Curious George at His Finest

I know the LCD TV we got last spring has really good picture quality. I just didn't realize how good until Curious George (true to his name) started watching TV. He started by sitting on the floor about 10 feet away. Now if the image is really interesting he gets right up to it...apparently he was hungry for hot dogs (its a Hebrew National hot dog commercial in the background). I feel like my Mom when I tell him, "Not so close! You'll ruin your eyes!"

BTW, took this photo with our nifty new digital fujifilm I got on eBay for a great deal.

The Good, The Sad and The Bad

I thought I'd start with the good news. Today is Tara and my 8th day smoke free! I must say the patches are a big help. I haven't had huge cravings and have been calm at work.
The sad news. Tara got a call from her sister Angel yesterday. Angel and Chris (her husband) had to put their beloved dog Shusky (half shephard half husky) to sleep yesterday afternoon. Shusky was an absolute sweetheart of a dog with lots of love and patience. She was diagnosed last week with a massive tumor on her liver and the vet said their really was no way to remove it. Shusky has been their dog since she was a puppy and will be missed by a lot of people. She started showing she was in a lot of pain over the past few days though if you asked her if she wanted to go for a walk she would still get up, wag her tail through the pain and get her leash. She spent the afternoon with her family and went on her last walk before going to the vet. She's over the rainbow bridge and hopefully having a fabulous time there.
The Bad: Our downstairs neighbor Rich. Rich is a functioning alcoholic with a really nice surround sound system. He has been going through a really rough time with an ill father and unfortunately handles issues by not handling them. He just drinks more Natural Ice and turns up the stereo. Lately the stereo has been on to an extreme degree. I was woken up early Sunday morning to "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash. Last night he turned up Patsy Cline. At 10:15pm Tara went down and said, "Rich could you please turn it down?" He complained and turned it down slightly. When she asked him to come to the door and speak with her he flat refused. So we called the police on the non-emergency number and they came and told him to turn it down at 11pm. Then he stood in the courtyard with his buddy from across the way and complained loudly until after midnight.
We went to be at midnight and at 3am were awoken to Rich's bass on his surround sound turned up as loud as possible. Just the base with what I would guess to be a dance song on. He would play it for 5-10 minutes and then switch to a loud TV show then go back to the dance mix. We called the non-emergency number again at 4am. The police showed up somewhere between 4:30 and 5 am. I finally just got out of bed at 6am.
I called the apartment manager today and she is going to send him a letter....
Great help there.
She also told us to keep calling the police if he's loud since, "He's not that financially well off and maybe a ticket will wake him up."
Again, Great help there.
We are actively looking for a new place to live, preferrably a home. In the mean time, based on the conversation overheard last night with Rich's buddy, I'm parking the car away from our apartment in a different area of the complex parking lot away from him to protect our paint job and tires and saving the non-emergency number in my cell phone. I'm also continuing to pray for Rich. He needs some serious professional help and I hope some time soon he sees that.

Miracle on the Horizon

I am now officially smoke free. I've been on the nicotine patches since 6/30/08 but was also provided with Quest 3 non menthol nicotine free cigarettes to help combat my habit of picking up a cigarette. Funny thing happened from the first day...I used to smoke a pack a day but with the nicotine free ones I was averaging 8 a day. This gave me a chance to really focus on the habit without dealing with the cravings thanks to the patch. As of 7/8/08 I am completely smoke free. I'll be walking around with a patch on for quite a few more weeks. I'm involved with a quit smoking research project at Duke University and I'm following their directions to the letter.
So far so good. Cravings are very mild and not very frequent...much better than my previous attempts. I am dealing with some sleep issues (hard time falling asleep and REALLY vivid dreams like watching my own nonsensical cinema at night) but those will fade away too.
As far as the rest of my life, in the last few days I've been learning some important lessons about faith and taking things one day at a time. I'm learning to trust that all things will work out and I'm becoming much more relaxed.
All in all the past few weeks have been very eye opening and enlightening. I can't wait to see what today brings.

Good Night Sleep Tight...Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite

When we traveled to Lancaster, PA for Lancaster's first ever Pride event we planned in advance. I know I would have to work on Friday and the trip from North Carolina up would take us through Washington, D.C. and Baltimore so I booked a hotel room in advance. We wanted to keep costs down in hopes of making a profit with our jewelry and t-shirts. I worked until 4pm, finished loading the Escape in 95+ degree heat in jeans and then we headed out. We got to the Super 8 at 11:45pm. I wasn't expecting the Ritz. Just a decent bed, working shower and overall cleanliness. As soon as we got to our room we set the bag on the counter, I dug out the shower stuff and went directly to the shower. I felt icky from sweating while loading the car and overall, having a long day. While I was showering, Tara pulled down the comforter and sheet on the bed, sat down on the bed with her foot on the bed and turned on the TV. She also had on all the lights.
When I got out of the shower, she went to stand up and a bug crawled off her foot and across the bed. She immediately grabbed a tissue and squished it. It was full of blood...her blood by the bite mark on the top of her foot. It was a bed bug!!!! Major ick moment. I immediately got dressed again, took the offending, dead critter in the tissue and marched to the front desk. The young man offered another room at the opposite end of the motel. From watching all those news articles on bed bugs in hotels I knew it was likely they only had them in one or two rooms, brought in by a guest so I agreed.
First the key card didn't work. I had to go back down and get another one. When we finally got into the room we immediately removed the head board to search for signs of bedbugs. The back of the head board was covered in black specks. Basically, dried, digesed blood from bed begs. Then I look down at the bed and the side of the box spring has a very large old bloodstain on it. It looks like someone bled profusely in the room in the past. I called down to the desk immediately. The young man sent his grandfather up. The grandfather's English was very, very poor. We showed him the problem, his response was, "The room okay!" over and over again. Finally, we got him out of the room, picked up the phone book, stood in the middle of the room and started calling. It was now 1 in the morning and we are trying to find another room. I went down to get a refund. They wanted to offer us another room! By the time I got a refund, Tara had another room booked at a privately owned place called the Country Inn. Very nice place, a little more money but totally worth it. The first thing we did was take of the head board and found nothing but clean, shiny wood. The room was clean, brightly lit, country decorated and just fine by me. Its unfortunate we paid $90 to sleep for 6 hours but the extra price was well worth it for the atmosphere and bed bug free zone.
The kicker to all this is, we know people in Lancaster County. Vision of Hope MCC is a sister church to our church, St. John's MCC. We just didn't want to bother any of them since they were so integral in organizing the event on Saturday. While we were at the Pride event, Pastor Debbie walks over to our booth and say with a smile, "Now you are staying at our place tonight, there is plenty of room (if you don't mind 5 dogs) and since you already offended us by not calling ahead and staying with us to begin with, you can make it up by staying tonight, coming to church tomorrow and heading home rested." Who am I to resist?
BTW, 5 dogs included 1 golden retriever, 1 black lab, 1 retriever/lab mix, 1 rotweiler/chow mix (all female) and 1 miniature poodle. Glory, the golden retriever was nice enough to wake me up early by sitting on me. I will never complain about our 18lb cat sitting on me again. 100+ lbs of dog is a whole different ball game. I couldn't move anything but my arms which was just fine by Glory. She did a great job of ignoring my entreaties to get off of me too. Any time I told her to move, she became very interested in the ceiling.
All in all it was an interesting and educational trip. Always check for bed bugs before settling down and if you have friends to stay with instead, that's always a better choice.