I got another ticket I was doomed. Please don't pull me over, Please don't pull me over, I prayed.

When the light turned green, I took off slowly and didn't go over the limit. Whew. No lights. Maybe I'll get away with it? I realized I needed to make a right turn soon, and I was in the far left lane. Gotta get over. A car was staying equal pace with me to my right. I either had to speed up or slow down to get around him. I chose to slow down for probably the first time in my life. I moved over two lanes and watched to see what the cop car would do. He stayed in the left lane, and almost turned left at the light, but then came to an abrupt stop. As I turned right, he cut over all three lanes and turned right behind me. Yup, there were the lights! ARGH! %#$&*!

I pulled over and looked in my rear view mirror. There were two cops in the car! Both were getting out! Yeesh! I was concentrating on the cop coming up to my right when a heard a knock on my driver's side door. I unrolled my window.

"HELLO! Drivers license and insurance please!" The cop said cheerfully. Oh, whew! A cheerful cop, it's about time. (And to my pleasure, he was in his 20's and good lookin'.) I mean, if I was going to have to get a ticket, might as well be from a friendly cop who's pleasing to the eyes. Is that not PC? Like I care.

"Sure." I said as I rummaged through my purse trying to find the necessary documents. "Ah ha! Here they are!" As I handed the policeman my license and insurance card, the other cop came 'round to the driver's side.

"We pulled you over for a few reasons." First is... (he glanced at my registration sticker on my windshield) your car's registration is out of date." Hmmm... how could he have possibly known that until he walked up to my car! I mean, it was nighttime, he was never in front of me, or even close enough to tell. I decided not to ask. Instead I gave him a straight answer.

"I know. I just moved to Collin County and I haven't been able to find where I go to renew it. I promise to find out soon. I'm really sorry." The cop nodded. The other cop finally spoke up.

"So," he said gesturing with his flashlight to my plate. "We want to know what HTTP ME means." The two cops were obviously friends. Both young and light-spirited. I laughed.

"Well, it's an Internet joke. (I actually HATE explaining what my plate means but I made the best of it in this sitution). HTTP is the World Wide Web protocol. Do you ever surf the Net?" They both smiled, but neither of them had a clue what I was talking about.

"But what's the "ME" for? HTTP ME?"

"It sounded cooler than just HTTP, I guess." I giggled. "It sort of means... check out my web site."

"Uh huh... we don't think you're being straight with us." They teased.

"No, really, I am. I wouldn't lie." The one cop then walked back into his car. Darn! He was gonna look me up and find out I already had a ticket and give me another! OH NO! The other cop started walking away and then I heard him say...

"Hey, step on the gas." Making sure my car was in neutral, I did so. "I think one of your exhaust pipes is plugged. You really better get that looked at."

"Seriously? Oh man! I definitely could do without another car problem." I sighed. He continued looking at my exhaust pipe. I stepped on the gas a few more times for the hell of it. The other cop came back and looked at me. His friend said: "I don't know, I think we should give her a ticket cuz she's not telling us the truth about this HTTP ME thing." They both smiled.

"Oh no!" Would I get away this time? SWEET! "Honestly, if you don't beleive me, I can even give you my web site address and you can see I have a graphic of my plate on the homepage. I swear I'm tellin you the truth."

"Uh huh," The cop said as he handed me back my license. And for good measure I threw in:

"And I promise to get my registration renewed ASAP." He nodded. The other cop started to walk away.

"Have a good night and SLOW DOWN!" He said with a smile. If I had any guts at all, I would have asked him out, he was really cute! Both of them. But of course, I have no guts, so I said:

"I will." And rolled up my window. Oh well. I drove off, relieved to not have gotten a ticket. I drove the speed limit the WHOLE way home, too. I really should be more careful about that. Twice in under two months? What was the deal?

Well, if anyone out there happens to know who these cops might have been, tell them HTTP ME girl says hi, and for pete's sake don't tell I wrote a story about them! ;-D

Monday, January 1st, 1998

I had an exciting evening last night, so I figured I'd tell you about it. If you live in the Dallas area (namely Plano), you know how bad the storms were that we got yesterday. They were intense, very electrical with flash floods and everything! Now, as you probably know, I love storms.

There I was, sitting on my couch watching a TV movie when the storm that had been going on ALL DAY started to get even worse. The lighting and the thunder were coming one on top of the other; the thunder was so loud I couldn't believe it! I figured the storm had to be right above me. Had to.

That's what I was thinking when the power suddenly went out and my fire alarm began its piercing shriek in the darkness. BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. I stood up and tried to think clearly. 'The apartment!' Was my apartment struck by lightening? Was it on fire? Why is that darm alarm so LOUD? In the darkness I frantically felt for my shoes. I was wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants. I almost decided to skip the shoes when I felt them under my hands. I harshly stepped into them and felt my way for the front door! "OW!" Banged my shin into the chair. 'Door's gotta be here somewhere!' A strike of lightning lit up the entire room for two neon seconds. As I reached for the handle, the lights flickered back on... and stayed on. The alarm went off, leaving an eerie, hushed silence. Hmmmm.... I heard the rain pounding on the staircase outside and I decided to stay in. As I walked back to the living room, the TV static from the cable outage hissed loudly. My show was gone. Reminded of the movie Poltergiest, I quickly shut the off the TV. I sat down, shaking a little, as more crashes of thunder surrounded me. I sniffed... no smell of smoke, must be OK. I was upset the cable was out. NOW WHAT should I do? Ah yes! I'll watch the South Park countdown to New Years 1998 that I taped a few days ago!

After I did that I remembered I had to get my clothes out of the dryer. As I walked over to the laundry room I heard a loud engine noise coming from outside. Odd. I opened the door and saw reflections of red and blue lights. Uh oh. I ran to put my shoes back on and bounded down the stairs to see two huge firetrucks right in front of my garage. Woe. I walked a little further and saw an ambulence and several police cars. Many neighbors were standing around. It had stopped raining, and it was warm. I was completely comfortable in my t-shirt. "What's goin' on?" I asked a woman.

"It seems this apartment building was hit by lightening. Someone was hurt." She said pointing to the building 25 yards from mine.

Craaazy. As we stood there and talked, several policemen began to string yellow police tape around my building and the one that was struck. I was outside the tape. The ladder on one of the firetrucks was raised.... very high, higher than anything else for miles around. Herm... 'is that safe?' I thought as the large metal object jutted into the stormy sky. Shortly thereafter it began to rain again. I wondered if I would get in trouble for crossing the yellow tape to get back to my apartment. I hoped not. I quickly ducked under the restriction and headed assertively to my apartment. Several firemen walked by but I did not make eye contact, for fear they would yell at me. I rushed up the stairs with a sigh! I made it. I ran inside and grabbed the phone, had to tell someone about this.

The rain was now streaming down in torrents and I'm out on my front porch. Two firemen walk up the stairs. Uh oh... were they going to yell at me? No... whew, they knocked on the apartment door next to mine and a frantic lady let them in. Hmmm... the thunder was now louder than ever since I was outside. It actually really hurt my ears... and scared me to death! I LOVED IT! I kept running in and out with each crash of thunder, excited by the danger.

Well, I'm not sure what happened as far as damage. Maybe I'll hear about it in the next apartment newsletter. Maybe there was a blurb in today's paper. I also never found out who was injured and how badly or how it happened. But all I have to say is it was an exciting night, and there's another storm headed this way now. Let's hope I have enough South Park to keep me entertained during the next cable outage.