Home Sweet Home

Although it feels so good to be back in the States, I miss Romania like crazy. Mircea and I had a great visit and we’re already seriously planning how we can return permanently. More about that in a future post-it’s more of the 5 – 10 year plan, though I’m sure our future children will be upset to find out that we could have lived in the land of fast food and consumerism, but they’ll learn to appreciate the fresh vegetables and free education.

I’m still working on organizing all the photos, writing my blog posts, etc., but I wanted to take a moment to tell the whole story about the last few days of our trip (totally out of order I realize).

On the Thursday before we left I started feeling a little intestinal dissonance. We had some pizza at a local restaurant and I basically went home and went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night to a fire storm in my bowels, and after a night of massive vomiting and diarrhea I woke Mircea up and explained that we needed to go to the hospital as I was in serious pain. At about 6 am we had his uncle take us to the hospital where I was seen by the broken-English-speaking Doctor within 10 minutes of arriving and had an IV hooked up within 15. Mircea wasn’t allowed to be in the ER, so I had to utilize my limited Romanian to communicate with the nursing staff. I kept quietly murmuring “Sunt Frica”, which is “I’m scared” and they comforted me and I finally fell asleep from the drugs. When I woke up I proceeded to watch the parade of gawkers that “had to see the American” and laughed that I was probably the first American they had ever seen-sweating through my Purdue t-shirt and hair that looked to be in dreads as it had been a couple days since I’d bathed. I was transferred to the communicable diseases hospital (yeah, that scared me) and Mircea informed the Doctor that I couldn’t stay the 2 days they wanted me to stay and that they had to, and I quote, “get her well enough to get on a plane and get home without setting off any alarm bells” and the Doctor gave me enough drugs to stop me up for a week. (You know how I know that-I’m still living the dream!) I basically spend the rest of the day in bed, trying not to soil myself (FAIL) and drifting in and out of hallucinogenic sleep. It was wild. Mircea was gone most of the afternoon for events that he couldn’t miss and I spent the day under the watchful eye of his adorable but non-English speaking Grandmother. We found our own way to communicate and had a nice time together. At about 5 pm I began hearing the comforting sounds of Heavy Metal bursting through the window as I was lucky enough to have almost front bed seats to a Heavy Metal festival in the square outside. Oh joy! They played until about 10 pm and we’d planned on leaving at 2 am for the airport so my sleep was nothing short of fitful (in between all the bathroom trips-I think I was going on about 2 hours of sleep)

Mircea’s dad picks us up at 2, we somehow get to the airport (I swear I drifted in and out of consciousness several times from the pain) and we wait to get on our plane. During this wait I realized that I couldn’t stand up without throwing up, which really drove home that sense of “wow, this is going to be a nightmare flight” that I’d been feeling. We get on the bus that is going to take us to the plane and I sat in the corner seat and basically began heaving onto the bus…not puke bag, no nothing. Just quiet heaves in the corner hoping that none of the other passengers would report my communicable diseases or freak out. I threw up THE ENTIRE way from Romania to Hungary; mostly just dry heaving into a bag on Mircea’s lap. We got to Budapest and waited in a long security line where ironically another man was getting seen my paramedics as he’d complained about not feeling well right in front of me. We made it up to the lounge and thankfully, slept off and on for about 4 hours and the vomiting subsided for me.

The nine hour flight was uneventful, other than the A-hole Hungarian guy behind me who kept kicking my seat and I finally had to ask him to stop and he freaked out because I had woken him up (so he could remove his boot from my ass) and began swearing in Hungarian. Too bad Mircea was asleep or we could have had an International incident. We’re about 20 minutes from landing when the pilot says that there is bad weather and we’ll be a little late. I’d been talking to the woman across the aisle, asking about Customs, etc., and she’d made the comment to Mircea “get her a Valium; she’s too worked up about this”. Well about an hour into the circling, this woman became insane “Why can’t they land this plane? I’m going to miss my other f-ing flight. Delta doesn’t care, etc.” It was beautiful. Who needs a Valium now, spaz? We finally land but spend another HOUR on the tarmac waiting to get off the plane. You’re not supposed to get up but finally I burst from my seat and explain to the stewardess that my kidneys might actually burst (they might have) and I rushed to the bathroom. Thank God because when we finally got off the plane we had about 30 minutes to go through Customs, recheck our bags, go through Security and get to the entire other side of the airport. I swear to you it was a mile. I SWEAR. AND I RAN THE ENTIRE THING. Seriously. 16 hours before, I’d been puking in the corner of a bus, but I ran my freaking heart out to get on this plane, which we made with about 10 minutes to spare (it was worth it). We finally get to Dulles after a couple of other delays and see Mike and Rodica (Mircea’s stepdad and Mom for those keeping score). We get our bags, load up the car, and start telling them our adventure…when I say “do you smell that-oh, the temp is high!” on the car and we pull over on the side of the road. Five miles from the airport we are broken down. Mircea and I almost break down ourselves, but manage to not throw ourselves into traffic or explode in tears or anger (or pooh).

We all decide that we’ll call AAA, have the car towed locally and get a cab to take us back to the airport when where we’ll get a rental car. Easy, right? Logical? Legal? Yes. The tow truck driver comes first, loads up the Jaguar, and says “I’ll take you all to the airport”. Well that’s nice. For two miles I figure all 5 of us can jam into the truck cab. We’re not in the car 20 seconds when Mike says “How much to take us all the way to Southern Maryland?” Mircea and I sort of laugh like “really, really?” and the guy is like “no, no, too far” and we breathe a sigh of relief. But somehow Mike convinces him to take us the TWO HOURS down to Southern Maryland and we’re like “Mike, we can’t sit this way for this long” so the genius tow truck driver says “why don’t you two go sit in the car?” Fast forward through our swears and complaints and you’ll see my ass being hoisted up into the Jaguar and the driver saying “keep your heads down so we don’t get caught”. The first 20 minutes of the drive were terrifying and Mircea and I cursed Mike quite a bit, I almost peed in the car (“Go right on the leather Kate, he deserves it!”) but I finally fell asleep when Mircea and I took the extra boxer briefs we’d packed (for me) “just in case” and put them over our heads to shield our eyes from the blinding lights of the tow truck. We woke up when we got home about 2 hours later and laughed to ourselves as the truck driver tore up their front yard trying to get out (yeah, we were getting spiteful) and got in our truck and got home, swerving twice to avoid hitting deer.

The Gods were against us returning to our beds, but when we got home (33 hours after we got up in Romania) and we were greeted by the happy purrs of Fern and Lily (who spent the entire night with me, kissing and loving and as I found out later, saying goodbye) we knew we were home, it was all worth it, and we somehow lived to tell about it.

Lost in Translation

I'm not 100% sure if I should be frightened that I had my blog visited by the Saudis...frankly, they are our allies in the grand scheme of things. I do have to laugh at what appears to be a "lost in translation" error when this individual was looking for a certain kind of website.


I should have known that my blog title would draw some attention. I'm still trying to come up with a new blog name...in honor of my 500th post. Yeah, that's right, as of this moment I've posted 498 ridiculous, time wasting items. But what a ride!

Love to Hate in Less Than 24 Hours, a.k.a. "The Vase"

I had made up my mind on this cruise that I wasn't going to purchase any kitchy, touristy trinkets on the cruise. I learned this lesson after a trip to Mexico with my friend Bill when I drunkenly purchased several shirts that were hilarious at the time but make no sense and are highly inappropriate, especially when meeting your new neighbors. (You'll have to get that story in person) So fast forward 2 years to Belize, when I find the item that I want to commemorate the trip. Lindsay and I entered a store called "A Taste of Belize" (I don't remember it, the name is on the reciept that I consult in anger several times a day) and found beautiful wooden products. They are all multi-colored and there were salad bowls, vases, jewelry, a chess set, etc. Beautiful pieces. And pricey as hell. There is a vase on the ground of the store and I asked the shop keeper for the price. "$200," was his reply, which sort of made me laugh and I said to Lindsay "yeah, right". So we walked around to other shops, found some great textiles which we both purchased for our homes, bought some yummy Rainforest Rum Cake, and made our way back towards the ship. Except that I wanted to stop back at the wood shop to buy one of the $45 bowls that I had settled on as a centerpiece for the dining table. We get to the store, the shop keeper wraps up the bowl and I start negotiating a price on the large vase. I get him down to $175 and Lindsay and I agree it is totally worth the price, it's a beautiful piece and will look great in the house. He unwraps the bowl and wraps up the vase. I can't believe I spent that much money, but it is a beautiful conversation piece and a unique addition to our home. I'm happy as a clam as I lug that bad boy on the tender back to the ship and store in it our room. I feel crazy for spending that much money, but feel it was worth it.

Fast forward 20 hours or so and enter the first shop in Honduras that Lindsay and I enter. We both exclaim "wow, they have a lot of those wooden vases" and I ask the proprieter the price of the vase, so I can see what a good deal I negotiated in Belize. Are you sitting down? Sit your butt down and get our the Kleenex kids because this is going to be something special. Have you thought of your guess for the price? Did I over pay by $10? $25, $50, or even a whopping $75? I flippin' wish that I overpaid by even $80. I overpaid by... I'm embarassed, I can't even type this. I'm not telling. Ok, I overpaid by $135. That's right. The proprieter told me the cost of my vase in Honduras was only $45, but she would give it to me for $40 because I had a "nice face." I don't know where they hell she got that I had a nice face because there was smoke spewing out of my ears and blood raining from my eyes. I then began ranting and raving to Lindsay and she will attest that I didn't stop. EVER. It's been a week and I'm still pissed.

Despite popular belief and proof to the contrary from this story, I'm no fool. I considered purchasing another one for $40 and then defraying my costs between the two vases but there was the logistics issue of how heavy and annoying the vase was. So I decided to not purchase another one (or six for the price I'd paid for one-swimming back to Belize and returning them all for a great and wonderful profit-muuuhahaha) and it turned out to be for the best. I had to lug that darn vase around the airport and have a million people comment on how beautiful it was and where I'd purchased it. I tried to smile and say "thank you" but it's hard to be the sucker carrying the albiet beautiful and wildly overpriced heavy vase around the airport.

I haven't told you the worst part of the story yet. I know, dry your eyes from the tears of laughter and pity. I unwrapped it when I got home and it seemed fine. Yesterday I picked it up to bitch about it again to Mircea and THERE IS A CRACK IN IT. There was a little line on it when I bought it, and it didn't appear to be a crack, just part of the wood. Well it cracked into a nice little gash, leaving me with two options in which to respond; a.) covering the crack with some sort of decorative grass that I'm sure Fernie will eat or b.) chucking off the back deck while yelling expletives and most likely holding a bottle of booze in the other hand.

Even I can laugh about this at this point because I've single-handedly boosted Belize's GNP for 2009 and frankly, I've got a good story to tell. Too bad it's at my expense.

***UPDATE: Holy Hell that thing has several more cracks in it and is now sort of experiencing a melting at the seams where it appears that it has been glued. Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you that I inspected the heck out of this thing when I bought it. I have no recourse either, just a big steaming pile of crappy wood in my foyer. That still looks good from a distance but may cause me to have a heart attack at 28.***

I Found This in My Email Box...

and started laughing like a hyena in the office. I have to post this.

I think this video is hilarious and I randomly watch it at work when I clean out my email folders (leaving this of course for the next time I clean). Look for my next Colt's post-it ain't pretty!

This Made ME Hoot

more animals

Friday Funny

I found a new blog that cracked me up. This is the blog of unnecessary quotations. Always a "good" time.

Enjoy!

Check Out This Little Gem

I was talking to Marc today and he asked if I had seen the website called Cake Wrecks. I hadn't, but I spent a little time this afternoon laughing my butt off at some of these cakes. Hilarious!!



Here's one that I ran across, not the funniest one, but it had Eagles on it, so it was a shoutout to my sweetie. I've also included the commentary.

You know your mom is cheap when...you have to share your own birthday cake. With a boy. (Yeah, I'm taking Ashley's side. Why? Because a) she likes Disney stuff, b) she's enduring what I'm assuming must be a sports logo on her birthday cake, and c) she's a girl. But mostly the Disney thing.)I like the unintentional irony of having Eeyore on the cake, though. A glum donkey for a glum-ass cake - it's quite appropriate. Still, I have a few questions:

1) Since the "Eagles" logo is blue, why is the icing green?

2) Can anyone see the colors green & purple together and NOT think of either Mardi Gras or the Joker?

3) How come Glen gets his name capitalized, but not Ashley?

4) Did anyone else first read this as "Happy ashley Birthday Glen"?

5) Doesn't Glen's side look bigger? Hey, I think it IS bigger. Mo-oooommm!!!

My Own Leno-Headline

Wise - Guy

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Amanda Wise of Clements, Maryland and Charlie Guy of Leonardtown, Maryland will be married on Saturday, May 03, 2008 in Holy Angels Church, Avenue, Maryland. The bride is the daughter of John Wise and Angel Quade. The groom is the son of Charles Guy Sr. and Betty Guy.
The newlyweds will spend their honeymoon in It's a surprise!.
Charlie and Amanda are TRULY each others soulmates!



I actually know the guy...he is adorable! I wish there was a picture. I'm totally sending this in to Headlines.