STILL Sleepless in NC.....

I still didn't get much sleep again last night. There were no cops or commotion going on, Thank God, but it still got a little weird around here. For starters, I have done something to my knee. It doesn't hurt to stand or walk, but things like deep knee bends or kneeling sends shards of pain up my entire leg that feels like somebody just struck me with a searing hot branding iron. And I decided to ignore that and go to the Ab/Core class yesterday afternoon. There was lots of kneeling involved. I did it anyway. And last night my knee ached like a bad toothache, even after taking as much ibuprofen as safety allowed. It was impossible to get comfortable. I saw midnight on my bedside clock. Then 1 am. I think I finally fell asleep around 2. And then....

The doorbell rang at exactly 3 in the morning. I woke up halfway thinking I had dreamed it. But then it rang again, and this time the dogs started barking so I knew I wasn't imagining things. I slid out of bed and tiptoed across the hall to peek out of the front-facing windows in my daughter's room. Of course, it was pitch black outside so I couldn't see anything. But standing there in the dark, my brain still groggy from sleep, I started thinking about the guy who was running away from the police on our property. Why in the world a guy running from the cops would be standing on my doorstep, ringing the doorbell at 3 am I can't tell you. But I got a little freaked out. The doorbell rang again while I was standing there, and suddenly I began thinking of all the reasons anyone would be at our door at this time of the morning. None of them were good.

I managed to work myself up into full scale panic, and the bell....oh yeah...it rang again! I am pretty sure it was exactly the same as every other ring, but somehow it sounded more insistent this time. I started down the hall. I have NO idea why because I am fairly certain that I wouldn't have the nerve to actually open the front door to face a stranger. Not at 3am, in the dark, wearing my nightgown. But I was heading that way like my feet weren't attached to my brain. Halfway down the hall 2 things occurred to me simultaneously. First of all: Our doorbell has been broken for a while now. WTF? And secondly: There was an ominous electronic buzzing in the hallway.

I tracked down the buzzing sound to the doorbell "box" (I have no idea what to call it). It sounded like it was about to blow up. I decided that I would have to wake up my husband, because this was way beyond my area of expertise. Plus, I didn't want to go back to bed only to have the thing explode and burn the house down. Of course, despite the ringing doorbell, the barking dogs, and impending doom and destruction, Bruce was sleeping like a baby lamb. Somehow he managed to get up, locate a screwdriver, disengage the buzzing doorbell box, and drift right back into peaceful, lamb-like slumber all under a minute. Sigh.......I was left feeling really nervous, and twitchy, and nowhere near ready to sleep. I saw 4 am on the clock, and then 5. I think I finally calmed down enough to sleep around 5:30.

And thats when our adorable, living, breathing, cute and furry alarm clock cat, Omen, decided to make her morning visitation. Every day, like clock-work, Omen jumps on our bed at 6 am. She sticks her nose against our faces and meows loudly.
She parades back and forth between the 2 of us, climbing on top of Bruce, then me, then Bruce again. She kneads us like a bread-maker, taking great care to be sure that her sharp little claws pierce through the top layers of our skin. She has taken it upon herself to make sure that we are aware that our alarm is going to go off in half an hour. Just in case we miss it or something. She doesn't think that last half hour of sleep is necessary. Plus, if we overslept she might not get her breakfast on time, and that would be a tragedy!

Oh well, hopefully nothing weird or crazy will go on tonight. Wish me luck! I am in desperate need of a decent night's sleep.

Sleepless in NC

Around 9:30 last night, while Bruce was chatting on the phone with his Dad, we heard a whole bunch of police sirens going off like crazy. It was so loud that I actually got up to see if one of the dogs had pushed opened the back door (Shep does let himself in like that occasionally. He hasn't learned how to close the door behind him after he comes in though). It sounded like the police were right in our backyard. But after a few minutes it all died down, we never saw anything go by our house, so we forgot about it.

About an hour later, I walked down to our bedroom to get ready for bed, and my room was lit up like a disco with blue flashing lights, and all kinds of commotion going on right outside. WTF? I came down the hall, yelling for Bruce, and told him to check out the front door because something was going on right out there in our yard. We were both so surprised. He walked out there and discovered that there had been a hot police chase, and the wayward car had somehow ended up stuck right on the edge of the deep ditch that runs along the edge of the woods right beside our house. Then the guy took off on foot and was supposedly running around out there in the woods, warranting at least 7 cops cars, search lights, and police combing the woods with flashlights. They never found this man. And all that they would tell my husband was that it was something "domestic".

They finally gave up, had the car towed, and left around midnight, but I couldn't sleep. They were looking in the woods beside the house, but it wouldn't be that hard to clear the ditch and sneak off into the 17 acres of pine trees right behind us. Nobody ever looked there. And just what the heck did this person do to wreak so much havoc? Would a simple domestic dispute be worth a car chase and manhunt? My imagination ran wild with all the heinous things that MIGHT have happened. With all the places on our property (barns, outbuildings, trees) where this person MIGHT be hiding. Chances are he was long gone by then, but still.....It kind of scared me a little bit. I don't enjoy having crime take place right here on my property. My husband assured me that everything was fine, the police knew the guy's name and address, so he wouldn't be able to get too far. But I couldn't help but notice that he took special care in locking up all the doors last night. Sometimes, and I KNOW its terrible, but we actually forget to lock up. Its rare, but it does happen. Not last night, though.

The strange thing is that I can't find out anything about what was going on. No reports on our local news websites, nothing in the paper. Weird. I just hope I don't think about it all night tonight, too. I am tired and sleepy today!!!

If You Are Alive....??

In my email inbox today:





RE: Please Respond if You are Alive

From the desk of,
MUSA BELEWA
Director Foreign Operations Dept.

Attn: Sir/Madam,

We are obliged to inform you that after we have completed the process
of releasing your funds to you, we now received a Death Certificate,
certifying that you were death according to one Mr. David Jones, who
claims to be your representative, and he now requested that your funds
should be transferred to a Swiss account he provided.
But however, due to the suspicious nature of his claims, we therefore
decided to write you to know if really you were dead as said by the so
called Mr. David Jones,who claims to be your representative.
So please if you were still alive, you should provide the following
information for us to be sure.
1) Your full name
2) Your residential address
3) Your telephone number
4) Your occupation

Be notified that if we do not hear from you within the next 7 days, we
shall assume you were dead as claimed by your representative, and we
would then transfer the funds to his Swiss account as he desire.
All the obligations have been met and the funds are ready for transfer
to the account now.
Awaiting your urgent response to this effect

Yours faithfully,
MUSA BELEWA


I actually sent a response, which I KNOW I probably should NOT have, seeing as how that will clue them in that I actually read this crap. My response?

"I'm sorry to inform you that I am totally and completely dead."

The part that made me laugh (besides the whole thing) was to be informed that "I was DEATH". I did not know I was The Grim Reaper, but clearly if Musa says so, it must be true!!!

Happy Anniversary

A year ago today we were all on the waterfront in Morehead City to see my son Stephen get married to Hannia. It was a beautiful wedding, and we all had a whole lot of fun. Wine, dancing, bubbles, a gorgeous view....what more could you ask for?
And? There was cake. It was perfect. Today the kids took off for Charleston, SC to celebrate surviving the first year of marriage. Charleston is one of my favorite cities. I spent a whole lot of my childhood there, so it always feels like home to me. Hannia has never been there before, and I am hoping that she enjoys it and loves it as much as I do.

When Stephen told me he was planning to take her there, I gave him a little tip that I have recently read about. FIG is a restaurant right there in the historic district of Charleston (just a block from the hotel they are staying in) and it won a James Beard Award for 2009 (top 10 restaurants in the U.S.). Stephen just called me a little while ago and told me that they had just come back from dinner there. He said, "Hands down, this is the BEST food I have EVER eaten!" I swear I thought he wept just a little bit at the sheer awesomeness of it. And while I am somewhat insane with jealousy that I am NOT eating at Fig tonight, I am completely thrilled that they had such a wonderful experience to celebrate their anniversary.

Anyway, we have been very blessed to have Hannia added to our little family. I hope the kids have many, many more happy years ahead of them. And I also hope that they enjoy the heck out of the rest of their time in Charleston. They have lots of good stuff planned (a whole LOT of it involves eating, but oh my God there are just so many fantastic places to eat there). I just want to see the pictures...which will make me feel slightly homesick for that place. Maybe I can coerce Bruce to head out on a quick road trip down there sometime soon. And IF we do....we WILL be making a reservation at Fig. You can count on that!

So Ugly

Have you tried an Ugli Fruit? (Pronounced "oo-glee") We stumbled on these weird fruits while browsing at The Fresh Market. I haven't seen them before. We just had to try one. For being so unattractive, its really amazingly good. It was about the size of a large grapefruit. It has a really thick peel that pulls away from the fruit like a tangerine. It also pulls apart in big juicy sections like a tangerine, too.

Apparently it is some kind of hybrid of a grapefruit, orange, and tangerine. Other than the size, I can't taste anything grapefruity about it. The one we bought was really sweet and juicy. And I can taste an orange/tangerine mix. Really good stuff.
Buy one if you run across any of these. It was kind of expensive, and I probably wouldn't buy a lot of them regularly, but it was a fun treat to try something new and.....well.....ugly. I did some quick google research before we ate this one, and apparently its so disfigured that its really hard to tell when these things are ripe.
The suggestion was to judge its weight by holding it. If it feels decently heavy then its probably ripe. I didn't know that when we were shopping, but I lucked up and got a ripe one. The flavor really is delicious.

Monday

Do you think my houseplants will survive the unrelenting kitty attack?

As Seen On TV

Most of the wacky products sold on TV infomercials that I have actually bought have disappointed me. But these Green Bags? So far they have done what they said they would. I did NOT order these from TV though. I was walking around the produce section of my local grocery store and saw them for sale. I figured why not give them a try. With only 2 of us eating at home anymore, we lose a lot of fruits and veggies due to spoiling. Especially cucumbers. It seems like those things go bad within minutes of bringing them home from the store. So I have been trying these out for about 2 weeks. And guess what? They work. I even had cucumbers that I bought at the same time that I bought the bags....I used the last one of those tonight, and it was as good as when I brought it home. My grapes are still firm and crunchy a week or so later. So far, I have been really happy with the results.

Right now, my son Stephen is conducting his own experiment (he bought the bags, too).
He bought 4 bananas just to test them out. One is sitting on the counter, one is sitting on the counter in a Green Bag, one is in the fridge, and one is on the counter in a regular plastic bag. I am waiting to see which one lasts the longest. I had a bunch of bananas, and I left one out of the Green bag to see if it spoiled more quickly than the ones in the bag....but my husband ate it before we could find out. Haha. The 2 or so left in the bag are still good after about 8 days though. Thats definitely a record. Noone around here will eat bananas after they get past the just barely ripe stage. Anyway, I'm not being paid to advertise these bags or anything, but I was happy to find something to extend the life of all the produce we buy and thought I would pass the tip along. I have also seen them in Walgreens, too.

Also? We just came back from seeing "Angels and Demons". It was pretty good. I mean, I read the book, so I knew what was going to happen. But I thought it was entertaining. Tom Hanks is good in pretty much every role he plays.

I was thinking that at some point I might write a little bit about the dog that we just lost. But every time I start to think about exactly what I want to say, I tear up all over again. I have cried enough over these past couple of days that my body feels dehydrated. Maybe some time in the near future I can write about him. Not yet, though. But the one thing that I did want to say is this....you know how some people just seem to fit with your personality better than others? Well, this dog was the perfect fit for me. We've had lots of dogs, but this one was mine. I'm coming to accept that everything happened exactly like it needed to. He was so sick that we really don't think he would have lived much longer...maybe not even through the weekend the way that things were going. But I miss him. A LOT. I hope that one day I can think about this and just enjoy all the good parts without crying my eyes out.