I See Your Barf Bag and Raise You a Bloody Napkin

Did you hear about the woman who was forced to stay on a flight for 10 hours while sitting next to a corpse the entire time? If not, you should read it here.  Her story reminded me of my story that, although it did not involve a corpse, came pretty close.

I am actually referencing # 11 on this list.  It was on a flight back from #1 on that same list.  My coworker and I were on a return flight from Vegas. We were in a three seat row with I on the end, my coworker "S" in the middle, and unknown passenger by the window.  At first, it started off fine. One of our seminar speakers sat down. Boring as he may have been, it would have made our flight a lot more bearable if he had stayed put. Unfortunately, he was traveling with his wife and wanted to sit next to her. So, when her seat mate showed up, I asked if they could switch seats, being the nice person that I am. I like to call that MISTAKE NO. 1.

New guy immediately sat down, put his head against the window and passed out. He reeked of alcohol and looked disheveled.  S was not amused. We took off and all seemed to go well although we kept a worried eye on Drunk Guy. Within 20 minutes, Drunk Guy jumped up, yelled "I HAVE TO GO TO THE RESTROOM" which spurred me into such immediate action, I spilled my drink.  He then proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes in the bathroom banging around.  S was SO not amused.  

He came back, sat down and grabbed a barf bag.  I warned S. I like to call that MISTAKE NO. 2.  She basically started sitting in my lap in order to avoid being thrown up on. While this was occurring, I realize Drunk Guy has a bloody nose and is wiping it with the barf bag.  I immediately tell S to watch out for wayward body fluids. I like to call that MISTAKE NO. 3.  Now S is over my lap and in the aisle declaring that she cannot and WILL not sit next to the guy. They have to move him to some other part of the plane. Panic has set in.

After assuring her that there was no secret place on the plane to put a grown drunk man, I come up with a solution - we switch seats.  All this does is manage to calm her growing panic. However, we spent the next three hours half perched in our seats looking warily at drunk guy expecting the worse.  Any idea how uncomfortable that is? Hugely.

Good news! Drunk guy never puked next to us. In fact, he never moved again.  Bad news! He continued to bleed all over himself until such time as I offered him a napkin. He was down to wiping it on his coat collar.  Sexy!

I learned a lot that flight.  First class is always a better option. You might still have a drunk as a seat mate, but you will have more room. Also, know your coworkers and their phobias before you go on 3 hour plane rides with them. 

I can only hope Drunk Guy learned something too.

Doubtful.



 

Meet Bert!

Meet Bert!  You will remember him from the Fourth of July post where I coyly, or not so much, slid his picture in.

Bert is new to the pack. I won't say he is replacing Chester because no one could replace Chester.  However, he is filling a void that has been there since Chester has been gone.

B stumbled upon Bert's picture on Facebook.  All that we could see was his little panda face.  That was enough to capture B's heart. He went off to meet Bert.  

Bert was born on the street and living under a porch.  Some nice people trapped him and another nice woman kept him in her bathroom for a week trying to get him to acclimate to living in a house and to people in general.  We give mad props to her for that week because even though he came to us hissing, he quickly warmed up and we think it is because she spent so much time with him.

Not much is known about Bert after these few weeks. He has stopped hissing at us and reserves that usually for the dogs (who he swiped and spit at right away a la Chester style and now they fear all 3 lbs of him), or for B when he startles him out of sleep. To be honest, sometimes I feel like hissing at B when he wakes me, but that is another story.

Bert likes eating. The face above is what he looks like after he eats or, apparently, when he wants to eat B for taking too many pictures.

Most unique feature about Bert is that he only has black on his face, the back of his left paw and all up and down his back. Doesn't he look like someone dipped him in some paint?

Bert has brought another dynamic to the house. Brad is happy to have a friend. Even Mooch seems calmer like maybe he doesn't think that we are out to rid the place of all cats.  The dogs are intrigued, but scared.

I think Chester is smiling down and, perhaps, proud that his spirit lives on in Bert.






*Bert was named after the street he was found on, Liberty.

So You Will Never Guess Where I Have Been. No Really, You Won't.

Yes, I have been gone a while.  The last you heard, we rescued a new pup, Nevada, because we are insane.  You know what makes it even more insane? We were leaving the very next week for a 10 day European vacation.  Seriously.  Oh and I was sick. Twice.  Grrr.

Luckily for us, Nevada is an easygoing and adaptable dog.  Jersey went, as planned, to her favorite fun place, doggie daycare, where they also board.  Cool thing? They are not crated, but always free and someone spends the night there and the boarding dogs gets to sleep in bed with them. I wonder if Jersey tries to get under their covers too.  Anyhow, Nevada was underweight, without all of her shots, and without enough time to see her disposition with large groups of dogs. My brother was kind enough to house sit for us including watching Nevada and feeding the three cats.  Bonus - he even trained Nevada on certain things. If he could have crate trained her, I would have wept with joy, but I will take what I can get.

I will be back to talk about the vacation as I have many, many photos to download and then decide what to upload.  Nobody needs to look at 400 of my photos (or the 1300 B took). Yes, we have issues. Maybe we should be a traveling photography team. Sounds so exciting!

For now, satisfy yourselves with more pictures of Nevada and Jersey in the first couple of days.  After 10 days apart, they are readjusting to each other a bit, but I am sure (read: I hope) things settle down again soon.

Eyeing each other

So regal looking.

So aloof

Sharing the same toy

Sharing (or fighting over) another toy.

We missed these girls when we were gone.

If There Is Gambling, Sleeping and Buffeting at the End of the Road, I Will Only Slightly Whine Along the Journey

It has been a long couple of weeks since I last posted.  I actually find it hard to believe that the last thing I talked about was Thanksgiving and now it is almost Christmas. Time flies when you are busy and stressed.  So what have I been up to?

First, I had a trial. Not as long as my last one, only three days. However, those were a long three days full of lots of motions and arguing and lots of late nights preparing. Even the jury took their time, not rendering a verdict until 6:00 p.m.  Too bad their verdict was not in my favor.  Favorite part of the trial? When my opposing counsel showed up the second day and proudly exclaimed "See, I brought MY binder too.  It is empty."  (I always use a binder to keep all of my stuff organized. My opponents usually don't.)

But right before that three day trial? B and I had our second annual holiday party. Because that is exactly what you are supposed to do less than 48 hours before trial, host a party for 40 something people. You may not remember the first party because I barely talked about it. I do have some pictures from last year's event though:

Pre-party house:

Outside including tealight walkway bags:

My bro and B discussing the finer aspects of...a fish tank:

Almost party time and with a warm fire roaring:

You know where my photos from this holiday party are? Nowhere. They don't exist.  Just imagine the above photos with a different tree, lights instead of tealight bags on the walk, no fish tank and about 40 people milling about at any given time.

It was a blast.

My favorite part? Probably when the carbon monoxide detector went off and my brother thought it was the smoke alarm and started fanning it, and no one else seemed to care. I had to take that sucker outside and dismantle it all the way down to ripping out the batteries in order to make it stop blaring. 

That reminds me of the time that B decided to remove the faulty carbon monoxide detector and store it in a safe place. The garage. Wasn't I surprised when I started the car that next morning.  Good times.

Now after that long three day trial, B and I took a mini vacation to Vegas.  The city I like to call my second home. It had been just over a year since we last went and I loved it. I wished we had stayed a day longer, but I will take what I can get.  I slept a lot, ate good food and played video poker slots until I almost broke my back and went blind.

It was a blast.

Now I am back to the land of the cold and already preparing for my next trial in the beginning of January. When did I become a trial queen? The last one was my third in 9 months! How exhausting. This one will be longer because it is two trials in one. Or really back to back, but you get the point.  

I will try not to wait until after then to update though.  I have many pictures and stories to share with you.  

Happy Vegas Christmas!

Halloween Part Deux - Peanut Butter, Caution Tape and Cold Asses. Well Maybe Just One.

As you may be aware, the other night was Halloween. If you have been reading for a while, then you also know that we get a lot of children in these parts. And I mean a lot! Remember last year?  This year was no different.  The first car load was dropped off on a corner at 4:30!  After about 45 minutes they started making their way down the street even though it was still light.  By 5:30 things were in full swing and we were passing out candy left and right.

B grew big pumpkins again this year, although not as big as last year. He also carved three of them. I carved none.  

This is the one with all of the holes drilled in that looks so cool at night lit up:

This is B's pumpkin face:

Our nephew. You can find more of his Halloween pictures here:

He looked like he had many fingers, but he only had 10:

You are probably wondering what this is all about. Well, my sister-in-law took part in an advance sneak peek at some new Snickers candy.  As part of the campaign, she got materials and treats to give out on Halloween and she and my nephew came to our house since we get a lot of traffic.  We put up the Snickers sign, the tape, and the spiderwebs:

My nephew only cared about the pumpkins:

We were the only house on the block with the treats. Even adults were asking for them. I totally made up a random rule that if a child read the sign out loud they got a treat.* You cannot believe how many read it out loud!

Darkness finally fell:

And we finally ran out of candy.**  Not before seeing a Jason Voorheis adult sized mask on a five year old thereby making him the first horror movie dwarf, a equally small but proportionate Freddy Kreuger and the 10 year old in some kind of mask with, what I hope was a plastic bayonet, strolling down the street at a determined pace without a bag of candy. I hope he wasn't killing anyone.

And if you were wondering, the new Snickers has a secret ingredient:

Yes, it is peanut butter. I thought it tasted like a regular Snickers but when I ate them back to back I could tell the difference. Why yes I had to eat more than a few. Research people!

Next year I am going to convince B that we should do this to our house:

Piece of cake.  Or candy if you will.

*I had other random rules such as "OH MY GOD THAT KID IS SO CUTE - give him lots of candy."

**Or maybe we didn't, but I feared we would. And my butt was cold. Really cold.

Crime Watch Wednesday - Pump Up the Jams, Turn Off the Cats

This week's Crime Watch Wednesday brings us the tale of someone who was fed up with being awoken at 5:30 a.m. every day, and we are not talking about B.

A woman contacted police at 5:30 a.m. to report loud music that she believed was coming from the newspaper delivery person's vehicle. Sure enough, the police responded in 15 seconds and found that it was indeed the newspaper guy's car. The suspect was very sorry.

Maybe the lady could have just asked the newspaper delivery person to turn down his radio? She was already up.  You know, lady, the police have better things to do than ask a guy who is rightfully regretful to turn down the tunes.

For example, perhaps the cops could take care of those crazy street cats that are always tearing it up around midnight while I am just falling asleep. You know the ones I thought were going to get Brad? I am pretty sure if I approached them, they would just claw my eyes out.

Or what about the two dogs behind us that bark for hours on end. That is fun at 7 am. On a Sunday.  THAT IS MY DAY OFF PEOPLE.

Or what about the three cats I have in my house that occasionally act like street cats downstairs while I am trying to sleep and although I have visions of things shattering all around the house, I am too tired to get up and yell down "KNOCK IT OFF!" which never works anyway.

Or the bad karaoke singers who decided to sing show tunes just as we were going to bed at 11:30 p.m. one night?  We had to shut our window on a nice balmy summer night.

What is my point? I will tell you.  The newspaper delivery man is on your block for maybe five minutes tops.  Street cats? They fight ALL NIGHT LONG. It's their gig. Grumpy dogs? HOURS.  Inside cats that think they are streetcats?  A good half hour or more.  Crazy karaoke singers? I don't know, I shut the window.

In the time it took you to make that call, you could have just thrown a pillow over your head and gone back to sleep.  Or I don't know gone to work, like the delivery guy who is trying to earn a living to support his family or his drug habit. Doesn't matter.

Your far more annoyed and less sleep fulfilled neighbor,

Guess who turned 1 on 10/10/10? Or is it 7? Who Knows, But There Was Cake.

When B informed me the other day that he figured out when Jersey's birthday was* and that it was coming up the next weekend, I sprang into action.  By that I mean I stumbled upon a rawhide birthday cake and decided we would do birthday pictures and have a little party.  B decided I was nuts and refused to partake. Party pooper!

So first I bought the cake:

Then I told Jersey she had to pose pretty for her first birthday picture:

For comparison, this is her last year:

Then I told Jersey there was CAKE, but she had to pose with it first.  So she did like a good dog**:

Then the cake was all hers:

Yes, I think that is a ghost.  Someone has to watch over these animals.

But that was not all of the birthday festivities. Jersey had a friend over, Molly. They played and fought and ran around a lot.  If these are blurry, it is because they are ACTION SHOTS PEOPLE:

Oh, it's on:

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl! We have loved every minute of your first year.

*Or the vet told him. Whatever.

**She is no longer a puppy, but a DOG! She even has to eat dog food instead of puppy food. My heart is crushed.