Archive for the ‘Some Fun Now!’ Category

Isn’t technology amazing? I just finished video chatting with my adorable three year old nephew. It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, phone calls were the only option, and if I wanted to see him, I’d have to settle for pictures, or else hire long distance movers to move me to Tennessee to be near him. Now, we can video chat regularly, which makes it feel like a much more personal conversation.

He received a play-doh set for his birthday yesterday and wanted to open it up and play with it with me. So I watched him make play-doh worms and listened to him tell me how he had to use the play-doh knife to cut the worm. It was great! (Even better because I didn’t have to play with the play-doh, as that’s not a toy I enjoyed playing with when RTY would want to use it.)

I’m so pleased we were able to video chat. What a big boy!

And, oh my goodness, but his mommy is pregnant! Good gravy, she’s not do for three more months! (Just what every pregnant lady wants to hear: you’re so big! Love you Geta!)

wRitErsbLock

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It’s been nine years since our last vacation. (Vacation shall mean any stay of more than one night in a hotel in a city more than a reasonable three hour drive from home, and shall not include any visits to family or friends, especially when said visits were funded by family or friends.) In 2000, we rented a cabin for a week in the mountains of North Carolina. We vacationed with two close friends. Prior to that, in fall 1999, we took an extended weekend trip to New Olreans.

Since then… family visits, overnight stays at friends’ houses, and two camping trips. None of those qualify as vacation.

This morning, I booked three airline tickets and four nights at a hotel in Washington DC! WOO HOO!

I am so stinking excited! Other than an airport layover, I’ve never been to DC. Sherlock drove around it on a road trip to Baltimore in 2004 or so. RTY has never been to DC. For that matter, RTY has never been allowed to go anywhere with us. This is indeed a monumental trip!

I have been planning it for weeks. First, I thought it would fall through when our a/c broke a couple weeks ago. But since we got away with repairing the a/c for only $125, we were able to continue hoping to vacation in DC. I’ve been reading travel books at the bookstore on Saturday nights. I have a couple pages of notes in a notebook on things I’d like to do, helpful websites, kid-friendly activities, all in the hope that we’d get to take this trip.

And now… I parted with my money this morning. Like, money, not a credit card, as we have no credit cards. So we’re not even going into (further) debt with this trip! I have roughly a month to continue squirreling away cash for meals and the taxi from the airport to the hotel (and back, should we deem that a necessity). The hotel is pretty close to the metro station, but with RTY with us, and the time of night we’re getting in, we feel more comfortable hailing a cab to the hotel from the airport than taking her and our luggage on the metro, and then walking the few blocks from the station to the hotel. Once we get our bearings up there, we can decide if we’ll also need a cab back to the airport for our departure.

I have a high school classmate friend on Facebook who works in the National Archives. She suggested we have her give us a tour, if she’s in town. I’d love that. Her itinerary, though, is up in the air since her dad just died unexpectedly climbing Mt. Everest, and her mom, understandably, needs mucho moral support.

Also, our Friday friends are now contemplating a trip to DC on the same dates. They shot us down when we suggested it the other day, but now that we’re booked, they’re considering it.

No matter what, we’re going and I’m super excited!

If you’ve been and want to recommend sites to see or food to eat, please do so. Because we’re taking the kid, I am going to be pretty anal and work out an itinerary. If we were going kid-less, we could be our normal spontaneous selves, but kids do better with structure. At least our kid does. I bought the coolest map two weeks ago, and have been opening it up at night to dream. Now that I’ve parted with the money, I can really plan it!

WOO HOO!

Our hotel is just two or three blocks from the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and, obviously, the Mall.

Did I mention that we ended up booking the trip for $120 less than we thought it was going to cost us? Yay!

I’M GOING ON VACATION!!!

If you’re in the area and want to try to stalk me, let me know. I’m open to possibilities. Here’s hoping Maya can work our her own travel itinerary to enable a quick meet up while I’m so close to her home.

wRitErsbLock

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Some people might call up their close friends and say something along the lines of, “hey, we’re going clubbing, wanna come?” or “hey, we’re hitting ::insert watering hole here::, wanna come?” Not us. I texted our neighbor and said, “hey, we’re going to the bookstore. wanna come?” Ten minutes later, we were heading to B&N. We each grabbed a stack of books and met up in the cafe where we ignored each other for about two hours before heading back home.

A normal Saturday night finds us at Borders. However, our local Borders has started having a “musician” in their cafe caterwauling. The man butchers all my favorite Broadway show tunes. He has his mic turned way too loud, and you cannot tune him out anywhere in the store. It has made our local Borders an undesirable place to be on a Saturday night. Two weeks ago, I asked an employee, “can you tell me when that guy will be here so I can plan not to be here?” That’s when we learned he was an every Saturday 6p-9p gig. (we had been hit and miss on what used to be regular Saturday Borders visits) Last Saturday, we went at 4p, hoping to miss the caterwauler (that’s what we call him), only, he was setting up his amp at 4p.

Thus, we drove a bit further tonight to enjoy a quiet bookstore.

It was a good call.

I just think we’re odd in our choice of social “events.”

wRitErsbLock

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All I can say is, it’s pretty frakkin sad that a couple girls can dance that song with more skill than I can play it on a traditional 88 key.

wRitErsbLock

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Sylvis came bearing a bottle of wine last night. After we returned home from dinner, we popped a cork and played pool.

It was teams: couple vs. couple. Curiously, sherlock and I won the majority of the games, even though I suck at pool.

I think a good time was had by all.

We only killed two bottles of wine (only three of us were drinking), and I slept like a drunk baby!

They have connections in wine country, CA. We’ve talked about a 2010 wine country tour with them.

Before we gathered, sherlock was lamenting that I was making him be social with people he’d never met. However, I think we four hit if off really well. At the end of the evening, I asked Sylvis’ husband what he does for a living and… he’s an engineer.

No wonder we get along! We always get along with the engineers (see: Friday night friend A, the rocket scientist, and the lovely and talented Frank J. see also: Boudicca.)

wRitErsbLock

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Oh, that would be me… and I’m not a tourist. Gawd, how embarrassing.

We went to a local sushi restaurant with some out of town friends last night. As a couple, this is the first time sherlock and I have dined with other sushi lovers. It was a lot of fun. They picked three rolls, we picked three rolls, and we shared. It enabled us to try new things. We all shared an ika salad, too (squid); one of my favorite things to eat.

They ordered the dragon roll:

I’m not sure what was in the roll itself, but it was topped with tasty eel. Octopus suckers for the eyes. It was so beautiful. And delicious.

Here’s the rest of the food:

And… our company:

Clearly we need to find local sushi friends, because dinner was so much fun sharing with another couple.

wRitErsbLock

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Notice anything peculiar about the front of this house?

What about the pool?

The Disney theme was inside and out, with the emblem on the garage, and the wall paper in the kitchen and family room. Of course, there are character-themed bathrooms, too.

This 3/2 house sold for $151,000.

There’s no way I’d move into a disney-themed house.

wRitErsbLock

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My bad!

So, this is one of my readers who occasionally comments as Sylvis. She and her husband arrived here at Pereiraville around 120a. I asked them to please not murder us in our sleep, and they lamented the airline would not let them bring an ax.

Sylvis suffered through the tour of my yard this morning. She humored me, as I had to show her each and every plant. We parted ways. They should be at my cousin’s house by now, running the bridge. Honestly, who plans their vacation to include a Thursday night bridge run? Yes, I’m just jealous as I’m aching to run that bridge, too. I seriously considered hitching a ride with them and visiting my cousin with them this week, but I have places to go and things to do here at home.

It was nice to meet Sylvis and her hubby. I look forward to having them back next week, when they spend the night here again before flying home.

BTW, I heart my pink patriotic shirt that I got for $5 at Kohls.

wRitErsbLock

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This is the drawbridge where we always begin fishing. Across the way, beyond the fence erected post 9-11, is where he proposed to me in 2001. I took a picture of the spot, but opted not to post it. Usually, we’re on the other side, but it was just too crowded over there this morning.

Fishermen come in all species.

We didn’t catch anything, so we moved to the Banana River, where, on my second cast…

A puffer fish! Yes, yes, they’re junk fish, but they bring me such joy!

A close-up of the puffer.

And on sherlock’s first or second cast:

Dinner! We think he’s a southern king fish. I also caught one, so we had dinner. And it was yummy.

you’ll be a dentist. people will pay you to be inhumane

This is the bridge we fish under at the Banana River:

It was a great day for wild life. On the drive to the beach, I saw two deer, a raccoon, a turtle, and some birds. At the water we saw pelicans:

many manatees, including these two who I just caught nuzzling noses:

(we saw a lot of manatees, but they would disappear as soon as I retrieved my camera)

and many dolphins. Up close:

The guy down a ways from us was fishing with a net. He left some small sailor’s choice fish to die on the sand. This guy was all, “ooh! A buffet!”

He was a glutton:

Sherlock caught a sea bass,

but it was too small to take home.

The final catch was a tiny sailor’s choice.

He got lucky; we didn’t have a knife to chop him up and use him as bait. Poor planning on our part.

All in all, it was six hours well spent. Years overdue, as it’s been at least two years since we last went fishing (other than what we do in our own back yard pond).

wRitErsbLock

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This afternoon, we went to Bass Pro Shops to get some weights for the fishing trip we’re going to take at OMG-it’s-early tomorrow. This bumper sticker caught my eye:

Those of you who don’t know what that means can stop reading now.

For Sarahk, Amanda, Pamibe, and a couple more of you, let me tell you why this amused me so.

This bumper sticker was on the bumper of a POS Toyota Tersel. An old car, not a new one. A truly crappy vehicle that cannot ever claim to be capable of being driven in a Cullen-like manner.

Said sherlock, after I explained the bumper sticker to him, “the car might have been modded.”

No. When someone modifies their engine, they generally also have some sort of personalization to the body. This was a POS white car that I can probably run faster than.

No Cullen would be able to coax speed out of that thing.

And so, I was amused by the bumper sticker that was clearly inappropriate for the vehicle.

Now, if it had been on a sports car of some sort… well… that would just be needless vandalism, then, wouldn’t it be?

wRitErsbLock

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