Day 1: our heroine's journey begins

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I’m back, and I have so many stories to tell, I don’t know where to begin. I also have a lot of pictures, which I need to upload. It’s all sort of overwhelming, so I suppose I’ll try to recap each day of the trip separately. Here’s the story of day one.

The flight down was pretty uneventful. I flew from Seattle to Denver, and then from Denver to Little Rock. The second leg of the trip was more noteworthy because I had the misfortune of sitting next to a man who was quite possibly the biggest asshole I’ve ever encountered. Examples of his assholishness:

1. A couple and their toddler sat down across the aisle from us. The little boy was completely adorable, and I said something like, “oh, he’s so cute,” loud enough for the parents to hear, and they turned and smiled at me. Dude next to me said (also loud enough for the parents to hear), “I hate kids on planes.” I think it’s worth noting that the child hadn’t done anything at that point, except follow his parents and sit quietly in his seat. Um, ooookay.

2. The flight attendant asked him a couple of times to raise his seat back before take-off. Now, I’ve always thought that was kind of a stupid rule, but it’s an FAA regulation, so you just do it and shut up about it, right? And honestly, how much of a difference does lowering your seat back really make in your comfort level on a plane? It’s what, a difference of two inches? Anyway, dude ignored her requests to raise his seat back. Finally, the male flight attendant came over, pushed the button and raised the guy’s seat himself, and said, “Sir, I’m sorry, but we need you to keep your seat up while we take off.” As soon as the flight attendant walked away, he pushed the button and lowered it again. Argh.

3. He had a pack of Marlboro Reds sticking out of his shirt pocket, and he had a ginormous belt buckle to perfectly accessorize his Wrangler jeans. I’m just sayin’.

4. During landing, he said something about how he had to drive a long way after we got to Little Rock because he lived way out in the boonies of Arkansas. (Shocking!) I was trying to be polite, so I said yeah, me too, I have to rent a car and drive to Memphis. He asked why, so I explained that my best friend was moving to Seattle, so I was flying down to drive up with her so she wouldn’t have to drive 2400 miles by herself. He asked what route we were taking, and I gave him the rough draft – major cities and interstates we were going to hit, that kind of thing. This is the conversation that ensued:

Him (giving a disgusted look): Well, just make sure you avoid St. Louis.
Me: Why’s that?
Him: It’s a dark town.
Me: Um… sorry?
Him: You know what I mean.

I honestly had never heard that term before, so it confused me to no end. In my head, I was thinking, “What, there’s a big goth scene in St. Louis? Why would that be scary?” Then it hit me. Riiiiight. Because the trip wouldn’t have been complete without some kind of racist remark from that asshole. I tried to keep myself from calling him an ignorant moron, since I still had to sit next to him for at least another 15 minutes, so I explained that I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and I lived in Memphis for several years, so I’m really not scared of black people, and I don’t fear for my own personal safety or anything of that nature. I quickly went back to my book and ended the conversation. Afterward, my mom told me that I should’ve told him that I’m one quarter African-American just so I could’ve watched him squirm and backpedal. I so wish I had thought of that myself.

Driving to Memphis was uneventful. I took some pictures through the car windshield, some of which turned out halfway decent. (They’ll be online soon, I promise.) Finally I met up with Kris. We dropped off my rental car, picked up Lucky from the groomer’s, and headed back to her house. We hung out with her folks and a couple of our friends for the rest of the night. We ordered in food – barbeque, since it was Kris’s last dinner in Memphis and you can’t get decent BBQ here to save your life – and we all helped her finish up some last minute packing and cleaning. That’s about it.

Stay tuned for future posts, which will include stories such as: getting pulled over for suspicion of drunk driving (I wasn’t, I swear); chasing a dog through a truck stop parking lot with no shoes on, just socked feet on snow and ice; and pathetic attempts at flirting with Mormon mechanics in Utah. Good times.

no woman, now cry

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Hi folks,

You may well be able to discern from my deep typing voice that this is not the Poobou. I have decided to execute my right as co-author of the site to ‘write a damn post’ as my lovely wife might put it!

Well, Cindy has been away for 2 days now, and I assume she will be somewhere in deepest Nebraska right now with nought but a sedan, a best friend and an iPod. Not a bad place to be, in my opinion..

So how am I enjoying my time on my own… well… I’ve managed to keep 35% of the house tidy and have only broken 3 ornaments. I have also introduced my guitar amplifier to ‘Volume level 7’.. I fear notching it up to 10 until we’ve had the siding on the house fixed.

Strangely enough, I usually thrive in my own space (I did a remarkable job for 20 odd years), but I do find myself wanting my spouse back home at her earliest convenience :)… I guess I’m just turning into a sentimental fuddy-duddy as I get older.

SO here’s good vibes to Cindy’s road trip, I can only imagine the fun they’re having… *unwraps 2-day-old ham sandwich , stares blankly at open, and surprisingly incomplete, weekly report*

I shall report in as I hear from the Cindy, and I may also take time to fill you in on the perils that I will be facing from a weekend alone, with 4 cats, a pizza take out menu, and a widescreen TV… Pray for me…

road trip

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In approximately 24 hours, my plane will have just touched down in Little Rock. (Yeah, I know, but it was cheaper than flying to Memphis. I’m renting a car to drive the hour & a half difference, and it’s still cheaper than a direct flight.) By this time on Friday, I’ll be in a car with my best friend and her dog as we start our fun-filled, 2,400-mile, cross-country journey.



Impressive, huh? Nebraska looks pretty daunting to me, like it just goes on forever. The last time I drove cross-country, Montana was the state where I started to get really cranky because it felt like we would never reach the opposite state line. On this trip, I’m predicting that I’ll feel the same way about Nebraska.

Back when I moved here in 2001, my mom and I drove through Wyoming, and I really dug it because we got to see Devil’s Tower, the mountain from “Close Encounters.” That was pretty darn cool. Apparently the Native Americans think that it has some kind of mystical, supernatural powers, and it might’ve just been a coincidence, but that was the only time in the entire 3,000-mile trip that Teenie went from quietly sleeping in the backseat to wigging the hell out. She was running all over the car, meowing her little head off, and trying to paw her way through the rolled-up car windows. It was quite bizarre. We tried to pretend that it was nothing supernatural or eerie, and probably just had to do with the fact that there were a lot of prairie dog fields around there, and she could probably smell them. That’s what I’d prefer to think, anyway. (Oh, and as soon as we left? She got in her little spot in the backseat and went back to sleep, just like she had done for the previous three days. Even my mom got kind of creeped out by her behavior.)

On this trip, we’re going to be on the wrong side of the state for Devil’s Tower, and I don’t think we’re going to be doing any several hundred mile detours just to see it. In fact, I’m dreading Wyoming because we’re going to have to drive through Laramie, and I’m pretty sure Kris’s car still has a PFLAG bumper sticker on it. I think we’ll just drive like hell through that general vicinity.

I won’t have Internet access while I’m on the road, since I’m trying to travel light and I don’t want to be schlepping (sp?) my laptop all across the United States. Plus, we’re going to be staying in pretty cheap motels, and most of them don’t have high-speed access. As much as I love this blog, I don’t see myself trying to post an entry over a dial-up connection. (I shudder to even imagine how slow that would be.) However, I bought a journal – the real kind, like with paper and everything – and some fancy colored pens, and I intend to keep a travel diary of sorts, so hopefully I can transcribe most of it when I get back, and who knows, some of it might even be interesting. I’m also bringing my camera, so if nothing else, there will be lots of pictures.

happy valentine's day

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I forgot to mention the completely overwhelmingly romantic weekend we had. (Can you tell I’m being a little sarcastic?) Saturday the 11th was the one year anniversary of the day that Dave and I got engaged. How did we celebrate, you ask? (Or, I assume you would ask, if you actually gave a flip?) Well, we had a contractor come to our house to give us an estimate on new siding. So we got to spend a couple of hours talking about vinyl versus fiber cement, and all of the mildew and rotting wood that currently exists on the outside of our home. Isn’t that sweet? For dinner, we had leftover pizza. Mmmm… Oh, the rapture of it all.

Then yesterday was the anniversary of the day I got my ring. I totally forgot that one until we were in the car driving to work this morning. As for Valentine’s Day itself, other than the festively pink-and-white M&M’s that I bought on sale at the supermarket last week, we haven’t done anything to mark that occasion either. In fact, I sort of forgot that was today too. I hope Dave hasn’t bought me anything because I totally forgot to get something for him. I told him last week that he was off the hook and didn’t have to get me any gifts. I really hope he listened.

I guess the moral of the story is that I don’t need a Hallmark-dictated holiday to tell my husband how much I love him, because I do that pretty regularly. (And vice versa.) This is pretty much the same as any other ol’ Tuesday, there’s just a lot more candy around. Which I fully support.

mentally destroyed on a Sunday

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This afternoon, I met up with a couple of friends to see “Brokeback Mountain.” I’ve heard and read so much about the film over the past couple of months that I thought I had pretty well prepared myself for it. I mean, there’s been so much hype about it that I figured it would either be a let-down, or else I’d find myself studying the actors rather than getting involved with the characters in the story. And I guess I was sort of right – watching the movie was pretty intense (moreso than I expected), but I didn’t cry or anything. (I cry a lot during movies. Way more than I do in real life.) Now, several hours later, I can’t seem to get that movie out of my head. I think it’s probably messed me up for the next couple of days. I won’t give away any spoilers for those who haven’t seen it, just… damn.

Random aside: There were several old ladies in the theater with us, which I didn’t even notice until halfway through the movie. I really wonder what on earth they thought about the more graphic scenes. They must have been ok with it since they didn’t get up and leave. I guess by their age, they’ve probably seen it all.

After the movie, I went for lunch with the ladies, which was nice. I spent the rest of the afternoon running errands getting ready for my road trip with Kris later this week. I hit a few motels to get their national directories (good to have when you don’t have a specific plan of exactly where you’re going to stop on the road), and I bought one of those big road atlas books that has maps of all the states. Because hey, MapQuest isn’t always 100% accurate, so it’s good to have a back-up reference.

I can’t quite believe that I’m going to be in Memphis in 4 days. Well ok, the going to Memphis part really isn’t that big a deal – hell, I was there less than a year ago. I think what’s more shocking is the fact that Kris is finally moving here after talking about it for the past five years. I’m so happy about that, and a little nervous because I want her to find all of the happiness and success that she deserves, and all I can do is hope that this is the place where she’ll find it. I’m confident that she has a better chance of finding it here than in Memphis, so at least I know she’s making a step in a positive direction for her life. But I also know from experience that major transitions are never easy, so I just pray that hers is as smooth and painless as possible.

look out, kitty

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I’ve been debating on whether or not I was going to write about this, or if it fell under the too personal/gross category, but…. ah, hell with it, I still think it’s funny. A few people who read this have already heard this story, so apologies to them.

Ok, I’m using these “ovulation detector” tests while we’re trying to get pregnant. Basically, you pee on a stick and if there are two lines, it means you’re ovulating, so quick! Go have sex! Whee! However, there are two major catches on the instructions:
1. It says that the best time to test is between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. Apparently most women get their LH surge in mid-morning, so that would be the best time to detect it. That’s not entirely undoable, but I’m at work for the majority of that time frame, so it definitely makes things more complicated. Especially since I absolutely will not be bringing any pee sticks into a ladies’ room stall with me. Call me a prude, but I save that stuff for when I’m at home.
2. The directions say to minimize your fluid intake and not pee for at least four hours before you take the test. Now that is a problem. I’m one of those eternally thirsty people. I always have a beverage at my desk – usually two, a water and a soda. And the only time that I ever go four hours without peeing is when I’m asleep.

But, in the interest of trying to get myself “up the duff” (as Dave says – don’t ask me, I guess it’s a British thing), I’ve decided to give it a try. The time to start monitoring my cycle was this past Sunday. No big deal. Monday was the first time I tried it on a workday. I managed to go the whole afternoon with only one cup of water. Driving home nearly killed me because I have this insane neuroses about the fact that I must go to the bathroom before I get in the car to go anywhere. It’s one of those things my mother drilled into my head as a child, and I seriously can’t go anywhere without peeing first. Many of my friends (and Dave too) have teased me about this over the years. It’s kind of insane, I can’t even go a mile down the street to pick up our take-out, even when I know without a doubt in my mind that I’ll be back at home in less than 5 minutes. But on Monday afternoon, I did it. I called Kris from my cell phone and had her talk to me during my entire drive home to distract me from thinking about the fact that “oh my god, I didn’t pee before I left work, now what will happen if I hit traffic, I will explode and die!!”

By the time I got home, it had been about three hours since the last time I peed. I was practically hopping up & down on one foot, so I decided that three hours was close enough to four, and went to do the test.

Teenie followed me into the bathroom, just like she always does. I don’t really have any hang-ups about cats in the bathroom with me, so no big deal. She sat on the floor in front of the toilet, right between my legs – the perfect spot so I can scratch her head while I’m going to the bathroom, which is normally fine.

I guess I didn’t realize just how badly I really needed to pee, because the force of it literally ricocheted off of the pee stick and hit the cat smack in the face. She sort of jerked her head back and gave me this absolutely horrified look, and then stormed off to the other side of the bathroom, where she sat on the bathmat and started washing her face. I could not stop laughing. It was only a drop or two, it’s not like I sprayed her, but her reaction was priceless.

Of course, after all of this, I had to go and tell Dave (because really, the poor guy isn’t subjected enough to the details of my bodily functions), and we both laughed until we cried. Such responsible pet owners we are. We’re obviously totally ready for parenthood.

the dog situation

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This is Lucky.



Lucky is Kris’s dog, so when Kris moves in with us in a couple of weeks, Lucky will be moving in along with her. There’s a pretty good chance that Dave and I might end up keeping her, since Kris will be moving into an apartment, and she might have trouble finding a place that will allow her to have two cats and one 40-pound dog in an apartment. (For the record, Kris’s mom is keeping her cats until she finds a place and gets settled. Then her mom & stepdad will fly up with the cats. We cannot have 6 cats in our house. Can. Not. My sinuses would explode and die.)



Lucky is about a year old now, and Kris has always had sort of a fear that she’s not a very good dog mom, so she isn’t all hell bent on keeping her like most dog-owners would be. For the record, I think she’s probably a very good dog mom, she just feels guilty for not spending enough time with her and not walking her enough. It might be easier for me and Dave since there are two of us, and we live on a couple of acres, so there would be plenty of room for her to run around. It’s probably a preferable living situation for most dogs.

I have to admit, though, I’m a little nervous about it. I’ve never had a dog before, I’ve only had cats. Ok, technically? We had a dog until I was about a year old, but I don’t remember her, so I don’t think that counts.

But seriously, we have four cats, and already that feels like a huge responsibility because I worry that we don’t pay enough attention to them as it is. And cats are way more independent than dogs, so I’m not sure how that’ll work out. I guess I’ve just always been a cat person. I mean, of course I like dogs, I think they’re cute and all, but I sort of freak out whenever one licks me in the face. So the whole dog-ownership idea is just a little daunting to me. Fortunately, Dave has had lots of dogs and doesn’t seem at all worried about the idea, so I’m sure it’ll be ok, whatever happens. (That’s very typical of us in most situations: I freak out and panic, he stays calm and tells me everything will be fine, now will I please for the love of all things holy just take a bloody xanax and sit still for a little while?)

And now, just for the “awww” factor, I have to throw in these photos of her as a puppy:





Is that not the cutest face you’ve ever seen? I mean, really? Ok, maybe this dog-having idea isn’t so bad after all.