Sheep Crashes High School Reunion

The only thing that Eustice likes more than meeting new people is a good party. So he was really looking forward to my Prince's 30th High School Reunion. He just had to get in on the group photo... 

The King is a little unsure of Eustice's motives.

Just go along with it Dave. Eustice doesn't usually bite. 

Eustice also got to meet some celebrities last night. He'd had some shots of something called Blackout with my Prince and wandered off mid-party. I don't know where he went or what he did, but that's why there aren't too many pictures. He says he's not talking but from the way he looks and how close he's hovering to the coffee pot this morning I'm guessing he actually doesn't remember WHAT he did.

Famous D.J. Richard Blade was thrilled to meet Eustice.

Eustice says he tried talking to Richard about scuba diving lessons, but it was really loud. I'm not sure how that went, but I'm not paying for it. I told Eustice if he wants to start taking courses like that he's going to have to get a JOB. 

He also met the Mother of a past contestant of America's Next Top Model and current contestant of their All Stars show. I wish I could remember her name, she was very nice lady. Eustice says that I should say that she's not as nice as me which is why he calls me The Nice Lady. 

The first thing he said he noticed about her was the size of her diamond. At one point he whispered to me that he was quite sure it would not fit in his mouth. I really have no idea what he was thinking... but I will be sure to put any jewelry with stones well out of his reach from now on. 

We visited with her for quite a while during dinner, and shamefully I've forgotten her name. Because I forget everything, and I really must learn to take notes. She is an immensely proud mama of three girls and a little boy. As proud as she is of all her beautiful children, it's very clear that she values intelligence more than beauty. She told Eustice and I more than once that beauty is fleeting but stupid can last forever. Eustice, with a moist eye, said she reminded him of his Mom. 

Memories of his Mom on his mind or not... that did NOT stop him from getting a good look down her shirt. 

Eustice has mind control abilities. How else could he get so many women to put him so close to their breasts? 

We still have the rest of our train trip to Seattle to tell you about plus a few intermediate adventures. We've been visiting way too many doctors lately. 

How we leave on a train trip and forget everything...

We took Eustice on a train trip from Southern California to Seattle, Washington. It was lovely... just the right pace for a Spoonie like The Nice Lady.

We met some nice people, one horribly rude person, at least one person with NO sense of humor, and amused our selves by tweeting @Amtrak_CA while traveling by rail. We saw parts of three states we might not have seen otherwise. I was so entertained by watching the scenery glide by that little knitting got done. Well... that and, you'll see...

Eustice at Union Station in Downtown LA

Princess Charming (a.k.a. my sister-in-law) drove us to Union Station... and thinking that we were very clever we used Google Navigator in our fancy new Android phone! And do you know that it doesn't know the difference between the Union Rescue Mission  aka Skid Row and Union Station? I didn't either! So that was an interesting little, ahem, side trip.

We get there, negotiate the issues of parking of car (far away, up a hill thankyouverymuch) and bringing in baggage (drop off Eustice, myself and luggage while they go park car providing this great photo op time). And then we go inside to check our big bag. As we get to the front of the very short line Our Prince Charming realizes that he has left his wallet, containing his ID, on his dresser. Which is at home. Our train is leaving in 20 minutes. My first thought is that maybe we can take a later train after we go back home, get them, skip going to Skid Row a second time and come back to the train station.

Bless the sweet woman behind the counter and the fates that guided us to her! She notices that Our Prince's backpack is desert camo and embroidered with the U.S. Army Reserve logo. She asks if he's in the Reserves. Yes. Does he have his dog tags? OMG YES! In the backpack! Between my military ID showing I'm his spouse and his dog tags she checks us in! I later gleefully tweet about it with #fuckthetsa. I sure love me someone that can use common sense!

Still, we will need his wallet once we get to Washington. I shove a fistfull of twenty dollar bills at Princess Charming who keeps assuring us that it's NO PROBLEM to go back to our place, get the wallet and fed-ex it to the friends we will be staying with. She walks out with us right to the train (did I mention I hate the TSA because they're stupid?), because she wants to see the train more of the station, which has been refurbished nicely, and also see the train. It's kinda fun.

Eustice gets settled in.

We upgraded from coach seats to a Roomette the larger accommodations are even nicer, and I dearly would have loved the ability to lay down AND look out the window, but this worked out.

Eustice tries out my seat. 

Look at the above photo and towards the left you can see the Los Angeles River. The tracks run parallel to the river through many areas and I saw so many things that I wish I could have captured with the camera. Most of them had to do with people who are making their homes (illegally) along the river. One image that has stayed with me was a man washing up standing on an island of debris in the middle of the river. He had shorts on, and what appeared to be bottles of shampoo and soap with him.

Eustice helps me eat my brie and fruit filled salad.

Helping save my Prince from the evils of potato crisps.

We had our lunch in the parlor car, a great perk of having sleeping accommodations...   In the meantime The Princess had taken care of shipping off the wallet. She called to tell me that it would get to our friends house almost a day before we do.





Lunch was wonderful. The menu in the parlor car is limited but fancy and delicious!









And then we went back to our private little room and watched Southern California go by...

Cows running away from the train, you'd think they'd be used to it. But Eustice says cows are dumb.

A hawk or possibly a turkey vulture, I'm not sure. We saw a lot of wildlife and at one point I was positive I saw a mountain lion laying down in the scrub grass. 

The person tweeting for Amtrak_CA recommended we check out the wine and cheese tasting so when they announced it we made our way back to the parlor car and made our first new friends.

 Hazel and her daughter (I wish I could remember her name, Mary?) who were taking a train trip across most of the country on their way to a big family reunion/pow wow. When the daughter was a teen she was Princess of her tribe (the name of which I have also forgotten, I really must learn to write things down... everything oozes out of my whiffle ball brain).

Eustice kisses a real  (native American) Indian Princess

About half-way through the second glass of wine we discover that one of the runners up for last year's asshole of the year competition is also on our train! Lucky us!

wine please...

As the host is telling us about the wonderful wine we're drinking this jerk sitting in the booth right next to the host takes a phone call and begins talking loudly. The host, who has a melodious voice, begins to attempt to speak over him. But Mr. Rude just talks louder. Apparently the person sitting next to him doesn't know him but he's stood up to let him get up from his chair so he can go take the call down the stairs to a quieter area. But Mr. Rude just ignores all of this. He has important things he needs someone named Stewart to know.

really good cheese.

The host gives up talking and simply stands there.  I'm fairly sure I saw him roll his eyes. There are at least 20 people all waiting for Mr. Rude to get off the phone. Only he KEEPS TALKING. A few people loudly ask him to take the call out of the room or get off the phone. He keeps telling the person on the phone to tell this and that to Stewart. Eustice tells me to make sure that he also doesn't forget to tell Stewart that we all love him now. So I yell out "Tell Stewart we love him!" My Prince shakes his head, and someone laughs. And Mr. Rude keeps on talking. When he finally gets off the phone someone loudly says "What a JERK." And then the host resumes his talk. Best. Host. Ever.

Shortly after this My Prince realizes that he forgot our garment bag. This is where he packed our clothes for the wedding we are making this trip to attend. My Prince goes from relaxed to panic mode in a blink.  This activates my fixer super-power (it's annoying usually, ask anyone that has happened to mentioned a problem near me). I immediately text his sister who calls me back. Mortified that the phone has rung I leap up and try to run to the stairs and am almost thrown to the floor by the lurch of the train (note to self: do not leap anywhere on a moving train).

She and my Mother in Law are getting their hair done. This means that she's almost an hour from our place. It's already after 2 pm but she swears it's NO PROBLEM to go back to our place, shove my dress and most of The Prince's suit into a small box and have it sent to us before the shipping store closes. This will no doubt cost quite a bit, but is cheaper than having to buy new. See why she's Princess Charming? Our clothes will also arrive in Washington before us!

And that's how we started out our trip by forgetting stuff. Next time I'll tell you about how I managed to spend the rest of this leg of the trip looking like I had a head injury.

Blue hair isn't just for old ladies

Got some new bluish hair today. I like the blue green, and now my hair smells like fruit too. Eustice wants me to make sure you know that it tastes nothing like fruit. He also says to write that I yell really loud if you try to taste seen even the littlest bit of the blue.

type-os courtesy touchscreen

We waited for the giraffe...

Eustice insisted that I post this one. NOW.
type-os courtesy touchscreen

Giraffes Are Always Late

Today was my monthly "medication monitoring" appointment with my psychiatrist. Honestly she's one of my favorite doctors (shh... don't tell her). So I'm in the little upstairs waiting room, which is outside the inpatient adolescent unit and I'm looking, for the 472nd time, at this:

I'd love to hear YOUR opinion on it. Eustice said it made him dizzy.

Eustice announced it was past time for him to have some therapy too. Amazingly there was a new group starting today:

The giraffe got there after I took the picture. I was afraid taking a second picture would be TOO obvious. I have no idea what they talked about. I'm really confused about the bus... I mean, was the bus there for therapy, or was it the driver or the kid that's planking in the back of the bus? Eustice wouldn't tell me, "group rules" he said.

A little Sake Goes A Long Way

Eustice tried to post to the blog himself, but it didn't work out so well. He's kinda annoyed with me for not posting about going out for sushi. After we went for a tilt table test I decided we deserved sushi. What is a tilt table test? It's a test where a cardiologist and a mess of nurses put you on a table that stands you up (at like a 70% to 80% angle) and then they take your blood pressure every minute and give you drugs and watch you black out. Then they quickly make the table flat so you wake up while they're shoving oxygen on your face and feeling like someone just tried to drown you.  Terribly exciting for them... not so fun for me.

Which is why I totally deserved sushi. We have a great little sushi fusion place here in the oddest location. It shares a parking lot with a somewhat dumpy pay-by-the-week-motel. For years we drove past thinking they must stay open by laundering drug money... but thanks to yelp we discovered that it's just good sushi. I mean, they could still be doing something hinky, but the sushi is good and it's always crowded. Crowds are not Rob's favorite thing, so it's important that we order good sake right away and get Rob drunk.

Eustice checks out the ahi and salmon

This is the first time we've gone for Sushi since learning about my gluten issues. Bonus for me... they served me a dish of fresh wasabi! Eustice was very interested... I think because it's green. I told him not to eat from the bowl. I reminded him what happened when he tried the fresh chilies at the Vietnamese restaurant.

We ordered a big bottle of sake for Rob and of course poured for the sushi chefs involved in the real wasabi. Our first order, a plate of sashimi, reminded me of why you always pour for the sushi chef! 

oh yummeh thick slices of fishies... Eustice ate up all the shredded daikon

Around this time Rob started letting Eustice drink sake. There is a good chance Eustice likes sake better than beer. It does not take a lot of sake to get a little sheep drunk. 

Eustice also sampled some of the 1/2 price happy hour sushi Rob ordered... and more sake... and the next thing I know.... 

I told him not to eat the wasabi from the dish!

Maybe someday he'll listen to me... although I doubt that will be anytime soon. Eustice's solution to wasabi fire breath was more sake. On his way back to me he picked up the "carrot scepter of wasabi triumph" but it suddenly became a hat before I got a picture of him waving it around.

I think he was thinking about trying the wasbai again here.

Before I could stop him he was drunkenly weaving down the sushi bar singing something about how wool doesn't burn. He got too close to the edge, fell off and skittered all the way across the floor of the restaurant into the wall under a table. It took us a minute to find him and I was in a rush to retrieve him before anything too embarrassing happened so I didn't get any pictures of that at all. He's just lucky there wasn't any gum down there.

Before we left of course there was posing with the hostesses...

Eustice says that I should write that I pushed him off the bar. So I'm writing it. Because he's looking. But I'm not the one that was drunk. I was the designated driver. 

Vroom!

Eustice and I haven't really been getting out very much again outside of seeing doctors. On April Fools Day I discovered that I am so awesome that I actually pranked myself! I'm sure you're just dying to know how I did that. I managed to fail to delete an entry for an eye doctor appointment in my calendar. I also knew that I had an upcoming appointment with a completely different eye doctor that I didn't yet have when I made the appointment with the first eye doctor that I failed to delete. 

When the reminder came up (for April 1st) I assumed it was the upcoming appointment with the new eye doctor since I'd only written "eye doctor" on the calender. Way to go with the specifics there since there was only one eye doctor when I wrote it. So on April Fools Day (or is that April Fool's day?) I drive 30 minutes to a doctor appointment that isn't until Wed. and of course the office staff lets me sit for 15 minutes before telling me that the doctor isn't even in the office on Fridays.

So since we were already far away from home we decided to stop off and visit a friend. It just so happened that she was helping out a friend of hers at his business. Guess what he does?

Eustice was so excited... he wanted pictures taken with everything... he started muttering "vroom... vroom..." when he thought I wasn't paying attention to him. I really regretted only having my cell phone camera with us. 

Eustice begged to take this for a spin. I had to tell him that his hooves wouldn't reach the pedals.

Not my arm.

Eustice clearly has a thing for cars with flames.

Everyone keeps mummified alien corpses in their auto shop... right? 

Seems I'm not the only one that brings home stray sheep.

Yes, that's a sheep up in the loft. And Eustice was very annoyed with me because I would not climb the ladder to the loft so he could meet this sheep. My friend was shocked at his childish behavior and put an end to his tantrum... 

Not my bewbs.

Like all boys Eustice is very easy to distract. He later made me promise not to tell Eunice. So now I have to ask you to promise too!