Bookworm Cat Girl

Truck Troubles, Part....um. Well. I've lost count.

2010-05-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

My dear friend Ashley summed up the last thirty-six hours quite well. “Does this stuff happen to ANYONE but us?”

Yeah…I don't think so.

Three stooges strike again! Starring Denise and Jennifer Parker in their recurring roles, and this time the position of third stooge goes to Ashley Young, with cameo appearances by Harry the Hauler and the Nameless Tow-Truck Guy.

I’ll try to keep this short, but I have this problem with being concise – it doesn’t work out so much for me. Anyways.

My mom’s been in San Diego for the past week, at a horse show with three horses. My horse is doing three shows in a row starting next week, so I sat this one out and stayed at home. The week in Del Mar went about as one could expect, but the real trouble didn’t start until she was driving home Saturday afternoon. An 8 ½ hour drive is easier at night when it’s cool – it’s easier on the truck, and it’s easier on the horses.

Apparently not easy enough. I got a call from her at 11:00 p.m. wherein she informed me that she was a hundred miles out of Wilton and the transmission had gone out in the truck. My automatic response was, “I’m not coming to get you.”

As an aside, this was undoubtedly a lie. I already knew that I was going to go get her – this was more of an attempt to evade the inevitable than any real refusal.

Her response was, naturally, “Well, what am I going to do?” to which I replied, “What do you want me to do? You’ve got the only truck! I can’t come get you and bring you and a trailer full of horses home with your car!”

“Who do you know that has a truck?” she asked.

“Ashley,” I said instantly.

“Then call Ashley.”

“No way, you call Ashley.”

“No, you!”

“Nuh uh!”

(We’re very mature, aren’t we?)

Jumping ahead through several repetitions of the above, complete with rude noises and mental tongue-sticking-outs, she eventually made the call herself. Next thing I know, Ashley’s calling me.

“You’re coming with me, right?” she asked.

“Of course I am,” I said dully.

Then, we got to Santa Nella/Gustine, where she was supposedly at, only to find out through judicious use of the iPhone mapping application that she was not 100 miles out of Wilton. She was 200 miles.

It took us three hours to get to her, after which we struggled to unhitch and rehitch the trailer to Ashley’s truck. This was fraught with peril, as you can probably imagine. My poor mother was so tired that she literally unhitched the trailer and drove away with the tailgate still up. I yelled, the tailgate crunched, the trailer wobbled, and I rushed forward to catch the wildly swinging tailgate that was attached by one hinge, and then, while I was holding on to the gate trying to figure out how to get the thing off, she went and did it again.

And then we spent thirty minutes trying to rewire the trailer lights to work with Ashley’s truck, during which the Nameless Tow Truck Driver came and hitched up the red truck. Then we were all set. Lights working. Truck running. Other truck on the bed of the tow truck. We were going to follow the tow truck to the nearby truck stop, then pick my mom up and continue on for home.

It’s about 3:00 in the morning at this time. And here’s the real kicker of the entire debacle.

We literally made it half a mile before the tow truck pulled off the freeway and idled in the middle of the off ramp.

“What is he doing?” Ashley demanded. “We can’t sit here! There’re people coming.”

My phone buzzed. I answered it. My mom’s voice was full of laughter, the kind of laughter you get in a situation where your options are either laugh, or have a meltdown complete with screaming and tears.

“The tow truck broke down,” she said. “It sounds like the transmission went out.”

…

…

You just have to laugh. I mean, really? Does this crap ever happen to anyone else? This is unreal.

Anyway, we left it there and went home. The drive took another three hours, at the end of which we had to unload the horses and unhitch the trailer. By the time I got home to bed, it was 7:30 and a full 25 hours since I left it. Not a huge deal, but unpleasant all the same. Then, of course, my mom had to deal with the truck we left behind, and she’s still on that trip right now, Sunday evening.

To sum it up – the transmission in the red truck went out, it took us three hours to get there, mom drove away with the tailgate up not once but twice, it took us an hour just to hitch Ashley’s truck correctly, the tow truck’s transmission went out and it took us all night to get home. My brain is now convinced it’s Monday the 17th.

The upside? Nothing caught fire this time.

One of those days...

2010-04-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of my - very late - New Year's Resolution (It's only April, give me a break), I've decided to post a second time, on the same day. I know, right? That's what I thought.

Anyways, this is my method of recording everything that hopefully, one day, I will sort in consecutive order and have printed out in nice hard-back form with a pretty cover. Of course, I would never be able to remember them in consecutive order, even if I wanted to, so I'll just write them down as they come to me.

Probably not with pictures. I'm not so good at the whole camera thing.

Okay, this took place just a few months ago, mid-January. In winter, we load up the horses and haul all the way down to the groin area of California, an unofficial community of Riverside County or something, according to the signs as you enter. It's about a mile long and a street-width wide, and it's called Thermal, California, and groin about covers it. (I used to call it the armpit of California, but David rightly reminded me that Modesto is the armpit of California.)

There's a horse show series down there, seven weeks long. We attend two of those weeks, and use Time-Share weeks in order to afford it. The show of course had its share of Stooge-like moments, but this story takes place at the hotel thing we stayed at. Being that we were down there to work, we rarely got home before seven, and a couple of times not before ten. This was one of those times.

Okay, real quick I have to provide a disclaimer. The hotel was friggin' confusing, and you couldn't ever find the room numbers, and all the separate units looked the same!

Anyway.

The card key didn't work.

Most of you know how that feels. You hike your way all the way to the room, down identical streets and up sidewalks and across lawns, longing for a hot shower and bed, only to find that little irritating red light blinking at you when you slide your card in.

So we drop all our stuff on the ground and my mom hikes all the way back to the truck to drive back to the lobby while I stay behind with the things. And the lobby's a long ways away so it takes for ever.

Ten minutes in, the door to the room next door opens and a little old lady pokes her head out and looks at me quizzically.

"Room key doesn't work," I explain, shrugging in that you know how it is way.

"That's not your room," the little old lady said, and all of a sudden my legs go numb and my neck gets inexplicably stiff. My eyes flick to the little tiny plastic plaque around the corner. Damn, I think. She's right!

"Oops," my mouth says. Then I stand there, and the little old lady stands there, and finally I sigh and pick up all the bags of stuff you seem to accumulate at horse shows and drag myself a little ways away to make a phone call.

"We're at the wrong unit," I tell my mom when she answers.

"What?"

"Wrong room!" I say louder, and resist the urge to pace and flap my arms around in agitation.

"Oh," she says, and I hear her sigh. "Okay, go outside by the street and I'll drive by and pick you up."

"Okay," I say, hang up, and drag all our stuff out to the street to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Finally, my phone rings.

"Where are you?" my mom wants to know.

"Out by the street!" I say in exasperation.

"I don't see you!"

"Then you're at the wrong unit again!"

"Well, where are you?"

"Out by the street!"

"I can't find you!"

"That is obvious!"

"I'm lost!"

Silence.

"Okay," I say, taking a deep breath. "Go back to the lobby, and try again."

"Okay, I'm going back."

"No, wait! I see you!"

"There you are! What happened to that mug you've got in your hand?"

I looked down. The mug was handleless.

"I think I broke it when you told me you were lost."

"Oh. Huh."

Hey, Remember Me? Yeah! Long Time No See!

2010-04-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I impress myself. Like, slack-jawed astonishment at what I just did, or is happening around me, or how I attract trouble like no one I've ever known, except for one other person. That person is my mom, Denise.

We like to call ourselves the Two Stooges, and sometimes the 'Two-and-a-half Stooges', if Adam's tagging along. In the spirit of the disastrous directions our lives sometimes take us, my mother and I have decided to write an autobiography titled How on Earth Could We Be So Stupid? and sequel, titled How on Earth Could We Be So Stupid, AGAIN?

Well, okay. Maybe we won't actually call them that - those titles might be kind of embarrassing, later on - but they're quite accurate.

I haven't actually started it yet, but I figure, at least write it down somewhere, right? Those little instances where I do a mental head-thunking excersize. Mental because I've found that if you literally pound your head against the walls in public places, people tend to look at you funny and then concentrate very hard on not looking at you at all. Sometimes they even walk very quickly to get away.

Okay, they tend to do that anyways, but usually it's because of something I can't actually control. Like my mom doing squats in the Detroit airport, or cursing a blue streak behind me as we stare blank-faced at the airport departure board that tells us we're over two hours late and our plane departed three minutes ago.

That was in Venice. Which, you'd think, Venice, right? Not so bad? Wrong.

Then, sometimes I get the feeling I should include my three-year-old cat Foxy in the Stooges thing. She'd make a full blown one, not a half-stooge. She came in the other day with a very constipated look on her face, sneezing and rubbing at her nose. Of course she didn't want me to look at what was wrong, so I had to pin her in order to get a look at the little bit of grass sticking out of her nose that atually turned out to be about six inches long. In her nose.

Don't ask. I have no clue.

And then there's Adam, who just came up to me. This was the conversation.

Adam: "Jennifer?"
Me: "Hmm?"
Adam: "My butt is itching."
Me: "Would you like me to scratch it for you?"
Adam: "Yes, please."
Me: "No!!"

I have no words. Really.

And this was kind of a useless post. Oh, well. Whatever.

Random Things

2009-02-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

High-pitched yelping scream.

Friend: "What was that?"
Me: "Oh, that was the cats chasing the dog."
Friend: "Oh...?"
Me: "Yeah, I know. I have really wimpy dogs."

Also, my cat Foxy made me laugh until I cried the other day - she's the only one of my cats that can do so. Basically, we have a big kitchen full of stacked drawers and with a big center island. She's very talented at opening drawers when she wants to get in them, because they're easy to open.

Anyway, she opened the top drawer and dug around in there for a while, then tried to jump from the drawer to the center island, but easy-opening drawers also make for easy-closing ones, and the drawer slammed shut as she jumped. She sailed over and smacked belly-first onto the edge of the island, her back legs scrabbling madly, before she slid off and landed in a little heap on the floor. Naturally, being a cat and proud like that, she immediately pretended that she had meant to do that all along.

2009-02-22T09:58:00.000-08:00

Saw my cousin Jessica's go at this, and thought I'd do the same.

I've bolded the things I've done in my life.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given to charities
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning.
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice(Not yet, but we're planning to go in June!)
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person(Love Rome!)
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible.
86. Visited the White House- the outside.
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous(Lots!)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Been involved in a law suit
97. Owned a cell phone
98. Been stung by a bee
99. Seen Mount Rushmore in person
100. Learned to play an instrument

49/100 isn't bad. I'd love to see Mount Rushmore and Michelangelo's David and go to Africa and publish a book and tons of other things, although I don't think I'd want to go on an overnight train. But maybe that would be easier than an overnight plane, which is a huge gigantic bummer.

Pictures of Rome

2009-01-16T08:40:00.000-08:00

Debbie wanted pictures - who am I to deny such a request?

I don't have a lot cause the camera died after the first day, after which I bought post cards, but here are a few interesting ones...

Below, our first picture of Rome, of a strange, triangular shaped building.

Here, on our way to the Colosseum, through this tunnel. I snapped a quick picture of Mom in the entrance. Behind her is someone sleeping on a mattress.

Our first glimpse of the Colosseum.

And our Gladiator friends. The ringleader - the one who followed us - is the one on the left that I'm holding at swordpoint. Note the modern beanie.

A startlingly pretty picture of the sky over the rim of the Colosseum. The weather was beautiful while we were there.

An old temple cracked in half during World War I (according to David). I just thought it was neat looking.

The old aquaducts beneath the House of Augustus. These ones are no longer functioning, but the city is still supplied by the same network that these ones belong to, and the water is still pure and drinkable.

This is a picture I took because I love this style, with the sun behind the tree. I took it standing in the ruins of the Palatines, (The House of Augustus standing on the ruins of the House of Nero), and you can see the ruins behind the tree.

Standing on the Palatines, two twin columns stretch into the sky, a view of Rome behind them. The two basilicas in the lower right hand corner are St. Peter's in the Vatican (the leftmost one), and I think the Piazza del Popolo.

One of my favorite pictures. Sometimes I surprise myself, truly. The remainder of the Temple of Saturn.

This one has a story behind it - Mom and I wondered about the Egyptian statue in front of the Obelisk but didn't expect it to be a living person. Mom offered to go hug it for a picture, which I didn't get because I was laughing too hard. This was taken before that, from far away and zoomed as close as the camera would go. At the time, I thought it was a neat statue.

View of Rome from the Palatines. Another of my favorite pictures, because when scaled to full size it's beautifully sharp and clear, with the Colosseum presiding. I'll get this one framed when I get the chance.

Book Releases

2009-01-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, what is it with April 7th? Is it just like a default date, because three of my book series are releasing the next installment on April 7th 2009; Jim Butcher's Turn Coat, Sara Monet's Corambis, and Patrick Rothfuss's Wise Man's Fear. Is it really a release date, or just something they put down there to take up space?

I'll tell you one thing, though...if it's actually the correct release date, April 7th is going to be a field day for me. I'll be pre-ordering all three books off Amazon, and use the rest of my Amazon certificates to do so. :) It'll be so worth it.

So. Europe.

2009-01-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

First, Amsterdam.

Amsterdam was cold, cold like you wouldn't believe. It averaged at about -15 celcius during the day, which levels out at about 5 1/2 degrees fahrenheit, which was the coldest it has gotten in the Netherlands for about 20 years. And, while my mother and our investors got to wear nice furry boots and thermal underwear, fleece pajama pants, and flannel-lined jeans, I as the rider was in my thin breeches, riding boots, and snowboarding jacket the entire time. Mom got to wear her down jacket that went down to her knees and big bulky gloves, while I was in my thin leather riding gloves.

Did I mention it was about 5 degrees?

Cold aside, it was definitely our most productive trip yet - I think I rode about thirty horses all told, and I picked out five or six that I really liked, and we chose two from the top of those who are in the process of getting their pre-purchase examinations to ensure they're healthy and uninjured. We're awaiting word on the gray gelding, Vegas, who was examined sometime yesterday.

We managed to take half-a-day after we concluded our business to wander around the city before we flew out, but even without the cold Amsterdam isn't really our thing - it's less a tourist city and more a party place than I would like. We did see the Anne Frank house, which was very fascinating but didn't fail to make me very sad. We had mexican food for lunch, which was interesting because they have their own interpretation - in this case, the salsa was very sweet, like fruit jelly or jam. It was too sweet for mom's taste, although I quite liked it.

Where Amsterdam was disappointing, Rome was absolutely a delight. For one, it was positively warm there, at least in comparison. It was bright and sunny and it probably helped that for the first time in the entire trip I got to wear my warm clothing, but aside from that the city was simply fun. The Italians do not speak a lot of English, which differs from Amsterdam where English is almost as prevalent as Dutch, but I found I didn't mind this because my basic understanding of Spanish and Latin served me very well - I could understand quite a lot more than I expected to, and it made me feel much more at ease.

Also, Rome is simply my kind of city. For years I contemplated archaeology as a career, and still would love to do so, and Rome has been called the biggest archaeological site in the world. We took tours of the Colosseum, the Palatines, the Christian catacombs and crypts, the Church of San Clemente's (a clear example of how the city is layered on top of itself), and the Church of the Immaculate Conception, which was seriously amazing. More about that later. We also saw the remains of the ancient city wall, the thermal baths, and various in-progress archaeological digs througout the city.

My favorite was San Clemente's, simply because it's utterly astonishing, and still boggles my mind almost a week later. The current San Clemente's Basilica was built some time in the 12th century. In the eighteen hundreds, the then priest of the church, Father Mullooly, heard rushing water beneath the church which allegedly kept him up at night. In frustration, he had workers start to dig beneath the church. The diggers broke through the ceiling of a second, nearly intact church beneath the main one, a fourth century church of the same name. The fourth century workers had filled the old church with pieces of stone and marble and sand and dirt, packing the rooms for support. The nineteenth century workers cleared out the rubble and reinforced the walls in order to support the top church, but they didn't find the source of the water.

Beneath the fourth century church was a second century church. Beneath the second century church was a first century pagan temple of mithrais. Beneath that was a early first century appartment complex.

We got to see all the levels, and let me tell you, I almost passed out from sheer disbelief. They showed us a tiny little hallway, about two feet wide, and told us it was an ancient alley way between two different buildings and sealed over to provide a floor for the building on top! The mithraic temple still had the original pagan altar there, carved with their version of Adam. There were ancient frescoes, painted like stories, with captions and dialogue. You could see the original collumns that held up the ceilings - mismatched because they were all stolen from other buildings!

Then we saw the other church, which was called The Church of the Immaculate Conception but was nicknamed 'the Bone Church' by locals because of the practice the monks had of putting each other's bones on the walls. The designs were astonishingly elaborate - flowers made of lower jawbones and stars made of vertebrae, with skulls jauntily sitting atop pillars of stacked femurs and ribs forming the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

Three of the four rooms had earthen floors, the dirt itself a very dark brown dirt a lot like clay, taken from the Holy Land itself. There were crosses on the floor, marking the spot where monks were buried. It was considered a huge honor to be buried in Holy Land, and with only three small rooms of the stuff, the monks had to take turns. Apparently, the newly dead would be buried until they were sufficiently decomposed, after which they were taken out and put on the walls, and the next ones put in.

The catacombs were very interesting also - most of the graves themselves had been sacked by barbarians looking for treasure, so most of the bodies were gone, but you could see chunks of original flooring and marble seals, and there were even a pair of sarcophogi with ancient bodies inside that we could see through the glass lids. The bodies themselves were nearly invisible - they looked like flakes of charcoal. I could see a fragment of tibia of one body, and the shape of the feet through the linen wrappings on the other.

I thought the city wall was amazing - you could see where repairs had been made throughout the thousands of years the wall has been standing. The oldest standing sections are made of huge blocks of dark gray stone, and other sections made of a different type of rock, smaller stones and lighter in color. It was like a puzzle, put together over hundreds of years by hundreds of different people.

The Colosseum was great too, although our tour guide was less than stellar. It was the first place we went to the morning after we arrived, and we got there early so we wandered around a bit before our tour was supposed to start, and made a very touristy mistake.

As we approached the Colosseum, we saw a group of costumed men standing around, dressed as Roman Gladiators. One of them approached us and asked if we wanted to take a picture, and we said okay and handed over our camera and smiled for the photo. Then they handed back the camera and the one guy - the ringleader, I suppose - asked for ten euros...each. That's like, 35 dollars. Mom was incredulous. "Twenty euros?" she asked in disbelief, and he nodded. "You're joking!" she said. "I'm not giving you twenty euros for that!" She started backing away, and Gladiator guy followed.

"Hey lady," he said. "This is a job. You have to pay. It's a job!"

"I don't even have twenty euros!" Mom lied. "I don't have it, I'm sorry."

"I'll give you change," Gladiator guy said.

"I don't have it."

"You have to pay. It's a job," Gladiator guy insisted.

"I'm not giving you twenty euros!" Mom said, walking away. Gladiator guy was still following us.

"Fine then, delete it. Delete the picture."

"Fine," I said in annoyance. "I'll delete it."

"No," Gladiator guy said. "I want to see. Do it now."

"No," I snapped, and took a large step backwards. Gladiator guy looked like he was contemplating grabbing me, but he evidently thought better of it, being surrounded by witnesses.

Later on, I decided that a pocket-sized can of pepper spray probably wouldn't be amiss, but we learned our lesson very quickly. One, don't accept kindness from Italians. Two, the only Italian men we met thought the world revolved around them, so we avoided them quite diligently. And three, don't be afraid to get rude - it is seriously the only way to get them to leave you alone, as we found out with the gladiators and a man selling roses at the Spanish Steps. I found out really quickly not to answer vocally, as they take it as misleading acceptance. "No thanks," doesn't work - they keep following you. The best way I found was to ignore them completely.

That was the only less-than-fabulous part of the trip, and was a actually very amusing later on, but Rome itself was beautiful and fascinating and I definitely, definitely want to go back.

Europe and Conversations with Mom

2009-01-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

So I just now got home from Europe, which was quite an adventure! We went to Amsterdam on business (horse shopping!), and as a consolation prize because Holland was coooolld, we swung over to Rome for a couple days on our ways back. It's past midnight now, and I've missed a night's sleep already since it's like eight in the morning in Amsterdam, so I don't think I'll say a lot tonight except Rome was utterly, completely, astonishingly amazing. So amazing, in fact, that there are simply no words adequate enough to use.

I'll elaborate tomorrow after I've slept for at least twelve hours, but to tide you all over I'll leave you with a tidbit...

Holland Countryside, in the back seat of the car. Mom was sleeping, leaning against the window. Her shoulder looked quite comfortable, so I leaned against her.

Me: "Does it hurt your back when I put my head on your shoulder?"
Mom: "No, she's on the roof taking down the Christmas lights."
Me: long pause
Me: "What are you talking about?"
Mom: "I don't know, what are you talking about?"
Me: "Does it hurt to put my head on your shoulder?"
Mom: "No. What did I say?"
Me: (Laughing) "Something about taking down the Christmas lights."

We both promptly died of laughter. Hee.

Creepy Technology

2008-12-06T13:42:00.001-08:00

When I saw this, my first reaction was something along the lines of, "Holy cow what...!?" because this is some seriously creepy shtuff. I mean, I'm all for moving forward on the technology front, and it's hugely awesome, but this thing looks like a pair of disembodied legs attached to a tank, or a truly mutant monkey. Check it out. It's like, totally the beginning of the dalek invasion.

On other topics, the ambulance came today - second time in the three years we've been at this place. The first time was because someone fell off, but today, one of the dads thought he was having a heart attack. I was driving home from Adam's school, having taken him to Santa's Helper thing, and as I was stopping at the stop sign to turn onto Dillard, a firetruck blazed by, sirens wailing. I thought, uh oh, someone's got a fire.

Silly me.

Everything was fine, thank goodness, and I got to follow the firetruck into my own drive way, which was something new. Adam got a junior firefighter sticker for helping out (he fetched a chair), so he was happy about that. The dogs were joyous at seeing something new, and Jessie was completely out of control, dratted dog, sniffing at the firefighter's crotches as they tried to tend to this poor man. Jack, thank goodness, came right away when I called him and stayed put in the garage until they left, after which I brought him inside and gave him a treat as a reward. Jessie, dumb dog, got no such thing.

Anyways, some pics of the firetruck and ambulance, which I took on the sly, and Adam's Junior Firefighter 'badge'.

Here's the ambulance through the trees.

The fire truck from the garage

And Adam's sticker for helping out.

The Hansen Family

2008-12-04T19:52:00.000-08:00

My Grandparents have a framed cross-stich work on the wall of my grandfather's computer room. It's the pattern of a cartoon car with little lines around the wheels to indicate high speeds. In front of it is a little tube-like thing.

It reads, "I'd love to live life in the fast lane, but I'm married to a...speed bump."

Every time I see it, I laugh. I'm not quite sure how it came to be (I've never asked), but I'm fairly certain that my grandpa doesn't cross-stitch, and I'm pretty sure that my grandma always drives the speed-limit.

It's kind of a subtle humor, but in my experience it permeates every single Hansen and sub-Hansen in my family - along with some other kinds of humor, too! (See the contagion called laughter, below.)

I've been given the dubious fortune of being the daughter of the daughter arguably closest in personality to my grandfather, and I'm quite my mother's daughter. (Does that make sense?) Which means, among other things, that I inherited that lead foot of hers. She's always yelling at me to slow down! except when she's driving, and I have to hide behind a book lest I stomp on my imaginary brake pedal every other wheel-rotation, so she has absolutely no room to talk!

I could write for years on my family's quirks, but I'll refrain and just say that I love all you guys. You're the best family in the world.

Crazyness and all.

:)

Holiday Decorating

2008-11-22T16:04:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows that you're supposed to put up your Christmas lights the first weekend after Thanksgiving, right? Except Adam wanted to put our lights up early, so we made a fun adventure out of it.

We got all our requirements - staple gun, potato, camera - and, of course, the mandatory help.

Here's Foxy, carefully supervising Mom as she clips the lights on the roof.

Watch out, Foxy, Adam's taking aim!!!

Looking quite wide-eyed here.

Here's Echo, peering out Mom's bedroom window to make sure everything's going according to plan.

And Foxy again, helping me with the lights over the garage.

We all thought it was a grand adventure, climbing around on the roof, and the lights look so nice now, all lit up. Too bad Christmas only comes once a year!

the contagion called laughter

2008-11-17T17:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, my mother just can't help herself. She gets it from her dad, I think - it's that Hansen trait.

We were going grocery shopping, both of us kind of grouchy (her more than me!), and in the parking lot she got out of the car while I fiddled with my iPod for a minute, finding a song I liked, yada yada. She shut her door and locked it with the little thingamabob on her keyring, and the car beeped obediently and I looked up to see the Security light flashing an ominous red. Anyone who has ever taken shelter from the bitter winter cold in the car knows what that means.

If I manually unlock it, I thought vaguely, maybe the alarm won't go off.

Me, being nearly equally dextrous with both hands, tend to use one hand for tasks that don't need two, especially since I'm usually holding a book and keeping my place in it with a finger. So, I reached over right-handedly and manually pulled on the little door-lock tab, then let go to reach for the door handle. Except the door tab flipped back, and the door was locked again.

Here's where my hand works faster than my brain. Long before I registered it, I'd already flipped it unlocked again, not even thinking about it. Again, I reached for the handle, and whoops, locked again. Now a tiny inkling of something wrong tickled in my distracted head - something along the lines of, whoops, didn't pull hard enough...

So this time, giving a miniscule amount of attention to the problem, I pulled the flap a little harder, wiggled it for good measure, and reached (yet again!) for the door handle.

And yeah, you guessed it - it locked again.

Here, at last, I woke up a bit and took a good look at that disagreeable lock. And knew at once what was going on. Huffing a little, I set down my book and reached over with both hands, forcibly holding the lock and pulling open the door, staggering out and already looking...

And there she was, doubled over, tears streaming down a very red face, laughing so hard she could barely breathe. And laughter's contagious, don't you know. Together, we stumbled into the grocery store, laughing like hyenas. I'm sure we garnered many curious stares, and perhaps some indulgent chuckles.

Life. It's good, mostly.

Orange Kitten

2008-10-29T01:30:00.000-07:00

Debbie just told me how to get my digital pics onto my computer - painlessly! I know! Amazing, isn't it? No cables, no fighting-with-the-software (I've always hated loading pictures onto my computer).

So, being that I can now easily upload pics, I thought I'd post some of the little kitten I have at the moment. Here he is - isn't he the most adorable thing ever?

And here, drinking from his bottle.

And here, looking curious and utterly bewildered.

Little Black Cat

2008-10-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

I took this quite a while ago, but I never get tired of looking at it. It always gives me a kick to see it when I scroll through my pictures.

Believe it or not, Foxy is actually sound asleep. She's not rolling over, mid-blink. She's quite zonked out.

She looks pretty darn happy, doesn't she?

Ready...set...BLOG!!!

2008-10-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking this whole blog endeavor is very much overdue. I thought about starting one when Kristen started one, oh, positively ages ago, and...um, didn't. Then, I seriously considered setting one up when Debbie made one, but, er, I didn't. And then I found out (months ago) that Kirsten, Heather, and Jessica all have blogs, and decided I very much had to start one of my own, but I...ah, got sidetracked, and didn't.

But Look! I am here! I have Crossed the Line! I am part of the Blogger crowd! Right?

Right.

So. News. Um. Well. Weeeelllll........

I won a saddle last weekend! Not that anyone is particularly interested in that, except it was a very expensive saddle, which, upon resale, gave (will give) me the funds to buy my own car! Now that is exciting! No more borrowing my dad's grungy old Explorer. No more squabbling with my mother over the nifty new Outback. No more staring in dismay at the only other vehicle at my disposal - the huge, horrible, no good, very bad Ford F350 with oversized tires and no friggin' turning radius. No more! For I shall soon have a car of my own!!!

Naturally, a saddle won't buy a very expensive car no matter how fine the leather grain is - but there is something satisfactory in being able to say, "I can buy my own car, with my own money, and I don't have to rely on anyone to get it."