I'm home!

Sorry to be so delinquent in posting but dad doesn't have internet or internet access of any kind.  But that's ok because I had the worst head cold (or allergies - still TBD) while I was with him. 

For those of you who caringly asked - Dad is doing great.  He had a protruding disc that needed fixin'.  Originally they were going to just "trim it" but the night before the doc called and said he'd changed his mind - he was going to remove it.  Dad has this same surgery about 7-8 years ago and was in the hospital a week.  This time the doctor was able to do it less invasively and he only had to spend the night.    Can I just say Dad on Percoset is a hoot!

As expected Dad was flirting with all the nurses even in pre-op.  (He'd say he was just being nice but I call it flirting...)  He even had the Chaplin crackin up.  He was still crackin 'em up after surgery in his room when he was all high on Percoset (and lord knows what else they gave him.)  Funny guy, as usual!

I stayed all week and didn't end up leaving until Saturday.  I made an overnight pit stop in VA and then got home around 9pm Sunday night.  Needless to say I was pooped yesterday and not in the mood to start blogging. 

But there's more to this story (there always is...) and I'll fill in some details more later today or tomorrow.

Hmmm.  Where to begin??  I've been on the road and am currently in Charleston, SC.  I'm in a waiting room while my dad is having back surgery.  Not only am I sitting here waiting, but my brother is here with me!!!  For ya'll who know the story I am glad to report he is doing absolutely fabulous!  I'm so proud of him!!!  He leaves later this week to fly back to CA to start school. 

You know what I hate?  Getting to the bottom of your meal and finding something inedible in your food.  Although my dad is having surgery at this really modern, fabulous facility, I still got to the bottom of my salad in the cafeteria and found a dead bug.  Just writing about it is making me throw up in my mouth just a little...   Needless to say I didn't bother to capture it digitally to share...

I should also note here that if you're a friend of mine who reads this and lives in SC please do not be offended that I did not call to get in touch.  I didn't tell anyone I was coming because my only reason for coming was to take care of my dad during and after his back surgery.  Once my mother flew out to CO to "take care of me" after I had surgery and I hardly saw her.  She'd make me breakfast in the morning then get in my car and drive all the way to Denver to go antiquing and not come home until 5 or 6 in the evening.  She did this every day the whole week.  Needless to say I didn't feel especially taken care of and I'm not going to do that to my dad.... 

I'm a little brain dead so I'm just going to recount my adventures from most recent back.  'Cuz it's too hard to try and start at the beginning and go in chronological order...

So I drove dad and my brother to Charleston early this morning for dad's surgery.  Last night at dad's it occurred to me that his house is filled with "bloggable things".  Like this:

This is an actual bull ball sac.  Really.  My dad said it was a gift.  Who gives this as a gift?!?!?!?    Apparently this says a lot about my dad's friends...

On my way down to SC I stopped in WV.  (which is how I ended up with my brother.)  I got roped into going to church at my mom's little country church.  And when I say "country church" my brother and I estimated there were about 15 - 20 people, including the kids*.  And they had no piano player.  Apparently she threw out her back baling hay....  And it just so happened that my mpther gave the sermon that day, which happened to be Father's Day.  She said the sermon was on "Loving Father's".  But if you're a church goin' person you also know the story as the Prodigal Son.  My brother and I are convinced she chose that particular sermon because he and I were there.... 

*I was under the impression this was a little country church out in farming country.  And indeed it is small and out in the country.  I guess I also assumed moderate to poor socioeconomic status of attendees too...  But someone pulled out of the parking lot in a new Mercedes SUV.  Corn and hay must be good this year...

The previous night I stayed with my Aunt Newlywed and her husband Fiddler.  (btw - their 4 year anniversary is next week...)  This was the first time I saw their new house up on "the hill".  I'm not exactly sure how many acres they own but it's fair to say they have "land".  Aunt N took me on a tour of the "property" in their 6-wheel Polaris "thingy".  It's like an all wheel drive, souped up golf cart/ mini truck thing.  And we definitely needed the all wheel drive.  We were back on "the hill" in mud.  So in my infinite wisdom I decided to run "the hill" the next morning. Let's say that I definitely need a new pair of running shoes.  And there will forever be a 6" deep imprint of my foot on their land....

I finally got off "the hill" and out to the road.  I saw what looked like a dead little bird in the middle of the road and for some reason took a second glance.  It wasn't dead.  Something was wrong with one of it's legs.  So again, infinite wisdom, I decided to pick it up and bring it back to the house to see if there was anything that could be done for it.  I've been hanging around KVeg too much.... 

When I got back to the house I had to peel off my shoes and socks (and leave them outside) and had to scrub the splattered mud off my legs in the shower.  It was a fun run!!!  (if not exceptionally hard!!)

And now for the best story of all:

Last Monday I was to fly out to Chicago for another meeting.  My original flight at 11:30am had been cancelled and I was rescheduled for a 7pm flight.  I got to the airport and was at my gate by 6pm.  Our airport is little.  They had three flights going out of the same gate at 6:30, 7 and 7:15.  The first two flights were to Chicago and the last one to DC.  Since there were so many people sitting right at the gate I sat in the seating at the empty gate across from where I was boarding. 

I kept an ear our for my flight number and destination.  I kept hearing they were boarding to Chicago but it wasn't my flight number.  So I waited.  After a lot of folks got on the plane and out of my gate area seating I moved over to my gate.  I continued to sit and wait.  I even asked the attendant about my flight.  And I asked by flight number.  She replied that it was late and the plane coming in wasn't even landing until 9:45pm.  Ugh.  Oh well. I decided to just sit and read.  at 9:50 they boarded a plane to DC.  After that the attendant came over and asked me what flight I was waiting for.  I looked up and I was the ONLY person in the waiting area!!!!

WTF!!!

I must've sat and watched my plane board several hours earlier!!  And when I asked about my flight number the attendante must have misunderstood me and gave me the info on the flight to DC that had just boarded and left.

She booked me on the 6am flight for the next morning.  So I had the hubby come and get me.

But wait, there's more!!

I got home and set my new voice-activated clock's alarm to 4:30am for the next morning.  I set out my outfit so all I had to do was get up, brush my teeth, change clothes and go.  At some piont I woke up and saw a little bit of light starting to peek through our door.  I thought "well, the hubby took off all the blinds because we had new windows installed so that would make sense that I see a little light.....  But NOT at 4:30 in the morning!!!!!" 

Aaaaaahhh!  I sat staright up in bed.

My clock read 6:10am!   My alarm didn't go off and I missed my flight AGAIN!!! 

WTF!?!?!?!?

I was immediately on the phone to reschedule myself on the 7am flight.  I literally brushed my teeth, changed my undies, slapped on deodorant and jumped into my clothes and was out the door.  It was a close call but I made it on the plane.  (barely)

So, the moral of this story is - no matter how often you fly you can still screw it up!!

This week I'm going to try and relax while I'm taking care of dad.  And he's decided he wants to drive home with my later this week instead of driving up himself week after next....  So we'll be hittin' the road as soon as he's able.  And next week I'm back in the office as usual.  I'm sure I'll be bored...  ; )

A quick recap of 1100 miles

This was the the "college reunion" weekend.

Thursday afternoon the hubby and I set out to MD.  We visited Slice - my good friend from college rowing - that I hadn't actually seen in about 11 years.  Had a great time - good conversation and great burgers.  Wish I'd had longer to chat.

Friday we got up and headed to VA for Wandering Girl's wedding on Saturday.  I will post more on this later.  But in a nutshell, it was a beautiful outdoor wedding, even though they had to improvise due to torrential storms. 

We finished up the marathon car trip with the Sunday drive home.  I actually got to stop at an IKEA.  My first time IN a store.  It was great!!!.... until the few bigger things we wanted were ALL out of stock.  WTF?!?!?

We finally pulled in the drive around 8pm - after we made a detour to Pap John's.

I had a flight out today at 11:30AM.  Prior to that the window guys came to install our new windows.  Except:

• the slider was not yet in and they apparently "forgot" to tell us
• EVERY window had been mis-measured

Seriously.  One of the guys installing did the measuring.  He measured each one .5 to .75 inches too big.  So, to install they had to completely take out and revamp each window opening.  Needless to say they didn't get it all done today.  They'll be back on Thursday.  And...  all the new trim work we did over winter break?  We have to redo it all.  (at their expense, though)

Oh, and it's 9:05PM and I'm still sitting in my home airport.  The 11:30AM flight was cancelled.  I was re-booked for a 7PM flight.  The hubby brought me back to the airport.  But as I'm sitting here the 6:35PM flight that was leaving before mine was exceptionally late.  Then after they are boarded and out of the way I finally find out that my plane that will take me to my destination won't even land until 9:45PM.  So I've been sitting here in the airport this whole time.  See, I told you business travel is not sexy.

I'm soooo ready to be done with this summer travel....

You know it's bad when your hubby suggests a "real" vacation next summer and your first thought is "are you kidding??  I don't have it in me to plan that big of an event."  I told him if he wants a "real" vacation that's great - but he's planning every piece of it.  I'm just going to show up.

Biology - the major that keeps on giving

If you didn't know - I majored in biology in college.  (ok, really biological sciences, same shit different name..)  And then, much to the chagrin of my favorite botany professor, I went and got an MBA.  ('cuz I didn't see myself in a lab for the rest of my life...)

Based on my educational history I was under the erroneous assumption that I wouldn't use my biology degree much... or at all.  Apparently I was wrong.

You might think that I use it because I work for a medical device company and therefore it's useful to have a working knowledge of human biology.  That's true.  But I wouldn't say I use my degree.  It just makes understanding things I need to know a little less complicated.

But the hubby brought to my attention last night (via phone, of course.  again, we are in different cities...) that biology seems to have proven a great choice after all - even if I didn't plan it that way.  Because all the "weird shit" happens to me.

Case(s) in point:

• Tadpole rescues
• Frog relocation
• Bat catcher ( I have scrolled through my blog to link to this story and I suppose I never posted about it.  You know, 'cuz the true story makes my hubby look like a ninny...)

And now, I'm the bee keeper.

First - a side note on the bat:

A few summers ago, while my dad was visiting, we had a "visitor".  Dad was already in his room getting ready for bed.  I was already in bed when the hubby finally came upstairs after watching some late night tv.  He was standing at the sink brushing his teeth when he saw something swoop through the upstairs hall.  He thought he was just tired and his eyes were playing tricks until he saw it again going into his office!!  He ran to shut the door on his office to capture whatever it was and then ran and woke me up.  I have to say he was a smidge hysterical.  Apparently there was a bat in his office. 

I, on the other hand, was not too worked up about this.  First, you just woke me out of a dead sleep to tell me there's a bat in the house?  I don't care.  Get rid of it.  Secondly, it's just a bat.  It's not like you found a snake curled and ready to strike at you in the toilet!

By this time I think my dad was onto us.  He knew there was something up.  So now he's turned into a spectator of his still-relatively-new son-in-law's antics.  I found a shoe box in my closet and told him just to go in, catch it and take it outside.  No big deal.  So the hubby goes into his office, closes the door and we hear a few "whap, whap" where he's trying to smack the lid onto the box but apparently missing the bat.   Then he we hear a shriek and the hubby bounding out of his office.  This is NOT what you want to do when your FIL is in visiting....  I'm pretty sure my dad laughed at him.  I don't remember.  But I'm sure my hubby remembers exactly...

It became apparent that bats are to my hubby like snakes are to me.  The world would be a better place without them.  (or at least me ever coming in contact with one.)  So I ended up taking the shoebox, going in the office and retrieving the bat myself.  And then I let it go outside. 

Note:  I found out later that the DNR doesn't want you to let it go.  But I didn't know that.  Sorry.

Ok, back to my original story...

You know when you've had weeks when you're really busy and you're just looking forward to some downtime to relax, especially before the pace picks up again??  This was that week for me.  Except it's turned out not to be so relaxing.

The hubby is out of town so I'm by myself.  Yesterday I looked out on the backyard and saw a lump-o-something.  It was so big I was convinced a poo like that hadn't come out of one of my dogs so I went out to investigate.  I stood on the gazebo pad we have and saw an unidentified glob of something, about the size of a dinner plate,  in the grass... moving!  There was a lump in the middle and my first instinct was that we had some dead animal in the yard and it was covered in insects.  This is what I saw upon closer inspection:

BEES!


My first reaction?  "Fuck!  Shit like this only happens to me when the hubby's out of town.  Figures!!"
My second reaction?  "Now why in the world is there a gob-o-bees in my grass??  In the middle of the yard???"

I looked up and could see a broken hive way up in the tree above it.  The heavy winds we'd had the day before must have broken it off.  (although I still didn't realize bees would build a hive way up on a tree branch like that.  I'd have taken a picture but I don't have that good of a camera phone..)

So what do I do?  I called my dad.  Isn't that what they're for??  It seems my grandpa used to raise bees when dad was growing up so dad had a good bit of advise. 

• get yourself a coffee can
• get an old cotton rag
• make it smoke and smoke them off the heap
• then you can see what's under there and remove it

Ugh.  Really?  That's a lot of steps!  I haven't broken out the Girl Scout handbook in so long that this was actually making me nervous.  Ok, not nervous, but pissed.  Pissed that I had to even deal with this.  All I wanted was to make a great dinner and have a glass of wine.

So I went into the house and grabbed a coffee can - which miraculously I actually had - and old washcloth and the Bic Flame starter thingy.  (I'm sure that's what it's actually called.  It checked ; )   Note: a 100% cotton rag would probably have worked great.  It didn't occur to me until later that the cheapie wash cloth I grabbed was probably a cotton/ poly blend.  I had issues getting it to light...   But once I did light it I tried what dad suggested but it wasn't working.  I called him back.

"Poke some holes in the bottom of the can so the air can circulate better and increase the smoke."  Really??  This is waaay more effort that I want to put into this.  So after being whiny on the phone with dad I hung up and eventually went to the shed and put a few holes in the bottom of the can.  I grabbed the leather work gloves and the shovel - 'cuz I was a girl scout and I wanted to be prepared.

And this is what followed:

I let is stay there a while but those buggers wouldn't budge!  So I finally gave up and went inside and called the hubby back.  He looked online for some "bee hints" and got me the name of a honey place close to call the next day about possible removal.

Later that night I was thinking about what the hubby had found on the web - bees are least active at sun up and sun down.  The sun was going down so I thought I'd give it another look.  I went outside - which was starting to get chilly - and saw that the bees were there but hardly moving at all.  I'm guessing it was a combo of the timing and the temperature.

So I hustled out to the shed, got the flat-end shovel and went out and carefully scooped up as much of the glob as I could.  Slowly I walked to the back fence and dumped them over the side.  And I may or may not have run like a wild woman back into the yard after the dump....  just sayin'

When I was certain that I wasn't going to get swarmed by pissy dumped bees I carefully went back and tried to scoop up a bit more.  They got dumped over the fence too.  However when I went back to get the rest they were pretty active and I decided not to press my luck.  Ok, I didn't "decide" to stop shoveling.  I stopped because I was "chased" through the yard by an angry warrior bee determined to protect his hive.  After being dive bombed a few times I decided to give up.

I put the shovel back and called dad and the hubby for a bee status update.

The remaining bees were there this morning but all seem to be gone by the time I went home at lunch.  There are some unfortunate souls that didn't make it and so are making a small "pile of the dead".  But I'm not feeling too guilty about it.  I did save a bajillion other ones.

And through all that I didn't get stung once!

Just call me the "bee whisperer".

Why business travel is great... and not so great...

If you travel for you job you understand that getting on a plane and flying all over the US/ world is not really as glamorous as the movies make it seem.  But there definitely are perks - which widely differ depending the company you work for and where they send you. 

Although my company is sending me all over the US in May/ June and it's making my home life crazy it can actually be a mini-vacation.  All I have to do is show up and do my schtick.  If I'm in a nice place I can treat it like I'm really not working (except for the times I'm stuck in a conference room or a convention center...  where I have to be present.)  No getting up with the dogs.  No worrying about what to do for dinner.  No trying to read my book in peace while trying to block out the noise of the tv/ the hubby's music upstairs.  No more vying for my hubby's attention with the tv.  No guilty feeling for not cleaning the kitchen.  You get the idea...   It's just "me time". 

This week I'm in Palm Desert, CA.  And this is me on my deck after our meetings. 
(and those are my fuchsia toes...  let's hope no one from Singapore is going to be stalking my blog after this...)

However, this paradise isn't perfect.  Because I'm at a meeting we still all have dinners we have to go to together.  Last night we didn't have dinner until 8pm ('cuz the guys were golfing... : P  )  That's 11pm for me folks.  Y'all know I can't stay up that late.  I was exhausted.  I gave it the old college try but I literally almost face planted in my nationally recognized prime aged steak......  but then I got back to my hotel and didn't sleep at all.. again....  I'm exhausted right now.  And I don't function well on such little sleep.....