STUPID NATURE

Do you want to know what happened to us this weekend?

Yellow-jackets! That's what happened to us. 

Stupid, evil, vindictive yellow-jackets.

Do you remember a couple of entries ago, I mentioned that I got stung by a bee while mowing the lawn?  Well, it turned out it wasn't a bee.  Unknown to us, a very large colony of yellow-jackets had built a ground nest near the edge of our property.  It's right up against the property line with our neighbors, so it isn't a place we spend a whole lot of time hanging out and we had no idea  it was there.  The last time I mowed, I guess I just barely disturbed them because I was only stung once, and because Steve said there were some bees hanging around the crepe myrtle, that's what we thought got me.  This time, though, I apparently did more than disturb them.  I must have disturbed them and said something horrible about their mother, if their reaction was any indication!

Since getting stung last time, I was careful to wear blue-jeans when I mowed.  I should have worn tennis shoes, too, but I didn't.  I thought that jeans would be enough, because really, statistically, how often can expect to get stung while mowing your lawn if it's only happened once in 14 years?

So I'm working on the last section of our yard, which is the big part in the front.  I usually start by going around the entire perimeter, and then sectioning it off.  This time, I was doing that, but decided that I needed to go over the same ground since I missed a spot, which was apparently the wrong thing to do.  I hit the nest twice, and as I went over it the second time, they came after me.  The first one got me in the ear!  THE MOTHER-EFFING EAR!  As I sat there, holding my ear, I got stung on my foot, my hand and my calf.  I panicked.  I literally couldn't figure out how to get away.  I realized, way too late that I was on a riding lawnmower, which I then managed to drive into the center of the lawn.  I was still in a panic, so I couldn't figure out how to turn it off, so I just jumped off and ran into the house.  For all I knew at that point, they were still following me.  I ran through the house, stripped off my clothes and I jumped into the shower to drown anything that was still on me.  Poor Steve had no idea what was going on, so he walked over to where I had been and he got swarmed.  While I was in the shower, I heard him running through the house and getting into the other shower.  He'd been stung 11 times on his legs.  He'd still managed to get the lawnmower inside and the garage closed, so points go to Steve in this instance.  We are so lucky that neither one of us is allergic, but we still popped Benadryl just in case.

Y'all, I'd like to say I was stoic and able to deal with the pain with no problem, but I'd be lying.  I always believed I had a pretty high tolerance for pain, but I was proven very, very wrong.  I'd only been stung 4 times, and I think the three on my hand/foot/leg weren't that bad, but it was the one in my ear that nearly drove me insane.  Imagine someone stabbing a needle into your ear and wiggling it around for hours without stopping.  The pain wouldn't back off.  The longer I sat there, the worse it got.  Steve said that his stings hurt, but they weren't that bad.  Me, I just laid down and cried.  I did everything I could think of to help them: we put Neosporin on the stings, we crushed up aspirin applied that, baking soda paste, cortisone cream, but nothing helped.  I finally decided that if I could just go to sleep, I could get away from it.  But I couldn't go to sleep.  My muscles were twitching so bad that I couldn't even doze off.  I tried icing my ear and applying heat to it, but nothing helped.  I even kept trying to take Tylenol and stuff like that, but nothing touched it.  We finally had to go to Target and buy some kind of after sting stuff (that did nothing) and I bought some Z-quil because I figured that if I couldn't go to sleep on my own, I'd drug myself into it.  By the time we got home, my ear was hurting a tiny bit less, but my hand and foot had begun swelling up like balloons.  I did fall asleep, which was a blessing, but I didn't stay asleep for long.  I finally just got up, took the sleeping stuff, and went to sleep for real.  I was going to avoid the pain as much as possible.  That probably doesn't speak well about my coping skills!  Steve said his stings had stopped hurting, but had started to itch like crazy, so he stayed in the living-room all night so that he wouldn't wake me up while he scratched. 

I woke up at around 4:00 that morning, and took more Benadryl, which was not smart on top of all of the other stuff I'd been taking, which made me too drunk to go to church!  Steve was not hurtinganymore, his bites were itchy but he was ok, so he went ahead to church and had to run the sound for me.  I slept for a long, long time.  When I finally woke up, I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, and...you guys, my ear was 3 times bigger than an ear should be!  It was so gross!  I had a cauliflower ear, for real! It was so swollen that I couldn't even bend my earlobe!  My foot and hand were also swollen up so badly that they didn't look like they belonged on my body.  You know how babies have those little fat, boneless looking hands and feet?  That is what I had on one side of my body.  When I'd walk, my foot looked like a water balloon being compressed.  YUCK! So much yuck!  I WAS A MUTANT! 

 

Artist's Rendition 

I hid in the house for the rest of the day like I was the Elephant Man or something.  I probably could have gone to church that night, the pain was all but gone, but I was afraid everyone would be staring at my ear.  Seriously, it was like freak-show big.  It was still really swollen when I went to bed, but it did go down a lot during the night so I was able to come to work today. Besides, I can stand three people looking at my ear, but not dozens and dozens of them looking.  

At any rate, now we are mainly just very itchy.  My hand a foot are still swollen, but that is getting better.  I'll be glad when I can wear a normal shoe again, though.  We'll be lucky if Steve has legs left after he finishes scratching them. He really did get stung a lot, but he was able to stand the pain much better than me.  I felt like such a weenie.  

So, that was my weekend!  I hope yours was much better! :)

**AWKWARD CRINGE FACE**

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not deeply and irrevocably flawed, or maybe just an enormous jerk or something.

I go onto Facebook every day.  I'm pretty sure that the cool kids don't do that, but I'm not going to lie about it.  I get bored and I want to pretend I'm hanging out with other human beings, so I go on Facebook and see what everyone is doing. Most of the time I see the requisite "Oh, my kids are awesome" or "Look at this place I visited! My vacations are fantastic!"  I'm OK with that.  That's what Facebook is for: mostly living vicariously through people we barely remember from high school and pretending like we talk to our actual IRL friends more than we really do.  That's OK! It's good we have at least that little bit of communication with people these days! 

Occasionally, though, I come across these...I dunno...odes (for want of a better word) to people from their family members/significant others in the status updates and sometimes it makes me incredibly uncomfortable.  Now, let me be specific: It isn't across the board uncomfortable. Like when someone dies, or is born, or if there is some kind of really special/significant thing that happens, I'm fine.  There is a time and place for holding someone up, and I recognize those things.  Mostly it's just the over the top birthday wishes, or mother's and father's day essays, or (and this one is the absolute worst to me) the husbands or wives getting on there and just, oh dear God, gooping the place up with their anniversary wishes, or birthday wishes, or *shudder* just the "oh how wonderful you are" mess that people do. You know, feeeeeeeeeeeelings.  It's gross.  It makes me feel gross.  I actually have to scroll past those things really fast because I become physically uncomfortable knowing that it is just out there for everyone to read.  It's like when you're watching a movie with your parents and a particularly graphic sex scene pops up, and you know that you want to run screaming from the room, but you can't because that would mean acknowledging it, and the last thing you want to do is react, so you just sit there until the scene is over, wishing you were dead instead of watching this movie with your parents?  That feeling.

Now, before anyone accuses me of jealousy or sour grapes, I assure you, that isn't true.  If Steve, or anyone else (you know, one of my various secret admirers), got on Facebook and said goopy, personal things about me in such a public forum, I might actually die of embarrassment. I'd feel my face catch on fire and I'd probably fall into a puddle of boiling, writhing, discomfort. I don't want that.  If you love me and want me to know, just tell me.  Do it in person, over the phone, or in a letter. I even accept YouTube videos set on Private.  I'll probably still be embarrassed (pleased, but embarrassed because I have a very hard time taking compliments) but I'd be OK with that.  Of course, if I die or something like that, you have my permission to say whatever you want about me on Facebook.  Heck, take out a billboard.

I know this is kind of weird and out of nowhere, but I just saw something so personal on Facebook from one spouse to another that I feel like I need a bath. It also bothered me enough that it made me write this.

That is all.  Carry on with your day.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I don't know why I'm thinking about the movie  "Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" this morning, but there is a scene where Butch has to rescue both Indiana Jones and Marian from the quicksand and has to use a huge snake as a rope to pull them out. Why didn't he use his jacket, or maybe his pants?  Is no one willing to use their clothes as tools to get themselves out of bad situations? You'd better believe I'd be stripping down if the only way I could get everyone safe is to use my pants as a rope or something. Why am I thinking about this this morning?

2) I've had a couple of weird experiences at work lately.  One morning, when I knew I'd be the only one there for a little while, I was walking downstairs to heat up my breakfast when I saw a body laying in the church's breezeway.  It scared me, because the last think I want to do is walk up on a dead person when I'm the only one there.  I mean, I wouldn't want to walk up on one if the place was full of people, but at least I'd have moral support.  I kind of snuck up to the glass doors and tapped on them and the man (thankfully) opened his eyes.  Now, I did a really dumb thing and opened the doors a crack and asked if he was ok.  He said he was homeless and was just sleeping.  I didn't have the heart (or cajones) to tell him he had to leave, so I told him it was fine and went back inside.  The poor guy slept there for a while afterwards, but it really freaked me out. I mean, he picked a really smart place to sleep, but it's disconcerting to have a stranger camped out on the literal doorstep of the place I work.  Luckily my coworker showed up earlier than I thought so at least I wasn't alone.  The man didn't ask for anything and he left an hour or so later, but still.  I wish I could have given him something to help him, but I didn't have anything.

We also have a man who has been showing up to church on Sunday nights that kind of freaks everyone out.  He's apparently functionally, well, kind of, mentally ill in some way.  He may be homeless or he may be under the care of one of the places in our neighborhood, but he shows up with a backpack during the middle of services, he talks out loud to himself and to others, gets twitchy and he tends to get up and wander around the church.  He tried following one of the ladies out of the service once, to ask for money I think, but another one of our members grabbed one of our deacons and they stopped him.  The pastor says he knows the man and that he isn't dangerous, but the policeman that goes to church with us isn't so sure he isn't unstable.  I don't know.  It's honestly such a fine line between wanting to minister to people who obviously need help and protecting ourselves and our congregation.  You can't really tell people they aren't welcome to come to church (definitely not what Jesus would do ) but how do we know when we might need to put a stop to something like that?  As far as I know, we've only ever asked one person to stop coming to church, and that was because she was starting to threaten people. 

I just love our church and I love the people in it, and I want them all to be safe.

3) You want to know something that bothers me? It's completely irrational, much like a lot of other things that bother me.  I read a lot of foodie stuff on the internet because I really, really like food.  Occasionally I'll come across these blogs or Pinterest pins that talk about how you can make a homemade, healthier version of some commercially available product.  My problem is that sometimes the people who write these recipes/directions say something to the effect of "I've found this great way to make home made Cheez-Its without all of the crap in them!" It makes me mad when people say that some food thing they don't like for one reason or another is full of "crap."  I can't even explain why, really, because it isn't the idea that they don't like the ingredients that bothers me, it's simply the fact that they use phrases like "Without all the crap in them."   It isn't even the specific word that bothers me, but it's like someone putting a cigarette out in my eye every time I read that sentiment.  I think it's partly because it sounds so pretentiously snotty or something.  It's completely irrational.

4) I got stung by what I'm pretty sure was a bee last week and it almost ended me!  It's been so long since I have been stung by anything (thank goodness) that my brain almost couldn't process what was going on.  I was mowing the lawn, and all of a sudden it felt like I'd been shot in the leg.  Quite literally, my mind went blue with the pain that shot through me!  I jumped off of the lawnmower and ran into the garage and grabbed the first thing I could find out of the freezer - a pint of ice cream- and put it on my leg, but it didn't help.  I went inside and tried the baking soda trick, which helped for a minute, eventually just put ice on it, which helped a lot more, but holy Moses did it hurt!  I realize how much like a weenie I sound, but unexpected pain like that just took over me.  Luckily I'm not allergic, but my leg swelled up and a weird, red, bloody dot popped up where I'd been stung.  My leg muscle actually contracted and didn't let go for a long time.  It was weird.  I was going to be filming a wedding that night, so I had to put pantyhose over that spot (which was not pleasant) but eventually the pain settled down to a manageable level.  My leg was very hot where it was swollen, though.  It finally stopped hurting the next day and now it just itches like fire.  Bees suck!  Sorry for admitting what a pansy I am. :(

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Well, we finally found out that Steve's last day will be January 30th!  At least now we know, so we can figure out what to do from there.  Please keep your fingers crossed that he finds another job PDQ. : ) 

2) We've been redecorating the bedroom, and so far it looks great!  This has been a project a long time coming, and I'm just relieved we're finally making some progress.  We knew that we needed more storage in our room, but it was too small to add another piece of furniture. We decided to get rid of our old bed and order a new one with drawers underneath.  Since we were going to be doing that, we decided to repaint, too, because we've been sleeping in a beige room for nearly 14 years. Beige. Seriously, how did I wind up with a beige room?  Bleh.

Anyway, we've been collecting parts for a long time.  We ordered our bed months ago (It has been in the garage since it came in. We've only had it for a couple of weeks, but it's got to be assembled and we haven't had a chance to put it together yet. Steve's been so busy with work stuff that he hasn't had time, and the pieces are in 3 boxes, 2 of which are taller than me, so I've been too intimidated to try and do it myself) and we also got a new ceiling fan because our old one stopped working correctly. We couldn't do anything with those until we repainted, though, and paint was the last thing we decided on.   

Last Friday, we began moving everything out of the room.  There is just something about Steve and I that doesn't mesh when we're trying to do a project like that. We start trying to move a thing, we hit a snag, and when Steve is off trying to figure out the logistics of how to make it work, I just end up moving it myself.  Granted, he's probably trying to figure out a way to move it without destroying it, and I'm just trying to get it out of the way.  At any rate, trying to move furniture around with Steve greatly multiplies my desire to beat him to death with my shoes.  He told me the feeling was mutual!  Ha!  Luckily, we managed to clear out everything without a homicide! 

While I began painting (a lovely greenish-blue that the paint guy made fun of) he began working to put up the fan.  Unfortunately the wires, which are as old as the house, began to fall apart in his hands as soon as he started working with them.  Neither one of us knew what to do!  We'd had to cut the power, of course, and we were going to need some kind of light and power on that end of the house before Monday, even if the fan couldn't be installed. We also couldn't very well leave live wires dangling from our ceiling, so we had to find an electrician that would come out on very short notice, not to mention on a Saturday. Luckily we found someone and he was able to fix the wires and install the fan for a reasonable amount of scratch.  One thing about the fan, though, is that Steve and I didn't measure how big the old one was before getting the new one. We just guessed and grabbed one. The new fan is HUGE! It's intimidatingly huge. Sleeping under it makes me think of some kind of elaborate James Bond villain death trap. We haven't even been brave enough to turn it up as high as it will go for fear that our bedroom will take off like a helicopter.  It's a nice fan, just kind of scary.

After the electrician left, I was able to start painting again, and I've learned some things about myself.  I'd turned on my iTunes playlist, and I learned I work much faster when I'm listening to music!  Well, I would if the whole thing didn't break into a musical complete with dancing and arm movements.  I can't just listen to it, I have to EXPERIENCE it.  I also learned that I have no actual idea what is on my iTunes playlist, and the fact that it jumped from One Direction (just one song, shut up) to something about lonely women making good lovers that I don't remember adding, disturbs my inner chi.  I never think to weed out that playlist, so every time I turn it on is an adventure.  :) I also can't keep paint off of the carpet, even with a drop cloth. Luckily it was only two tiny spots, but one spot kind of got bigger when I tried to vaccuum it up thinking it was a piece of paper.  Oy.

At any rate the room has been painted and now I need to move whatever furniture I can back into it to get it out of the rest of the house. It's like playing an annoying game of Tetris in our house right now.  More stories about the room as they arise.

3) I think I'm too old to stay up late these days.  When I get really sleepy, it's almost like I'm drunk. I get really honest, slurry and very silly.

4) Last night during church we were doing "congregation requests" during the music time.  That's self explanatory, right? Anyway, while I was trying to find a certain song so that I could pull it up on the screen, I uncrossed my legs and my foot hit dead center on the computer's power button and the whole thing shut down.  I couldn't have done that if I'd been trying, but I did manage to do it by accident in front of the whole congregation. *Facepalm*

5) There was another thing I was going to put here, but I can't remember it.  :(  I'm sure it was both charming and entertaining, though.  To make up for it, here is a picture of Groot.

He is Groot.

This is lovely.  Sad, but lovely.

I, FANGIRL

This is just a quicky, but embarrassingly, I was excited and had to share!!!

I have an Instagram account.  I usually won't follow people unless I know them personally, or unless their posts are relevant to my interests.  I certainly don't make a habit of following celebrities, but I made one exception to this rule: Jorge Garcia.

This is him.

He is an actor who was on Lost.  He was my favorite actor on Lost, as a matter of fact. I have a small, plastic figure of him in my house in a place of honor. I feel weird about that. Probably not as weird as I should.

Anyway, I began following him on Instagram a while back, and recently he posted a list for something called a 30 Day Drawing Challenge.  The list gives you a subject for each day and you're supposed to draw a picture of that thing and post it to your picture feed. You're also supposed to use the hash tag so other people who are participating in the challenge can look at your stuff.  I thought it looked fun, so I am doing the challenge.  Not many people are currently participating, so I shouldn't be surprised that he's seen my pictures.  But he did comment on one of them!  He thought it was funny. I sqeed. I squeed so hard that I pulled a muscle.

Look, the normal, grown-up part of me knows he's just a guy who happens to be an actor, he likes to draw, and he's seen my picture.  No big deal.

The other part of me (the part that most of you know) is the one currently writing on my blog that he commented on my picture. It is also the part of me that sqeed.

Don't worry, I didn't try to engage him in any sort of contact.  I see people do that a lot on his feed and it embarrasses me.  I don't want to be that guy! 

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: A CAPITOL ADVENTURE

July 20, 2014

Today was pretty much just packing up and leaving town.

We had one last breakfast in the hotel restaurant (yum!) and we spent way too much time trying to figure out what to use our hotel credits for in the tiny shop in the lobby.  Each day you choose to be "Green" and allow housekeeping to skip your room, they give you five dollars credit for the store.  We skipped one day on purpose and one day on accident, so we went and spent it on snacks.  It was either food or toiletries, and we were going home, so food it was! I'm not 100% sure what a Luna Bar is, but I have one now.

Nothing exciting happened on the way back through the airport, except that we got to use accelerated security (meaning we got to keep our shoes on) and we finally got some souvenirs (I have the WORST time spelling that word. I never get it right and spell check has to come to the rescue)  at the Smithsonian Store.  I, of course, got cookbooks: one with recipes from the restaurant at the Native American museum, and one about recipes common during Abe Lincoln's days. I have no idea why I keep getting cookbooks, though, because all of my cookbooks are still in giant boxes in our now defunct guest room.  I can't, in good conscience, even really call it a guest room anymore.  It's a storage pod with a bed buried underneath the stuff we still haven't been able to redistribute since the remodel.  SIGH.

Anyway...

We were actually really, really early for our flight, and because we were on a small flight, we shared a gate with 6 other planes and it was very crowded.  There was a K-9 dog at the gate with a military man, and I wanted to pet it, but it was a pretty big German Shepherd and I was afraid it would try and eat my face.  I did wave at it, though.  I think we were there for a couple of hours, but finally, we got called.  We were in the very last seats on the plane, but I kind of liked that because no one was kicking my seat!  The bad thing about where we were sitting was that the bathroom was right next to us but, mercifully, few people used it.

We got back to Huntsville, got our luggage and went home. We have to go get Butler and learn how to give him shots tomorrow!

It was a great trip!  :)

If you've visited my blog for any period of time, you'll know that when I'm sad, I post pictures of otters. My line of thinking is that if there can be something as cute as otters in the world, things can't be all bad.

These otters aren't for me.  They are for one of my most favorite people in the world who unexpectedly lost a very loved, very special, grandmother.  I can't really do anything useful, or helpful, to make his loss any easier to bear.  I wish I could.  All I can do is let him know that I love him and his family so much, and that they're in my heart while they're dealing with this loss.

If you've got any extra prayers, or good thoughts, please send them their way.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: A CAPITOL ADVENTURE

July 19, 2014

Oy, we are tired people.  We kind of overslept this morning.  Not that we were on a schedule or anything, but we slept much longer than we should have!

Ever since the unfortunate Disney World Flip-Flop Incident of 2009, I am always careful about wearing the correct kind of shoes when I'm going to be doing any significant amount of walking. but even without blisters, my dogs were still barking from the day before!  Luckily my leg wasn't hurting nearly as bad as it was yesterday.  (I forgot to mention that in my last entry.  A guy almost plowed into me coming out of the subway and I twisted my knee and my ankle dodging him. Luckily a couple of ice packs strapped to my leg in strategic places fixed me right up!)

After breakfast we headed back out to the subway station (we are old hands at it now) we went back downtown to the International Spy Museum!  It was so much fun!  We had quite a wait in line, but they were playing clips of Golden Eye, so it wasn't boring!  We were ushered into a room where we were told to choose a "secret identity" and remember it because we would need to know it later. So Steve and I dutifully memorized our new identities and we moved onto watch a short film and then on to the museum.  I'll be honest, I picked this museum because I thought Steve would enjoy the Villains of James Bond exhibit, but I enjoyed it myself.  I never really thought much about spy stuff before, but now I want a camera in my buttons and a knife in my shoe!  I don't really want to be spy, but something about all that gear speaks to my inner "survivor" type personage.  Not that I want to go live out in the wild, but I always like to be prepared for anything (including international espionage, apparently.)  It was a very entertaining place, but we never actually had to tell anyone our secret identities.  We saw one little boy being "interrogated" by one of the museum staff, so we assumed that it was something just for kids.  Oh, well, at least I have a fake identity ready if I need one.  I'll just need to learn how to speak Italian! The James Bond exhibit was very cool, and they had one hallway decked out like the interior or a submarine with big screens on each wall. A little sign said to tap on the glass, which I did, and a giant, computer-generated shark slams into the "glass" and shatters it.  I almost wet my pants.  The gift shop was full of all kinds of neato stuff, but I didn't get anything. I've realized that the secret of me not spending money on vacation is knowing that whatever I buy will need to be carried long distances. Lazy > Souvenirs.

After leaving there, we went back to the Mall so that we could visit the American History museum.  It was a lot of fun, too, only there were a lot of those very rude museum visitors there as well.  I almost punched a lady.  Hand to God, I had to walk away.  I'm not a violent type of person, but I can be provoked, and that lady almost got a face full of what happens when you piss me off.  I decided to be sweet for Jesus and left her unscathed.  Barely.  Other than that, I enjoyed myself immensely!  I saw some of the things I'd seen before, and a lot of newer stuff I hadn't anticipated. There was a whole exhibit on The Civil War that I'd never seen, and, I got to give General Nathan Bedford Forrest's hat and sword the finger. Yeah, burn the south down, huh?  I'll...basically make a rude and ineffective gesture in front of complete strangers to show my disapproval.  The museum was like a black hole, though, because we were in there for hours.  I had no idea how long we'd been in there until my blood sugar started doing that "oh, hey...you're getting dizzy and grouchy" thing that it does.  Unfortunately, the food at the American History museum was not as good as the Native American Museum. It was basically SpRocket (ptooey) quality.  Bleh.

We'd planned on touring the war memorials after we left there, but we were just too tired of walking.  If we'd been smart, we'd have joined one of the segway tours (we were too late) or we could have called Rickshaw Steve, but we were just ready to go.  We got back on the train and headed to Reston.  While we were driving back to the hotel, Steve said he wanted to explore the next little town, which was called Herndon (I think).  It was very small, and had some lovely homes scattered around. It seemed to have a very large international population, too. We saw a place called "World Fresh," which was a multi-culti market, and decided to see what they had.  Yes, we go to grocery stores for fun.  Shut up.   It was a regular grocery store, but they sold products from all over the world.  Not just touristy kind of stuff like Pocky, but real products that the people of this community probably couldn't get anywhere else.  We got a few things to try, although most of it was just candy and stuff.  I got some fresh rambutans, which are like hairy plums, and they were surprisingly good.  I also got some fresh lychee and they were gross.  One thing we didn't count on was that we wouldn't have utensils for either opening the soda that we bought nor cutting up the fruit.  We had to go full on boyscout mode.  We managed to get the cap off of the soda with a carabiner, and we flattened out the edge of the bottle cap to cut up the fruit.  I put on Facebook that I felt like a monkey on the National Geographic channel using rudimentary tools to catch ants.  We probably could have just gone to the restaurant and asked for a bottle opener and a knife, but where is the fun in that?

After all that, we packed as much as we could.  We're leaving tomorrow. :(  It's been a very fun trip, and as much as I want to see Butler, I wish it could have lasted a little bit longer! There is still so much to see!

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: A CAPITOL ADVENTURE

JULY 19, 2014

Today was our real adventure day! 

While getting ready, I was having some trouble finding something to wear. I brought my go-to Yellowstone t-shirt, but I wasn't sure if the unwritten laws of stupid stuff prevents a person from wearing a tourist shirt from one place to another, different tourist place. It's kind of like not wearing the shirt of a band to their concert. None of us want to be that guy. Anyway, I decided to throw caution to the wind and wear it anyway. I was still feeling kind of gouache about it when we went to breakfast and I saw a business man (a relatively young man who seemed to be fairly proud of himself and the way he looked) wearing a black and white flowered shirt only buttoned to the top of his stomach, underneath his suit jacket, and another man wearing a full business suit with a giant, red, Sherpa backpack and a Whole Foods bag. After that I felt ok about my t-shirt.

We drove to the metro station parking deck and had a little trouble figuring out what to do. Parking out here just kind of a nightmare. every space seemed to be reserved for someone. The thing is, we wouldn't have had this problem if we'd been here a week later, because they're opening a metro station just down the street from our hotel! BOO! Timing is everything! :) We finally just left the car in one of the spaces and crossed our fingers that it would be there once we got back. 

-Now let me pause here to make a pronouncement: if you are sitting at a red light (behind someone else) and the light turns green, and if you start honking your horn the split second the light turns...not giving them time to move their foot from the break to the accelerator, you are an a**hole. If you are proud of the fact that you do this thing...you are an a**hole. If you come from a place where this behavior is acceptable, then everyone in your town is an a**hole. By this Logic, Washington DC is full of a**holes.

Moving on.

We got on the Metro and headed towards the National Mall. Riding public transportation is kind of weird. Everyone very studiously avoids everyone else they don't know and most people just plug in headphones and stare in one spot til they get off. Is this true for trains in all places, or just really big cities? Granted, you probably don't want some random subway person getting cozy with you, but I couldn't help but think that if my hometown had a train, none of that ignoring stuff would be going on. By the time you went from one end of the line to another, you'd know the names of everyone around you, know which college team they cheer for, the names of all their kin folks, and the recipes for squash casserole they swear by.  The train kept getting more and more crowded, and just about the time it got so full that I wanted to start screaming and clawing at the doors, we arrived at our destination!  I was so excited!!!!!

The museums we really wanted to see today were all around the Mall, so we started at the Smithsonian Castle.  I had no idea what it actually held, but it turned out to have a sample of stuff that you could find in all of the other Smithsonian museums.  A Reader's Digest Condensed version of the museum experience, if you will.  Unless I missed a whole lot of stuff, it was fairly small, but still interesting.  They had an exhibit of different kinds of souvenirs, which I thought was cool.  It wasn't like t-shirts and stuff, but things like a napkin from Napoleon's court and pieces of the Bastille.  I guess it was what people used to take a souvenirs before you could buy snow globes. I have no idea. Anyways, what I thought would be awesome was if they had souvenirs of the souvenir exhibit!  There was actually a book, but I didn't get it, although that would have been funny.  Souvenir-ception!

We next went to the Air and Space Museum, which was crowded beyond crowded.  I didn't realize at the time that we were just a day away from the 45th (I think) anniversary of the moon landing, which probably explained why it was nearly shoulder to shoulder in there.  They were checking bags at the door, which slowed everything down to a crawl.  They weren't checking very hard, so I'm not sure what they were looking for.  We also had to go through metal detectors.  Were they looking for guns?  Probably.  I guess it would be easy to take down a lot of people if you wanted to go postal in a place like that, but it still makes me kind of sad that it's a possibility.  The museum was interesting, but too much like the Sprocket (ptooey) for my taste.  I guess it's because the USSRC and the Air and Space Museum had a lot of the same type of things, although we had the Saturn V and they didn't (NYEAH!)  We did see a lot of cool stuff, though, and there was a section where we got to make a very good Star Trek IV joke AND sing a verse of "Danger Zone" which was worth the whole visit right there!  Hee! 

Next we went to the Smithsonian's National Museum of the Native American, and it was amazing!  I hadn't even known it existed until a day before we left on our trip.  It was a really beautiful building, and there was some kind of festival going on where they had dancers and speakers.  It was very cool.  I've always been proud of my Cherokee heritage, as much about it as I knew of it, so seeing the exhibits was a great experience.  I wish we could have spent more time there, but it was very crowded as well, and we still had a lot we wanted to see.  We did eat at this museum, though.  There is a restaurant there called Mitsitam, which is apparently "Let's Eat" in the language of the Delaware.  They have food from five different regions of native peoples (it's so hard to be PC, since I just want to call them indians, but I realize that it's cool) in the western hemisphere.  You could mix and match food from all of the different places, but the room isn't very well laid out, and since you can jump from line to line, there is a whole lot of chaos.  I finally just jumped into a line and got turkey and some kind of rice salad from the "Northern Woodlands."  It was delicious, but it would have been better if you weren't having to essentially play Frogger with a million people to simply get lunch!

We walked across the mall to the Natural History Museum!  This was the one I was most excited to see, because I've only been there once and that was when I was a 7th grader.  It was also crowded beyond crowded, and I didn't get to see everything I wanted, but I still got to see a lot!  I had no recollection about how huge that place was.  I'm sure I missed entire wings of things, but I saw what I could.  One specific thing I really, really, really wanted to see was the gem and mineral exhibit. That's where the Hope Diamond is, as well as a room of other huge and/or significant pieces of jewelry that I had been rushed through when I'd been there before.  Steve and I found the Hope Diamond right away, and I almost had to punch a little kid in the head.  See, the diamond is in a small case on a rotating platform.  If you want to get a good look at it, you have to get close and wait for it to turn in your direction.  People were crowded around it, and when they finally moved, Steve and I stepped up to the glass to see it.  Right as it started to turn towards us, a little kid ducked under my arm and stood  right in the way of it, so we couldn't see it.  She was much too young to be there by herself, which means that there was a parent off to one side letting their kid be rude.  I did not punch the child, of course, but we ended up having to stand there for another full rotation of the platform to be able to see.  That put us in the position of having to stand there longer than we normally would have, which kept other people from seeing it until we walked away.

I moved on to the gem room, which was very crowded, and I realized pretty much right away that things weren't going to be easy to see in there.  People were so damn rude, which meant I had to be rude and wedge myself into a non-moving wall of people just to get a glimpse of the things I'd come to see.  Literally, people crowded around the cases and wouldn't freaking move.  I get it, these things are amazing, but when there is a line of people behind you, don't just stand there.  Look and move!  I was stuck between a man who very clearly seemed to just want to stand and lean against the wall, and a kid and his grandmother who knew everything. EVERYTHING.  Neither her, nor her grandson, shut up nearly the entire time they were behind me.  Also, the kid kept coughing on me.  Full on, right on my arm, coughing on me.  He also kept trying to get in front of me, but I kept my hand on the wall to block him.  I suppose I can't really blame kids for being rude, because mostly they don't think of things like being polite when they're excited about stuff.  The adults, however, I can blame all I want.  The woman and man in front of me just basically stopped at each case and stood there without moving often enough that I (genuinely) came within an inch of saying "FFS!" (expletive abbreviated)  and bodily shoving them out of the way.  I finally stepped out of the line to walked around them, and suddenly they sped up to get back in front of me!  Grrrr. I had to skip some things, which I shouldn't have had to do, but unless I wanted to start spitting on people's necks to get them to move, I didn't have a choice.  I felt I was much much ruder than I probably should have been (although my version of being rude is probably like being "Canadian Rude" in that I just say "excuse me" louder than I normally would.)

OK, here is where I get a little indignant and it may sound like my whole day was ruined.  It wasn't, I had a great time, but I did get very irritated.

People really need to learn some kind of museum etiquette. Trust me, I know people go to museums to see all of the awesome, historic stuff that they contain and they get excited about it.  It would be wonderful if we could go to them and take a much time as we wanted pressed up against the cases, staring, reading and re-reading the little card, posing for pictures and tweeting about what we're looking at.  If the museum isn't busy, you CAN do that.  However, and I can't stress this enough, if the place is busy and there are people crowded around something, hoping to see it, you shouldn't be that mouth-breathing-window-licking-gooney-bird backing up the line. That is just bad form. BAD FORM.  You have to make yourself as small as possible, turn sideways if you have to, and no matter how much you'd like to study details on something, if you are mashed full-frontal onto the exhibit case for minutes at a time, you need to understand that people are going to be plotting your death.  Read, glance, and move on.  Go back later if you can, but don't sucker-fish yourself to something and refuse to move if other people want to see it.  Also, you also don't have to take a picture of/with everything you see.  Seriously, lighting in museums is usually not conducive for photography unless you have specifically equipped cameras, so the picture of that thing you had to pose next to that took your buddy so long to take with the iPad the size of a cookie sheet that had to be unfolded out of the giant crowd-control Sherpa backpack he'd been wearing is going to turn out badly.  Take a few pictures, fine, but if you have to stand open mouthed and peace signed next to every exhibit, you should be punched.  Also, don't stop in front of  a crowded exhibit to start texting a friend or start messing with your phone, or to have a conversation with your family about where to eat lunch.  I realize that I know these things because I once worked at a museum, but most of it should be common sense AND common courtesy.        

ANYWAY...

There was more to see, but due to the crowds and the fact that we'd been walking for several hours made us decide to go back to the hotel.  We did have a bad moment when we had stepped outside to look at a map, when one of those bicycle-cart guys started trying to convince us to go on his tour.  We'd already been quite clear we weren't interested, but he wouldn't back off.  I finally took down his number just so he'd leave us alone. If you need a bicycle cart tour of Washington D.C. let me know and I'll give you Rickshaw Steve's phone number.  It's in my phone.  We jumped back onto the subway and went back to the parking garage.  Luckily, our car hadn't been towed!  Huzzah!

We went to Chipotle for dinner, which was the first time I'd ever been to one.  We have one in Huntsville, but it's always crowded, so I'd never been.  It was pretty good.  We also stopped by Target to buy some essentials we needed.  It had been a great day! :)

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: A CAPITOL ADVENTURE

 July 18, 2014

I don't know if it was because we ate so late last night, or if it was a nightmare, but I woke up in complete Crazy Town early this morning, freaking out that I'd lost my grandmother's wedding band. I hadn't, as it was still on my hand, but I was convinced it was gone. I'm sure Steve appreciated the abrupt wake up, but that's one of the perils of being married to me!

Maybe it was the residue of the anxiety meds still in my system, or maybe it was because I woke up in the middle of the night and had to go on an epic adventure looking for a ring that was actually on my hand, but after I went back to sleep I ended up sleeping until about 10:00 this morning. I don't usually sleep that late ever, but today I was a lady of leisure.  Steve's business meeting was today and I was on my own.  I had planned on maybe going into the city to look around by myself, but that wasn't possible due to the fact that Steve had the car and our hotel is actually in Virginia, just far enough away from public transportation to make it a bigger hassle than it was worth. I didn't mind, though, our hotel is nice. After finally getting up and getting ready, I explored the place,

bought a soda, and relaxed back in the room. I didn't get bored, though. I watched two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix! I also brought yarn (because of course I did), and I crocheted while I listened to another audio novel. I think crochet must be slightly hypnotic, because time seemed to fly by while I was doing that.

Once Steve got back from work, we left to get something to eat.  One of his coworkers recommended an Italian place at Reston Town Center, which is a really nice shopping/dining area.  It's several blocks long, and has higher end shops and restaurants lining the streets.  The restaurant was great, although to be honest, I'm not sure I have a very good basis of comparison with Italian food. All the same, I really liked it.  We walked around a bit after we ate and looked around. 

There were a lot of people walking their dogs and I wanted to pet them all, but I didn't! I had some self control! Barely.

When we were ready to leave, we went back the way we came in, which was through a walkway in a building. It had two glass doors with brass handles, one on each side of a glass revolving door. Steve went to one of the regular doors and I went to the revolving one.  Before I could push the revolving door, Steve grabbed the handle of his door and ripped it off! It went "clllllaaaaang!" And the handle on the other side let go and fell on the inside. Unfortunately, those doors were located just next to a crowded outdoor eating area, and everyone got quiet and they looked over at us! I am not proud of myself for this, but my first instinct was to run away, and I tried, but the revolving door wouldn't budge.  It was locked! Steve just stood there looking like a muppet. I ran towards the other door and tried to open it, but it had also been locked, so I just walked away laughing. Steve had to catch up with me. I know that makes me terrible, but there is no honor in unintended vandalism.  At least no one chased us down.

We went back to the hotel and went to the pool area. Steve got into the hot tub, and I sat on the side with my feet in.  It was nice, except that the water wasn't that warm, so we didn't stay long.  We came back and ordered snacks from room service. I love room service. Just pick up the phone and someone brings you food!  I need to install it into our house! I'm going to gain 10 pounds on this trip if I'm not careful.Seriously, though...yummers.

After that we watched a movie and made our plans for tomorrow!

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: A CAPITOL ADVENTURE

July 17, 2014

We're headed to the capitol!  No,  I'm not pretending to be Katness Everdeen. Steve and I are headed up to Wahington D.C. for a business/funzies trip!  We had had been thinking about going to the beach for a weekend this summer, but since his company was purchased by another entity, he's been traveling up to D.C. at least once a month. Since sometime he only finds out a week or two in advance that he needs to be there, it makes planning any other trip kind of hard, so we decided that I'd just tag along and we'd make a weekend out of it!  If Washington DC seems like a weird place for us to go on vacation, it is a little.  But I've only gotten to go there on school trips and have always been on someone else's schedule, and I've wanted to come back on my own terms and look around.

Trust me,  I'm just excited that it isn't Orlando!

We left Butler at the pet resort this morning (and were told his arthritis has advanced to the point of his needing monthly injections.) That makes me so sad. I know he's getting older, and I know he won't live forever, but dang it if I'm not going to do everything I can to keep him around for 20or 30 more years! He's basically my son, so yes, injections will be given! Hell, I'll have his legs removed and replaced with ATV tires if necessary! :)

I went to work for a while to do the last few things that needed to be done before Sunday and went home to finish getting ready to go.  We got through airport security without setting off any alarms and got to our gate with no problems! Since we were there so early, we went to the bar to get a soda. It didn't occur to me until I had been sitting at the bar for some time that I was still wearing my Huntsville Park Baptist

Church polo shirt. It has the name of the church embroidered on the left breast area. Great way to advertise, there, Kelly! Oy.

I almost forgot to take my anxiety pill, but luckily I remembered in plenty of time before actually getting on the plane. I know it probably seems pathetic to some of you that I need pills before flying, but please understand that flying scares me stupid. Dunno why, but it does. Taking these pills keeps me from panic attacks, which is good for me and everyone on the plane with me!

There are 4 stages to my anti-anxiety medication:

1) Taking it - When I know I'm going to be doing something I find stressful, I take my pill and immediately feel better.  I know that there is no way that the medication takes hold so soon, but the knowledge that it will soon be working is enough.

2) Feeling Calmer - The meds start to take control and I actually really start to feel calmer. Everything is good.

3) Things begin to descend into a warm, fuzzy, drunkenness. I start talking too much and laughing at dumb things. Give a couple of shots of tequila, and you'd get the same result. This is why I usually need to take the pills with something caffeinated, because the caffeine keeps me sharp enough to avoid the worst of the drunk feeling. The pills aren't strong, but I have a low tolerance to things like that. Unfortunately, I didn't get caffeine, so by the time we were boarding the plane, I was effectively slightly drunk.

4) Sleep. Sometime light, sometimes hard, and sometimes drooling sleep. Luckily this time, it was light and hopefully without snoring! :) Unfortunately, I missed quite a bit of the audio novel I was listening to (Bill Bryson's At Home) so I'll need to go back and listen to that last part again.

We landed at Dulles 30 minutes ahead of schedule thanks to a tailwind. I've never flown in to Dulles before!  My only complaint about being there was a guy on the tram spent the next few minutes staring at my chest,

like it had a plot he needed to follow. Creepy! Steve has getting through the airport down to a science, so it didn't take us hardly any time at all to get through, grab our car, and get to our hotel! I'm very impressed with his efficiency!

We ordered room service when we got in, which was lovely because I was starved by then, and we fell asleep watching tv.

The adventure begins!