Destructive Doggie

Well, our new puppy Finnegan (Finn) seems to LOVE to chew apart soft toys. Whether we continue to have such animals around remains to be seen. He just spent some time chewing up a gingerbread man type thing and how he has his sites on a pink bear provided by the children of Sedwick's coworkers.

The house situation is quite nerve wracking as we wait wait wait to hear about the title report and the appraisal report. Regardless, I seem to be teaching two courses this summer, which should certainly help with the finances of this deal. I'm looking forward to the possibility of being settled in a house - and to the eventual purchase - Lord knows when - of some new furniture.

Noelle and I are gathering together a wishlist: as I'm sure is not surprising, it's a growing list that consists of small things such as kitchen items and larger things - such as furniture for the house and maybe some patio stuff. But, the patio stuff will probably be a next summer type purchase! Right now we are saving up our pennies (in the form of all change in our Red Sox gnome bank) to buy the ice cream maker attachment for the stand mixer. Of course, we are depending on some prize money from bowling. It's quite possible that we won't be able to make up the difference of our change with the pittance we get from bowling (I think we are going to be like 18 or 19th out of 26 or 27. But, anything will help.

Nervewracking

In my wildest dreams, I knew that trying to buy a house would be extraordinarily nervewracking. But, my wildest dreams do not even live up to the reality of the process. We've found a house (hopefully). However, we have found ONE house only, and that house meets all of our various criteria, but after seeing 20 or so houses, it is the only one that does so. We may be looking at more houses this week, should we not make the progress on this house that we would like to see.

Nonetheless, we shall attempt to persevere.

Once we all made it to FL...

On Mon, 1L, Sedwick, and I were all happily in FL, and on our way to explore. We thought about stopping by Mike Lowell's house, since we hadn't gotten to see the Red Sox game, but we decided that might be a little too stalkerish, and, besides, Mike would be in Ft Myers at the game. So, instead, we headed toward Miami, to 1L's brother's.

On our way, we hunted for weird things, and took advantage of a weird points of interest app on Tom Magellan, Sedwick's GPS. He took us to a statue of a barefoot mailman, who apparently is well-known to the local police. Tom Magellan undershot the statue, and we had to ask a cop for directions - he didn't bat an eye, but pointed us in the direction of the statue. As you can see, it's more of a black and white than cartoon statue, which disappointed 1L, since she'd pictured more of a cartoon.



We then headed to 1L's brother's, collapsed, and then spent the next day trying to figure out how to get the hot tub working. (it seems like it should have been simple, but I think we were missing something, since it was more of a tub of water than a tub of hot water).

That night, we went on a ghost tour of Coconut Grove, a place that is welcoming of all sorts of folks.



After some confusion, with a website reading both that tours are given nightly and that they're given on just certain dates, we met up with our ghost tour guide, who nicely did a tour just for 1L, Sedwick, 1L's brother, and me. We soon discovered it was to be one of the oddest ghost tours ever. We learned a lot about the guide (whose picture you can see below), including the fact that she has a PO Box in Key West, went swimming in a fresh water spring once as a child and had dreams about it for years without knowing they were based on experience, got a black eye from something falling from her closet onto her, and is a member of a woman's club. Sadly, we learned little about ghosts. There were a few mentions of ghosts, but they were invariably followed up with "and I don't know who this person was that people see or why he or she is haunting this place."



At the end of the tour, for unknown reasons, she had us walk in a dark park (which there's a picture of below). Apparently, for some reason, she sees things there - for instance, one person was a "shape shifter" and was suddenly shorter than the person he was walking next to. For us, we learned: 1L and her brother have the same looking aura, which is blue and fuzzy (1L's brother thinks this might be related to the fact that he had on a blue shirt and stumbled). Sedwick has a dog next to him. And me? Well, she was too busy talking with everyone to see anything for me, alas.






Per minute, it was the best deal of a ghost tour ever, since the guide's string of random thoughts lasted through a two and a half hour narrated tour of a half mile. And we did learn a valuable lesson -- be careful, and don't look up when you're getting something heavy off a shelf in the closet.

Nightmare at JFK

The excitement of going to Florida to see the Red Sox quickly dissipated as the length of time we had to spend in the airport at JFK lengthened. Nancy's plane got out (not even that much delayed). Sadly, she was unable to pick up the car that Sedwick had reserved (and paid for), so she had to spend the day in the hotel (which might have been more relaxing than anything else).

Sedwick found out quite late that his flight on Saturday would be canceled. He then got into the line and was happy to learn that he would have a flight the next morning at 7'55 to Ft. Lauderdale (which, a you can probably tell, was NOT Orlando). He had to scramble to make some plans via Alamo and Priceline to hold his reservation (in Orlando) for 24 hours so he could pick up the car the next day, rather than losing (and paying for) the reservation.

I (Michele) stood online for at least 3 hours total. Of course, Delta did not even announce that the plane had been canceled (after it had been delayed at least twice and at least four hours). The only way I learned of the cancellation was through Nancy, who had seen it on the Delta website while she was waiting for her own delayed flight. So, I got in line. Then, some idiot woman came along with little pieces of paper telling us to go to the Kiosks and see which flight we had been reschedule on. So, stupidly, I did so. The stupid machines were all saying the same thing, "Please See Agent." Now, one would have thought the people working would have known that the machines were not working, thus not screwing people up and making them lose their places in line. So, I got back into the line, only to be directed (about 45 minutes later) to "follow those people" who were apparently getting in another line. However, no other line existed and NO ONE working at Delta at the other terminal knew where we were supposed to go, and a bunch of people actual left the terminal, which I was NOT going to do since I did not want to go back through security. So, I went back and once again got in the same line. Some 3 hours (or so) later, I talked with the agent, who told me that the next flight I could get on to Orlando was on Tuesday. Tuesday. Really? So, I said to send me anywhere in Florida. I got on a standby flight for Sunday (to Orlando) and was confirmed on a Monday flight to Ft. Lauderdale.

Sedwick and I met up around 11pm to get a cab to a hotel (in Bayside, since ALL of the hotels were booked anywhere nearby the airport). We finally got in around midnight and immediately decided to go to bed.

Sedwick took at cab at 4:45 Monday morning (after maybe three or four hours of sleep, since it was daylight savings time change) and went off to the airport. Sadly, upon arrival, he learned that his flight to Ft. Lauderdale had been canceled. Once again, he stood inline. He finally got confirmed on a flight to Ft. Myers (supposedly at 9 or 10, I don't remember). The flight was delayed several times, and when it was finally going to go, they didn't have a crew. So, they waited for a crew and finally got out at 2pm or 3pm. He had NO IDEA where his luggage was going to go (which was all of his skydiving gear) and had to cancel the car at Ft. Lauderdale and get one in Ft. Myers. So, upon arrival at Ft. Myers, he had to see if his luggage was there. It was not. He then drove to Ft. Lauderdale and finally got there around 10ish (he had to be there before 11pm to not lose the car) and exchange the cars. There is more to that story (moving around from terminal to terminal in order to get the car and all), but he then had to find out about his luggage. He told the Jet Blue baggage people that his luggage could be in any of four cities (since he left one and had flights to three different cities scheduled and canceled). Happily, his luggage was in Orlando. He got it, went to the airport, and went to sleep.

Meanwhile, my flight on Sunday was canceled. So, I made my way to my friends' house for the evening/night (thank you very much for putting me up). Then, the next morning I got up, got to the airport, and after a delay or two, flew to Ft. Lauderdale, where Nancy and Sedwick picked me up.

So our original screwed up trip (with us flying all different flights from two cities to Orlando and then from two cities back to two different cities) was even MORE screwed up, since we all ended up flying into different airports. Sedwick has seen a lot of Florida on this trip, but really, nothing that we had planned.

And, most sadly, we missed our Red Sox game.

More about this really odd trip later.

A Story from Sedwick...

Oh what a freaky freakin morning.

So last night a friend of mine sends me a message that he’s going to return some things that he borrowed.

I go to bed around my usual time and I’m in that semi-conscious state when the dog starts barking like crazy and going nuts. I hear the front door open and think to myself “oh … he must have meant he was returning the stuff tonight.” I promptly roll over and go to sleep.

I wake up this morning and go through my usual wake up routine. Let the dog out, have a smoke, check the cat’s food, make some coffee, etc.

I head to the couch to drink my coffee and check my email and such. I look at the couch and wonder to myself …

“Why the hell did he leave a pile of clothes on my couch?!”

“Wait … why is there blonde hair sticking out of the top of those clothes?!”

“Who the HELL is this woman sleeping on my damn couch?!”

“Do I grab a weapon or two?! Do I call the cops?! Do I just wake her up and kick her out?! What the HELL is going on here?!?!?!”

I opt for the “wake her up and kick her out option”. She rolls over, smiles up at me and says “oh … hi!”. I’m completely dumbfounded and the conversation goes something along the lines of this …

“Who the hell are you?!”

“I’m (whatever name she said I can’t remember now)”

“Why are you in my house?!”

“uh … uhm …”

“Do I know you?!”

“Yeah we met last week I think it was.” (Which is a neat trick since I was in Florida last week)

“I don’t think we did.”

“Yeah … we met at a uhm a friend’s house I think.”

“I’m pretty sure we didn’t.”

“Well I can leave if you’d like.”

“Uh, yeah, I’d like.”

She then proceeds to stumble a few times getting up, stumbles around the living room looking for her purse and keys, while I keep telling her that she needs to leave. At one point she said something along the lines of …

“Ok, ok, relax … it’s not like I’m robbing the place or anything.”

“Yeah, I’m just really confused since I have no idea why you’re here.”

“Well I’m confused too!!!” she said.

As I finally corral her out the door she says, “Where am I?” I told her what town she was in and she asks, “Am I at the beach?”. I point her in the direction of the beach and lock the door behind her.

It’ll be a LONG time before I forget to lock the front door before going to bed!!!

So that’s how I got to wake myself up this morning. I just had to share.

The Belmonts

Deb and Eric's wedding was fun fun fun. Plus some very good pictures from Nancy's spiffy new camera. She (Nancy) took a number of pictures, some that must be shared with others, so we are sharing them here (and giving Deb and Eric the website at some point in the near future).

The wedding was beautiful and short and concise. The happy hour after the wedding brought us to the most wonderful of experiences, Deb and Eric's Egg Nogg. I wonderful treat that we thought we'd share with all of you here.


Well, maybe I'll share that later, since I first have to find it. But, here's a great picture of Eric and Deb on their first dance.










Here's Deb doing the father/daughter dance with her father, Angelo D'Aleo. It was a wonderful moment caught on film.

Deb's dad is one of the Belmonts, if you can believe it. Run around Sue, Teenager in Love, The Wanderer, and a bunch of others that many people would know if they had heard them. Wonderful treat and quite unexpected, since we did not know that Deb's dad was in the band until that night!


We think the wedding band (who were also great) loved playing with The Belmonts as much as everyone else at the wedding dinner loved listening to them play. It was a fanstastic experience!!

There was some other excitement at the wedding that involved chairs being lifted above the ground and such - with a little mishap that we won't get into here.


But we do have some other nice pictures:

The Questions Remain

Well, as some of you know, my department is supposedly being "dissolved." There's a clear question about whether or not another department will want to take me in, so it is up in the air as to what is going to happen in the next year. I've been assured that I will have a job, but that assurance falls on deaf ears until there is some finalized plan agreed to by all. I have scheduled a meeting in order to discuss this with the head honcho. Hopefully, something will be clarified in that meeting. Right now, however, I'm still at a loss as to what exactly is happening, and I'm a little concerned as to whether things will move smoothly (and I'm guessing not so much).

I guess to have had the meeting where we were all together and told of this plan is some progress, since I've basically been trying to get some official notification for 3 months. I can only assume that it will take an additional 3-6 months before I am "officially placed" elsewhere. My stress level is high and I just am not able to deal with this anymore, so I'm going to focus on some work things and forget about this at least until my meeting next week. Then, I'm hoping to be able to put it out of my mind for a good month for the holidays.