Just a quick list of places I’ve always wanted to go or return to.
Japan (Kyoto Geishas)
Stonehenge
Venice
Las Vegas
Grand Canyon
Alaska (Northern Lights)
Yellowstone Park
Everglades
Scotland
Ireland
Costa Rica/Equador (hummingbirds)
Arizona/New Mexico (hummingbirds)
Maine
Australia
Egypt
Prague - Mucha Museum
San Diego – Return
Mammoth Cave – Return
Pittsburgh - Return
Anything to add to the list?
‘Last night for movie night over at Larken’s place, we watched “Shall we dance?”, a 2004 remake of the Japanese version, “Shall we dance?”. It was a surprisingly cute chic-flick. I say surprising, because I really don’t like Jennifer Lopez. She spent 2/3rds of the movie looking pissed off. Whee. 
Anyway, the reason it’s stuck in my head today is that like the very first dancing movie I ever saw, “Strictly Ballroom”, it made me want to take dance lessons. Unlike “Dirty Dancing”, which was ALL about Swayze’s ass and a taudry romance, “Strictly Ballroom” was about the romance AND the actual dance steps. The music is stunning, and every time I watch it, I want run out and sign up for dance lessons so I can learn to move like that. Thanks, Meggie, for making me watch it for the first time and getting me totally hooked. There’s just something about good music that really gets to my feet. So, I left Larken’s place last night wanting to grab John and sign us both up for a long set of dance lessons. At least we’d look good at our wedding, whenever that may be. As another plus, there’s the fun dresses.
Another big part of me being totally girly is… hummingbirds! They’re almost here! They should arrive here sometime from tomorrow through Monday. I have my feeders all ready and filled up, just waiting. I keep imagining I hear one outside, but.. nothing yet. I planted all of my plants outside, but they are too little to bloom yet. 
I found out that hummingbirds tend to follow the blooming of the Dwarf Red Buckeye, so I will have to buy a ton of them once we buy a real house. Next decade, perhaps. I don’t want to plant expensive trees and then move out.
The bad part about spring is that all the wasps start coming back to life. John bought me some wasp death traps for my birthday last year. I have one up now, but no waspy death yet. I’ve been using sugar water, but I think I will switch to something fruity and yellow. Yellow being the favorite color of bees and wasps. I plan on letting the honeybees out, but killing all of the wasps. I really hate wasps. All of the ones flying around now ore females, looking for nesting spots. Each one I kill now means 30 more I won’t see this summer. I want to just run around in the backyard with a can of wasp spray and kill everything I see. Kill!
So, I get to help put on a baby shower for my girl Larken! I’m excited (because it’s a party) just to be helping out, but she gave me charge of the invites. Heee. One of the plusses to working in the postal service is that you know when the mail policies change. Back in October, the mail laws changed the so that it was okay to send irregular shaped stuff thought the mail (you may recall the die-cut postcards that popped up). This means that I can use bizarre packing material as well. Like baby bottles.
I decided to use the baby bottle like a mailing tube, and call it a ‘message in a bottle’. Lame, but cute at the same time. Larken and I got some cute Pooh stationary at Hobby Lobby, which I rolled up and tied like a message, then put some crinkle paper and some baby confetti. It’ll go right through the mail, and I hope the receivers think it’s as cute as I do. I also spent the day making ‘Boo Boo Bunnies’, to hand out as goodie gifts to the mommies with small children. I ran across the idea on this site. They struck me as simple to make and adorable, so I tried my hand at some. I still have to put on some pink puffy noses and some white tails, but they are easy. I even changed the design a bit to make three lop bunnies. They look cute, but not quite as cute as the regular ones. I made all blue ones because Larken’s having a boy, but I may get some pink washcloths for mommies with girls at home. You know how kids fight over the littlest detail. I attempted to sew some eyes on the bunnies, but the embroidered eyes just looked lame when put next to the googly eyed bunnies, so I changed them all. I’d never heard of these things before, but it seems that they’ve been around for quite a while, more than 30 years! Some of the boo boo bunny poems are stupid, but I like the one of the site above best. Oh, just in case you didn’t think of it first: BAAABIES EVERYWHERE!
Day 4- Got up early and went to the zoo. We got some great 3-for-1 park tickets. $98 for unlimited visit to the Zoo, Sea World, and the Wild Animal park. The tickets for the zoo are $25 each, and Sea World is $50 eash. Two trips to the zoo and one to Sea World would more than pay for itself. Happily ticketed, we went to the kid’s zoo and the hummingbird aviary first. I spent a good deal of time in the hummingbird aviary taking pictures, but I was disappointed. They only had one hummingbird in the actual aviary, and it didn’t fly from the branch it was on for the entire time I was there. There are lots of other colorful birds, but it was a hummingbird exhibit. I don’t know if there are more there in the summer (since hummers migrate), but it was a letdown. I kept seeing hummingbirds everywhere, but none low enough to the ground for a photo. There were a bunch of naked mole rats in the kids zoo.
They were the most active thing in the park, crawling all over each other the whole time. I ran out of space on my 512MB memory stick, so I changed to my 1GB stick and kept going. We caught a sea lion show, then we saw some huge orange monkeys John loves.
They were having fun playing with some boxes. We went through an aviary with lots of rainbow birds, then we saw more monkeys and a big hippo. Those things are HUGE! They even had a great birds of prey exhibit, with Harpy Eagles. Harpy Eagles are the biggest eagles in the world, and tied with Snowy Owls for my very favorite raptors. We saw a polar bear and a lot of giraffes too. Our feet started killing us, so we caught a quick bus tour and left for the day. Before we left the park though, I got my name painted in a very pretty letter art style by some Chinese lady named Pia. We’d planned another day at the zoo, but I felt like we’d seen enough, so we changed plans and went to Sea World the next day.
Day 5- Sea World San Diego is almost identical to Sea World Orlando, which John and I visited in 2003. We just wandered around for all day. There were a few differences, mostly in the food. It was that way with the zoo too. Out here, if you want food, you get overpriced hamburgers and hotdogs. In San Diego, if you want food, you get real food. They actually served good pasta at Sea World, and rice bowls at the zoo. It’s odd. Anyway, the first thing we saw that was different at Sea World was the ‘Shamu Close-Up’ pool. It’s a viewing pool that Shamu swims around in. He had to be about 15ft away from us. I got a few shots, then we moved on to the dolphin cove.
They actually have underwater viewing here, which was new. I got so excited that I stepped over a guardrail without ever noticing. One of the dolphins cam right up and said hi… by spraying water all over me. I got quite soaked, but I managed to shield the poor camera from most of it. After that, I gave it to John while I played with the dolphin some more. He seemed to think it was quite funny. We saw the sea lions and the seals, then went through the shark tube. It was too dark in there for decent photos though.
We stopped by the sea lions again so John could throw some stinky fish at them, then we caught the Shamu Show. I got some great pictures of Shamu heaving his 5 tons of whale self out of the water. He sure creates a huge splash! Saw some more hummingbirds here too, again none low enough for pictures. We pet a few slimy stingrays, then moved on to the Clydesdale hamlet. I swear, I almost peed myself in glee. I LOVE huge horses. To me, a horse should be big boned, heavy, and tall. I even got to pet one named Roy while the stable hands weren’t looking. Roy likes to have his nose scratched, and seemed disappointed when I left. We headed on to the arctic exhibits. They have a few belugas, a walrus, a polar bear and a bunch of penguins and puffins. This is about the point where I noticed that I’d drained both of my extra camera batteries and I only had 13 minutes left on my current one. We caught a fun dolphin show, but I ran out of batteries before it was over. There were a few animals we’d missed that day, so we decided to come back the day after. On the way back to the hotel that night, I stopped in to RiteAid to put some photos on a CD, because I was running out of space on the 1GB memory stick as well. They took forever, but it was $5 for 120 photos safe on a CD. I had 175 on that (the 512MB) stick, so there were 55 left that I needed to keep.
Day 6- I got so excited about going back to Sea World that I woke up way too early. To kill some time, I decided to delete the pictures I’d put on the CD the day before. Evidently I was more sleep-foggy then I thought, because sure enough.. I deleted 45 of the 55 I needed to keep. Nerg. They were all the ones from the zoo, in the hummingbird aviary and the kids section. Stupid, stupid! I spent time really beating myself up before I realized that we had that great 3-for-1 pass. I could go back to the zoo and get more photos on the day after! Whew! We went back to Sea World, and had another grand day.
I finally got two photos of one of the many hummingbirds around San Diego. The bird turns out to be a female Anna’s Hummingbird, a species that stays all year round in San Diego. I was elated. John and I went to go see the manatees and take some more pictures. One of them had a huge white scarred chunk in it’s tail. I’ll bet that hurt, poor thing. They were having fun with the lettuce. Another trip to the shark tube was fun, but the second time around with the belugas was even better for me. I like whales much better. Especially ones that swim upside-down and smile at me. We searched the entire park for the darn sea turtles, then caught another dolphin show since my batteries had died in the middle of the last one. I got a bit sun-burned sitting there, but not badly. Another visit to Roy the Clydesdale made me happy. Feet hurting again, we called it a day. We spent the rest of the night in the hotel room, watching CSI on Spike and planning what to get for people as gifts.
Day 7- Back to the zoo for the second set of hummingbird and naked mole rat photos. I only got one good one of the lone hummingbird, but I got a few more good ones of the other birds in the aviary. I have no idea what most of them were, but I know one was a tanger. I meant to take a photo of the species plaque, but I forgot. I don’t even know what the hummingbird was, even though I had to have looked at the sign 3 times at least. We walked around a bit more so that the souvenir shop would be open. The otter was awake that day, so I got a bunch of pictures of him. He was swimming upside-down too. We saw the naked mole rats again, as active as the last time. They are SO ugly. About noon, the shop was open and we bought a few items, then left. We caught the trolley down to Tijuana, Mexico, about a 30 minute ride. The line ends right at the border and you have to take a foot bridge over.
Two pairs of metal gates later, I was out of the United States for the first time in my life. And boy.. was it scary. Right our of the gates is a whole two blocks of nothing but pharmacies and dental clinics. I’m serious. The dentists are actually standing around in the road, yelling at you to come in and get your teeth taken care of. I’ve never been to an open-air market before, and having people yell at you in the middle of the street was scary. I’d imagined Mexico as some sort of happy, brightly colored tourist trap, not the pharmacy riddled blocks I saw. I got pretty scared, wondering how on earth we’d get to the real tourist stuff. We were finally nabbed by one of the nicest taxi drivers there, who told us he’d take us to the shopping strip for $4 each. Extortion by U.S. standards, but John and I were happy to leave the yelling dentists behind. It was also my very first ride in a taxi. He dropped us off and told us to look for guys in yellow shirts when we needed a taxi ride back to the border. We thanked him and began shopping for cheap Mexican chintzy stuff. There were still people yelling here too. Buy this necklace, only $1.. come into my shop for knives and hats.. etc. We went into a shop filled with brightly painted clay animals. Cats, turtles, fish, frogs, elephants.. etc.
The guy there didn’t quite get the meaning of the American ‘just looking’ thing, because he just kept talking to me. He’d pick up stuff and ask “Maybe this?” over and over.. After spending a crazy amount (by U.S. standards) for clay items, we left that shop and continued walking. I wanted a colorful Mexican shirt like Larken has, but when I held one up to me, it looked retarded. I looked at a nice brown one in a store, but the guy wanted too much for it. He went from $25 to $14, but I still didn’t want it for that much, so we left again. After about an hour of having people scream at me from their shops (”Hey, pretty lady! Redheads get 75% off today!!”), I was really beginning to panic. I’m SO not used to having people get up in my face when they want me to buy stuff from them. We got a taxi ride back to the border, where I almost panicked again, because it didn’t look like the same place we’d come across. It turned out to be, but I was still scared. After going through the check-in line (”Are you Americans?” “Yes.” “Right then, off you go.”), we were finally back where people don’t yell at you in the roads. I sighed audibly and was still shaking nervously by the time we got back into downtown 30 minutes later. I don’t think I ever want to go back to Mexico again.
John says what I experienced is called ‘acculturation’. I just call it fucking scary. So I’m a small-town girl. Bah. Got some dinner and crashed in the hotel. CSI was so much nicer (read: more familiar) than Mexico.
Day 8- We kept the last day free to shop, and that’s what we did. We bought fun gifts for eighteen people! I still have to send most of them out, but some have already been given to their recipients. Trinny got some Indian tea and a plushie bat from the zoo. Larken got a turtle jewel box from Mexico. Munchie got some stretchy stingrays from Sea World. Blixem and a few other people got tee-shirts, because they’re men and don’t want anything else. Atari got a ‘surf or die’ skeleton. Gonzo and Ross got some books about pirates from the bay area. I bought myself and Meggie semi-matching Chinese blouses. mine is lavender with dark purple bamboo patterns, her is dark purple with a golden bamboo pattern. both of the blouses have the same design and cut though. I couldn’t decide which one I liked best (and wanted to keep for myself) though, until I got back to the hotel room and tried them on. One was a size smaller than the other, and since Meggie has less broad shoulders than me, she got the smaller one. I couldn’t even get into the thing. She looks better in darker colors anyway. We bought my Dad, my Mom, my brother, John’s brother, John’s Dad, Larry, Hannah, Mrs Dean, and Brian Snyder gifts as well, but they haven’t been given out yet, so I will refrain from spoiling the surprise here.
Day 9- By the time the final day rolled around, we were happy to leave. The hotel room was horrid. Well, more accurately, it was the hotel room’s shower that was horrid. It had a nasty habit of going from about 30F to about 130F in the span of about 5 seconds. Getting frozen and scalded isn’t my idea of a fun shower. On top of the noise the first night, the inattentive staff and the 20×20 room size, I wouldn’t spend another visit there if they paid ME! We snagged breakfast at the airport and got on the plane. It was one of the ones with two rows of seats on each side and three in the middle of the plane. The most comfy plane I’ve ever been in. The ride back was 3.5 hours instead of the 5 hours it took us to get out there, so it was nice all around. I even got to hear Paul Simon’s ‘Call me Al’ song near the end of the flight.
Makes me so happy, I named my website after it. Heh, and Meggie did too, which is even cooler. Jared even made a never-updated page on AOL and named it ‘trips and follies’. Not from the song, but in the spirit, no less. I feel like I started something here.. I called Larken when we got back on the ground. She said she hadn’t seem my Stumpy kitty since Wednesday, so I got really worried. I called around for here and even checked the Humane Society’s website for her, but she showed up about 3 hours after we got back. I was so happy to see her. I missed my kitty .
See the photo albums:
Day 1- Drove down to Atlanta early, had lunch with John’s dad before we flew out. Flew out at 5:30pm. I love flying, but the 5 hours we were stuck in our seats was a killer. Whee for books. I had to get up and use the airline toilet, something I’ve never done before. It’s bizarre peeing into something that moves/vibrates. We got into San Diego at 7:10pm, but it was 10:10 our time. We were zonked. Called for the hotel shuttle and got checked in. Ate some nasty Chinese (the only place that would deliver) since it was pouring outside, then went to bed. Woke up a scant 3 hours later to Michael Jackon’s ‘Beat It’ being played 15 feet from our room at what seemed to be 400 decibels. Turns out it’s a nightclub! As the rock and techno keeps going, we call the lobby to complain, who call the police to come get the music turned down. I was all set to go beat some ass, but there was no repeat.
Back to sleep. The roof does have a stunning view though, especially at night.
Day 2- Got up a bit grumpy from the music the night before, got dressed and went out on the town. A breakfast at Starbucks later, we were off wandering the downtown area. We looked in a few stores (there’s an awesome Asian place), then wandered over towards the bay/harbor. They have tons of neat ships there you can tour, mostly old-time ones. The ship used in Master and Commander is even moored there. After some fun lunch at the famous Anthony’s on the Waterfront, we decided to go on a whale watching tour. This was a very new experience for me because the only boat I’ve ever been on was the Disneyland Ferry!
The real ocean was MUCH different. I can understand why people get seasick now. The boat rolled and heaved under us like some drunken horse. The ship goes up a swell, then down into the trough behind it. If there’s a big swell, the boat actually drops straight down! I makes the strangest feeling in the pit of your stomach. I somehow managed not to fall over or down the stairs, but just barely. We didn’t see much of the whales while were out there, but we did see a pod of wild dolphins. They came right up to the ship, about 2 feet away. I was so excited that my hands were shaking, and I only got one good photo of them. After coming back from the tour, we got a ride back to the hotel in a pedi-cab. The poor bike guy had a rough time hauling our lard-asses about. Good thing there aren’t many hills here. We got some postcards to mail out and some food, then sat around in the hotel for the rest of the night, watching HBO. I went up on the roof to get some night shots of the city. While I was up there, some guy actually proposed to his girl there. Heh.
Day 3- Got up today and got breakfast the Starbucks again. Yummy. Filled out the postcards and mailed them. Hopefully they will get home to people before we do. I even got to see two wild hummingbirds here! I have no idea what they were though. Not familiar with the species on this side of the US. We walked down toward the harbor/bay again, to tour the USS Midway, an out of commission aircraft carrier. It was fun, until we got to the foot wide 60% angle ladders up to the bridge. That sucked, but I managed not to fall down any of them. Still have NO idea how. After that, we went to an open-air mall for lunch. It was awesome. Wish we had those back home! Too bad it’d be boiling in the summer, freezing in the winter, and wet all spring. That’s what we get for living in Georgia. After a long lunch, we contemplated going to Mexico for half-a-day, but decided our feet needed to be saved for tomorrow and Tuesday. Our trip to the San Diego Zoo! I found a place for internet and uploaded a few shots, and that’s it so far!!
Since I’m on a slow-ass connection, there are only 10 photos in the San Diego album.
Have you ever spoken and wished that you could immediately take the words back…or that you could crawl into a hole? Here are the testimonials of a few people who did….
FIRST TESTIMONY: I walked into a hair salon with my husband and three kids in tow and asked loudly, “How much do you charge for a shampoo and a blow job?” I turned around and walked back out and never went back. My husband didn’t say a word…he knew better.
SECOND TESTIMONY: I was at the golf store comparing different kinds of golf balls. I was unhappy with the women’s type I had been using. After browsing for several minutes, I was approached by one of the good-looking gentlemen who works at the store. He asked if he could help me. Without thinking, I looked at him and said, “I think I like playing with men’s balls.”
THIRD TESTIMONY: My sister and I were at the mall and passed by a store that sold a variety of candy and nuts. As we were looking at the display case, the boy behind the counter asked if we needed any help. I replied, “No, I’m just looking at your nuts.” My sister started to laugh hysterically. The boy grinned, and I turned beet-red and walked away. To this day, my sister has never let me forget.
FOURTH TESTIMONY: While in line at the bank one afternoon, my toddler decided to release some pent-up energy and ran amok. I was finally able to grab hold of her after receiving looks of disgust and annoyance from other patrons. I told her that if she did not start behaving “right now” she would be punished. To my horror, she looked me in the eye and said in a voice just as threatening, “If you don’t let me go right now, I will tell Grandma that I saw you kissing Daddy’s pee-pee last night!” The silence was deafening after this enlightening exchange. Even the tellers stopped what they were doing. I mustered up the last of my dignity and walked out of the bank with my daughter in tow. The last thing I heard when the door closed behind me, were screams of laughter.
FIFTH TESTIMONY: Have you ever asked your child a question too many times? My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training and I was on him constantly. One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch in between errands. It was very busy, with a full dining room. While enjoying my taco, I smelled something funny, so of course I checked my seven-month-old daughter, and she was clean. Then I realized that Danny had not asked to go potty in a while, so I asked him if he needed to go, and he said “No”. I kept thinking “Oh Lord, that child has had an accident, and I don’t have any clothes with me.” Then I said, “Danny, are you SURE you didn’t have an accident?” “No,” he replied. I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse. Soooooo, I asked one more time, “Danny, did you have an accident?” This time he jumped up, yanked down his pants, bent over and spread his cheeks and yelled “SEE MOM, IT’S JUST FARTS!!” While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing, he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down. An old couple made me feel better by thanking me for the best laugh they’d ever had!
LAST TESTIMONY: This had most of the state of Michigan laughing for 2 days and a very embarrassed female news anchor who will, in the future, likely think before she speaks. What happens when you predict snow but don’t get any… a true story… We had a female news anchor that, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn’t, turned to the weatherman and asked: “So Bob, where’s that 8 inches you promised me last night?” Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too they were laughing so hard!
