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whappy happy nea land! |
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My own spot to rant about my day.
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wMonday, December 30, 2002 |
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I'm an accord! haha, Zubu the car will be so proud.
You are an Accord EX-V6. You're not quite plebian, but you're a comfortable and conservative sort of person who keeps a balanced view and level head during a conflict. You can be rather demanding at times, but it's all in a pursuit to keep things mellow.
which honda are you? | visit high mileage
posted by
nea at 8:45 PM
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We put away the Christmas presents away in time for my birthday ones to get strewn everywhere. woo-hoo! I opened presents from Dave this morning, then went to work. I've never had to work/be at school on my birthday, so it was a little strange. But I had a nice busy day, and have plenty to work on tomorrow, so things are good on the work front. At my office is row of file cabinets with an empty cubicle at the end. Some days are worse than others, but every day there is a food trail along the cabinets to the cubicle. It's actually pretty funny, but nice when you want a piece of candy or a snack.
Tonight Dave cooked a dinner that I figured out last week: fried calamari, lobster bisque, pasta peperonata with goat chese, and creme brulee for dessert. Yum! I like when I get have Dave cook whatever I want.
posted by
nea at 7:33 PM
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wThursday, December 26, 2002 |
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So we're back from my mom's and two days of Christmas craziness. Dave made it through the night, but then spent all day having a mild asthma attack. Poor Dave. Next time we bring his inhaler.
Christmas eve we spent with my mom, sister, stepfather, and some of my cousins on my mom's side. It was a nice little group. My mom decided to go swedish with the dinner, which was really good. We haven't had a full on swedish celebration in quite some time. Dave had fun guessing names of the food. "Oh, the hurgen yurgen vorga limpa bread." We opened a few presents that night. Dave and I got this awesome chinese-style big navy blue vase from my cousin Bret and his family. It's really pretty. Now we just have to find somewhere to place it.
After they left I realized that Dave didn't have a stocking and needed one. So, I took off my sock (hey, it wasn't that dirty!) and put a bow on it, a piece of paper that said "Dave," and a ribbon to tie it to the doors where we keep our stocking. I thought it was pretty funny, with Camille and I having these nice big holiday stockings and Dave having a decorated sock. But my mom found a few things to put in it so that Dave too had a stocking to open in the morning.
Christmas morning we opened a shitload of presents. Dave and I got a vacuum (we really needed a new one), a couple games, some DVDs, clothes, a quilt rack, and lots and lots of other stuff. I got one birthday present a bit early on accident, as Dave's mom, Linda, order a jasmine plant for me to come after Christmas but it showed up the 23rd instead. It is a really pretty plant, in a pretty basket that was only mildly chewed on by my mom's cats. About noon, we caravaned over to my "aunt" Mary's. Mary is my stepfather's brother's sister-in-law. Yep, my aunt. It was the first time I'd ever been to her home, even though I've known her all my life and she lives down the block from my cousins. Life is odd like that. For dinner we were part of the newlywed table, along with my cousin Meghan and her husband Aaron. It was a nice easy day. Hung out, ate a lot, and just talked to people.
It sucks to work the day after Christmas. I'm glad I like my job.
posted by
nea at 8:32 PM
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wMonday, December 23, 2002 |
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Woo-hoo, cheesecake! Dave's sister sent us a cheesecake for Christmas, and it is all our to devour. muah hahahahahhaa
Tomorrow I get a half-day at work, and then am headed to my mom's for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I think we're ready. We have presents wrapped, food baked, beer bought (what you ask the newlyweds to bring when you have no clue that the husband is a great cook), and clothes all packed up. I'm excited.
We had a potluck at work today for this woman who was laid off. I felt kinda bad being newly hired, when her is this woman leaving. But I got to meet a lot of people and show off Dave's cooking skills. People at my job are really really nice. You can tell that they are friends as well as coworkers. Pat, the woman we had the potluck for, also has a daughter working in the office. Halfway through the potluck Pat's son-in-law and grandchildren showed up, and everyone recognized them. I was really impressed to feel the sense of community going on. Also, two people who had met me made an effort to sit next to me so that I wouldn't feel left out, and people were constantly introducing themselves or trying to make me feel at home. As the manager of our department put it, "It's like being the new kid at camp," but I really feel included. Yay new job!
posted by
nea at 10:21 PM
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wSunday, December 22, 2002 |
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I hate that feeling you get on Sunday afternoon when you realize that the numbers of hours left in the day are fewer than the number of hours it will take to get everything you need to get done, done. Even though we spent a good part of yesterday taking care of crap, Dave and I still have a bunch of stuff to do. Sometimes it seems like you can never get fully caught up with life, just less behind.
I'm also sick of wrapping presents. I have been doing the wrapping of all the presents for Dave, my families, and our friends. The whole thing just seems so tedious. At least I'm two presents from being done, and then all we need to do is give them to people!
posted by
nea at 1:30 PM
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wSaturday, December 21, 2002 |
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We have been very very productive today. Took a ton of crap out of the house, finished shopping, started cleaning, etc. I think this makes up for the week, where Dave and I both came home from work kinda tired and just hung out until bedtime. It feels good to have a clean place, though. I was wondering what the dining table looked like under all the crap.
It's starting to feel a bit like Christmas. All of our holiday stuff is out and there's a bunch of gifts under the tree. It doesn't yet feel like Christmas is Wednesday though. Not sure why. Maybe because we did so much holiday stuff during Thanksgiving week, which was almost a month ago and feels far away. Maybe because the damn port closures delayed all the holiday decorations here, so they went up really late in all the malls and such. I don't know. I'm looking forward to the next week. Only time of year I get presents, so YAY!
posted by
nea at 5:19 PM
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wFriday, December 20, 2002 |
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Yesterday I walked to work. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh
Then I walked home to lunch. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh
I like my new job. A lot of what I've been doing is just sorting through paperwork and files, trying to get things in better order. The company only started a collections department two years ago. The department would be named Phil. Yep, my boss. Hiring someone was a smart move, as with two of us plus a new computer system we should be able to really get on top of things. Phil is a good boss. He's making sure that I have plenty of stuff to work on every day, while at the same time teaching me about the collections process and the system they have going. At the end of the day, I go home knowing I have more to do when I go back in the morning. This is a good thing.
Today was the company's holiday party. Yep, I got to go to two this year. This one was much better than the one last week. Mardi gras theme, they closed the office for half the day, and just had this big old party. Live band, dancing, lots of tasty creole food, and casino tables spread among the three floors. I did really well at blackjack, so I had a lot of chips to turn in for drawing tickets. Didn't win anything though. Not that this really matters, because I came home with a lot of stuff: mask, beads, choclate, calendar/pic frame thing, flowers, english muffins . . . good haul for the day. I've been warned that a lot of food runs through the office, which I think is good because it means more free lunches for me.
We're only one gift short of finishing holiday shopping. Not bad for it being five days from Christmas. haha
posted by
nea at 7:43 PM
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wMonday, December 16, 2002 |
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I spent my last day really sick. In fact, I spent most of the weekend being a sick lump. Missing going home to see my family, missed a funeral for our old neighbor, missed Dave's company's holiday party. Today I am much better though, which is good, because it was my FIRST DAY!!!!! I am so happy to have a new job.
It of course poured today, which reminded me how thankful I am to have a new, four-block commute. So nice to just not worry about driving anymore. I spent most of the day either reading or filling out paperwork. I read a lot. Like 400 or 500 pages of just random stuff. Brought home a pile of codes and insurance packets and all that kind of HR goodness. But I had a good first day. Everyone seems really nice. I like my boss, which is good.
I like my cubicle a lot. It's kinda out of the way, and the walls are pretty high. On theright wall of my cubicle is a big window, which is downright awesome. It is so much nicer when you can see the outside world and know what's going on with the weather, instead of being locked in an office environment with no clue. I'm totally going to bring in plants so they can sit in the sun and be happy. My cubicle is about a third larger than my last one, but has about the same storage space currently in it. Right behind me is my boss, in the twin to my cubicle. Really, other than the door, it's like having our own little office. I like it. Things seem a bit quieter than in my last workspace. The whole office is all decorated for the holidays too, which I really like. I need to start bringing in stuff to personalize the big white space that is my desk, but in a few months I think it will feel pretty good. Yay new job!
posted by
nea at 8:31 PM
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wThursday, December 12, 2002 |
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Two days to go!
Today I am officially sick. Blowing nose and having gobs of snot come out, voice sounds like crap sick. Dammit. This is not how I wanted to leave the company. This might also fuck up my Santa Lucia Day plans.
Random thoughts from yesterday that I didn't have a chance to write about:
Why I like Dave
Yesterday morning I asked Dave if there was anything in the fridge to make a lunch with. He looked and said "no." Then he went to his wallet, got out a twenty, and put it in my wallet so that I would have lunch money. Dave is good like that.
If you are going to hold open an elevator door, please do so until the person is physically coming into the elevator. Not when they are two feet away, giving the elevator enough time to start closing, hitting a person directly on their injured hand. Ow! Just as the sprain seemed to be getting better, too.
Waiting until the last minute to find a replacement for one of the functions I do is dumb, but expected. Not allowing that person to get trained because things aren't official is even dumber. Deciding the day before I leave that yes, I should train that person anyway, is dumbest of all. Especially when I can't talk. So I have to pass of the training to the one other person in the department that knows how to do the function. I feel kinda bad for loading it on to her but, on the other hand, the company had two weeks to get their act together and I didn't mean to get sick. Dumb dumb company. Every day at least one thing happens to remind me why I am leaving.
posted by
nea at 4:20 PM
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wWednesday, December 11, 2002 |
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Three days to go!
I'm sick. Not badly sick, but nasty sore throat, knowing it's going to get worse sick. I just hope I get through it during the weekend, so that I don't show up sick for my first day of work. That would suck. So for now I'm just taking it easy, trying not to push myself too hard and getting lots of sleep. Given my current work load, this shouldn't be too hard.
Last night's Christmas Party was pretty good. It was a murder mystery theme, given by this acting troop that also sang, did imitations, and tried to just generally entertain. Not the best of acting, or staying in character, but I have a feeling we got our money's worth. I had fun. The food was pretty tasty: spinach salad with strawberry vinagrette and avacado, pasta primavera with a bunch of vegtables and a tasty arrabiata sauce, and white chocolate cake with a chocolate dipped strawberry on the side. Better than banquet chicken, that's for sure. I had three drink coupons (yes, my company is cheap like that) but I only used one since I wasn't in a real drinking mood. We were assigned seating, but I get along well with the person who did the seating charts, so I sat with a bunch of people that I like. Good deal. I won a mini-boom box in our raffle. Everyone was like "Hey, a parting gift." This cracked me up. All in all, a good evening. A lot better than our bowling and pizza party last year. Yay!
The other day Dave and I realized that we don't know when the new company's holiday party is. We thought it would be really funny if it turned out to be next week and I went. Two parties in one season would be kinda cool. And free food is always good.
Off to continuing my last round of scan training. Woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 8:59 AM
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wTuesday, December 10, 2002 |
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Four days to go! And today we get off early to go to our holiday party, woo-hoo!
I'm randomly excited right now. There is so much fun stuff going on in the near future. Since I have no work to do (though I may be busy this afternoon) I can think about all the great stuff that's happening. Yay holidays! Yay Hannukah and Santa Lucia Day and Christmas and Happy Birthday to me!
posted by
nea at 10:15 AM
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wMonday, December 09, 2002 |
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Five days left here at work. Still nothing to do, though I am doing some training this afternoon.
Dave is sick. The lay like a lump, think you are okay and wear yourself out, then lay like a lump sick. Not my favorite kind, but at least easy to deal with. I have also caught the cold, but so far just feel kinda achy and my face feels funny. I hope I don't get full-on sick though. I don't need to start a new job that way.
Yesterday I cleaned our bathroom. I know, how exciting. Dave and I are gross though, we hadn't given the floor a good cleaning since May. Ew. It looks like a different bathroom now. One people might feel clean in. haha Other than that, it was a pretty low key day. Went to the gym and the market. Watched a lot of TV. Finally saw Driving Miss Daisy, which was good but not as amazing as I was expecting. I'm too much of a movie critic, I guess.
posted by
nea at 11:59 AM
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wSaturday, December 07, 2002 |
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posted by
nea at 7:07 PM
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wFriday, December 06, 2002 |
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Today my office put up their tree. Like last year, I figured "Hey, what else do I have to do?", got my egg nog, and went to start putting on lights and ornaments. They picked up a whole bunch of stuff since last year, so the tree looks pretty good. It has this gold, red, and white theme going. Nice. I'm not used to theme trees though--to me a tree is a collection of stuff, brought together over years and generations, and put on the tree wherever it looks best. None of this "Oh, I don't like that ornament. Leave it off." silliness. Whatever though. I got to spend an hour and a half tree trimming during work. woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 4:42 PM
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Countdown to blowing this place: one week!
I finally started cleaning our place last night because it was driving me nuts. I have problems focusing and staying nice when I'm in a totally chaotic place. I realized that I was starting to get angry for no reason, and thought cleaning things up might help. It did. I feel calmer today. Most of the house is still pretty messy, but the kitchen, living room, and bedroom show marked improvement. Tomorrow, I clean the bathroom while Dave gets the brine shrimp/krill smell out of our fridge! woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 9:45 AM
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wThursday, December 05, 2002 |
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Today I had a last lunch with HT (sneef) at El Cholo. Yum! On the way back, though, I got to watch a creative use of stop signals. The man in front of me got out at a red light, stood up, adjusted his belt, and then decided to tuck in his shirt. The light turns green, he gets back in his car. Next light, he stops and gets out again. Adjusts his shirt, gets back in his car, and we go.
Question of the day: When the typewriter was sitting in the first of three empty rows of cubicles, and you fill the first row with people, where is the logical place to put the typewriter?
a. The second row
b. Downstairs in the storage room
c. I have no clue. Why don't I annoy people who sit near where the typewriter was instead of looking around a bit?
Correct answer: a
Actual answer: c duh
posted by
nea at 2:58 PM
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What happens when you give Dave a bottle of wine after a hard day and he admits to not being able to type:
Jrafgirl: how about elephant?
Das Ubergeek: lephants?
Jrafgirl: nope.
Das Ubergeek: elehpant
Jrafgirl: no
Das Ubergeek: that's night nrit eithre
Jrafgirl: ?
Das Ubergeek: that's niht right eithre
Das Ubergeek: NOT RIGHT EITHE RGODDQAMMIt
Jrafgirl: dear, i think you are too drunk to be online.
Jrafgirl: it's time for the gym
Das Ubergeek: you have to fmoadmit that i' entrebriating
posted by
nea at 7:57 PM
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Thanksgiving Dinner Out
Ok, last update. I know this is taking forever. That's what I get for not being on here for a week.
So Dave's mom decided that we were going to have dinner out. Dave offered to cook for the five of us, but instead we went to the Lobster Shanty. It was a combo Thanksgiving dinner and 90th birthday party for Dave's nana. Yes we had turkey. Actually our dinner was quite good. They make a really good lobster bisque. Mmmmmmmmmm, lobster bisque (Homer Simpson drool). Also a pretty tasty stuffing with apricots, and all sorts of other good Thanksgiving stuff. I was happily full. As a surprise, Dave's mom flew in his sister AJ. It was great to have her walk through their grandmother's door. Though we realized that we probably shouldn't give a 90 year-old woman too many surprises. She's totally there mentally, but starting to get frail physically.
Done with talking about Thanksgiving. Will post more on recent life later.
posted by
nea at 9:20 AM
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NYC
NYC is back to its old self again. Harsh, loud, and more or less uncaring of others. It was very very different from last year, when everyone was post 9/11 happy nice nice. Not anymore. Maybe this is because there is no longer a large column of smoke reminding everyone of the tragedy. Maybe people realized they needed to move on and get back to a normal life. Either way, I kinda miss the nice New York. But this is good too. It's nice to have a change of attitude every now and then.
We spent our day mostly roaming around Dave and Jaime (Dave's best friend)'s favorite places. Lombardi's Pizza, the Strand (an ENORMOUS bookstore that can only be described by the word cavernous), and Footlights (your place for any soundtrack you ever needed). We then decided to wander over towards Central Park and see the Macy's balloons being blown up. We got there a bit early for most of it, but early enough that we got to see a whole bunch of balloons. Little Bill, McDonald, Jeeves . . . very random group of characters. I still haven't been in Central Park but we were across the street from it. I guess I will in June when Greg and Jen get married in the Central Park Zoo.
posted by
nea at 9:15 AM
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wMonday, December 02, 2002 |
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Being in NJ
It was really nice to be away from everything. Every few month I have an urge to get far, far away from LA and just relax. We did go up north last month, but that was not far enough. I was happy to be away from work and internet and cleaning the apartment and everything. Just us, Dave's mom, and the cats. Richie, one of the cats, slept with us just about every night. I kinda miss the third body (usually roaring purring) in the bed. On the other hand, being headbutted awake by a purring cat is not always the best way to start the morning.
The weather was cold, but it felt good. You just don't get a good, crisp cold here. It snowed Tuesday night, just enough that everything was white when we woke up. Yay snow!
We ate like crap, but I guess that is part of being on vacation.
posted by
nea at 1:55 PM
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Providence, RI and regions north
Two of Dave's friends moved from Vancouver to Philadelphia a few months ago. We were going to visit them there, but they were in RI on a project. So we figured a three and a half hour drive was not the end of the world and decided to go visit Monday. Getting there was pretty easy. We had toll money, lots of scenery to check out, and little traffic. We made it in just over three hours. At this point, we were both sick of the car and really hungry. When really hungry people show up at your door, you say "Oh, I was thinking we could go here" then give correct directions and head out. Nope. Natalie didn't really know how to navigate around or where anything was. Not a great start to the day. It was freezing out, too, which didn't help things. After we finally found food things were much better though.
We walked around part of the original part of Providence. It was neat to see all these founder's homes from the 1700s and early 1800s. We found the judge's home. All of them had these great views over a hill. You could tell that it was totally "I am going to build my house riiiiiiiiiiiiight here!"
We found an old cemetary and decided to check it out. A little morbid, I know, but it was fascinating. We found the graves that matched the names of the people whose homes we had just seen. There were graves that were over 300 years old. Not something you really see around here.
After doing Providence, Dave wanted to drive to Bedford, Massachusettes. No, I can't spell. Of course, we probably should have checked a map before heading off. We went totally the wrong way, and once we realized this we took a small highway down through to try and get back on track. Poor and rural Massachusettes was mostly old, badly tilting wooden homes with random crap out front. Not nearly as many mobile homes. Dave pointed out that it's too cold to have mobile homes there, but I think they would have been better than some of the sad shacks that we saw. We got to Fall River and Dave was kinda done driving. Nat and Dave kept wondering why the town sounded so familiar, until they realized it was the home of Lizzie Borden, a woman who killed her family with an axe but was never convicted. We found the museum but it was closed for the season. Bummer. Headed back to Providence for dinner, then came the horrid drive home.
Driving in Connecticut sucks. Hardcore. The speed limit went from 55 to 45 and there were cops everywhere. As in we saw close to 80 while we were driving through. Then, to make things worse, they closed off three lanes for construction. Normally, this would suck but we would deal. No, it took us forty minutes to make two exits. Two. That's it. Neither of us could deal with the traffic any longer, so we consulted the map and took a different route, cutting through Westport. Yep, the home of Martha Stewart. Dave was not amused.
We got home in five and a quarter hours, making our driving total for the day eight and a half hours. Ugh. But it was fun to see new places and I'm glad we did it. I just don't ever want to drive through Connecticut again.
posted by
nea at 9:52 AM
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I did it. I accepted the offer for my new job, and resigned from the current one. I will be starting my new position on December 16th. Ten more days of nasty commutes.
posted by
nea at 9:40 AM
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wSunday, December 01, 2002 |
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Start of the holiday updates:
The Flights
Our flight going to JFK was pretty easy and smooth. Check in at Long Beach is always really easy, though the airport has expanded quite a bit since we were there last year. They added a bunch of gates, for a total of nine, and put in valet parking. Neither of us was selected for random searching this time and, oddly enough, they didn't ask the typical "Are you carrying anything someone asked you to carry?" "Did you pack your own bags?" and "Have your bags been with you the whole time since you packed them?" questions. We didn't get asked on the way back, either.
Sitting in front of us on the flight was a mom with her three children, who were about eight, five, and two and a half. They were a little loud and kept calling for their mom's attention but, for a five hour flight, they were really pretty good. About an hour before we landed the littlest one started screaming and saying his tummy hurt. Yep, you guessed it. He threw up, though luckily just over himself and the leather seat rather than us or his whole family. The poor kid had never gotten air sick before and the whole thing really scared him. The stewardess and his mom cleaned everything up (yay leather seats where you can wipe stuff off) and stuck a coffee filter into the seat back pocket so things wouldn't smell. Dave stepped in some of it and the stewardess cleaned his shoe. Very nice of her. The kid went to sleep as soon as everything was cleaned and was out for the rest of the flight and landing.
Going back was a bit more bumpy. I got a little green but lived. It was a six and a half hour flight, which is just too long for me. In front of us this time was a lady and her cat. The cat did pretty well, only meowing a bunch as we landed. Poor kitty. I wouldn't want to be in a backpack in a strange place for six and a half hours either.
posted by
nea at 5:12 PM
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