The last transatlantic flight EVER...I hope

Note from the plane.....


Hubby helped us check in at London Heathrow. .I had 2 big suitcases, 2 cat cages with cats, 1 backpack and one giant purse. They took the suitcases and then told me to bring the cats back at 8:00 .


Hubby had to leave us there ,he is on his way out of town to work.


 So, I took the cats over to where I was supposed to meet the guy at 8 o clock . He said " follow me."  He then led me down into the bowels of the airport .You know ,amidst boilers, pipes, and equipment.


He wanted me to take BOTH cats out of their carriers and hold them ,while he went somewhere with the crates to run them thru an X-ray scanner.


keep in mind, the guy barely spoke English. I understood about half of what he said.


I told him ,it's impossible for me to do that. I have to do one cat at a time. He said "once he went inside this room ,he could not come out, so I would have to take the crate and put it on the scanner myself."

I think.


So, I take Cavuto out and hold him, he was squirming and freaking out. Cat hair flying all over me. The guy takes the crate and disappears for about 10 minutes. Cavuto is too big and squirmy for me to handle, so I manage to pin him on top of my purse with one hand ,while I dug his harness out of the back pack with the other hand. by this time Cavuto was so freaked out and scared he was shivering. The guy comes back with his cage .and tells me to leave him there now,and do the other cat.  of course both cats fought me tooth and nail trying to get them OUT of the cages.




This time ,I know to start with the harness on o Reilly. The guy tells me " set the cat on the ground and YOU have to go take the crate and put it on the scanner.


This is just some unmanned conveyor belt down in the basement ,with all the industrial stuff.


I set o Reilly down and the guy is trying to hold his leash , but he's so skinny ,the harness is just hanging on him. I tell the guy "he will back right out of that."  So he gives me the cage and shuts the door.

I go down the corridor put the cage on the scanner and rush back to the cats. Another guy finally brings o Reilly's crate back . Now both cats are Safely IN their crates ,when another guy shows up (also with negligible English) and says to take Cavuto out and do the whole thing all over again.


guy ONE, and I finally convince Him that Cavuto AND his cage have already been done.


I make them wait while I put zip ties on the cage doors and then they wheel my babies away ,into that horrible scary place.

I am completely covered in cat hair, including my face and the inside of my eyes and nose. also , of course I am wearing black clothes.


remember for security or some reason, the guy who brought me down there, now can not exit. So he just
leaves ME on my own ,to find my way out of there.


By the time I get upstairs and to security it's already 8:37. I go through security and they're practically strip searching Everyone AND their luggage. Including mine. So that takes forever for me to be on my way.


by the time I get to the screen that tells me which gate to go to, my flight is already boarding. and yep, it is at gate 42....... The very furthest gate in the entire airport.


I was one of the last people to get on the plane.


As soon as I got in my seat I flagged down a stewardess and said "can you please check and make sure my cats are on the plane. " I had to wait a while before SHE got a call back , but she came over and said " don't worry honey ,I got babies too. " so she came by and gave me a thumbs up as soon as she got the word.


Luckily there is an empty seat to my left. Woo hoo!

I forgot my plane socks in the backpack , now my real socks have to keep walking thru the urine soaked hell hole. GAH! Well, I guess I am going to try and take a nap. I had like 2 hours of sleep.


Hope the babies are calmed down and sleeping. .....


*****************************************

There was an empty seat next to me  . A rare treat!


The flight was like 9 and a half hours. UGH! so miserably uncomfortable.The flight actually landed about 30 minuts early. So my friend Eva had not even gotten there yet. I had to go thru customs ,about 3 different lines ,to clear myself and the cats. By the time I got to baggage claim ,the cats were already dumped there on the floor ,in their crates . Cavuto was screaming his head off and O'reilly had himself burrowed under his blankets .Every time he does that, it scares the crap out of me because I think he is dead.

They were both fine in spite of their horrible ordeal.


After being awake for about 30 hours ,we finally got dropped off at home around 9 p.m.
The cats remembered their home and were thrilled ! I immediately got reacquainted with my bed and slept until 6:30 this morning. AH!! boy did I need that.


The tags on my truck are expired ,the new stickers should be in my mailbox ,but I must wait for my neighbor G5 to wake up so I can get the mail key.


Let me know when you are up please G5!



There is absolutely nothing to eat in this house. I did find some coffee ,which I had to drink black . But better than nothing .


                                                               So HAPPY to be home! God Bless America!

                                                                                    Love me

You must be trippin'

Long time no see, people.

   It's 4:30 A.M. here in the U.K. ,thanks jet lag! I just got back from my 3 week trip to the states. Chicago and Jacksonville.to be exact.

 How was my trip ,you ask?

Let's recap ,shall we.

My flight out to Chicago was uneventful. always a good thing. When I arrived in Chi town,Logan picked me up with Hayden and Mason ,both kids were sleeping .The weather was colder than I ever remember it being.

I had quit smoking on Jan 20th ,so this was less than a month later. My brand new, huge down coat that I got for Christmas, barely fit on my fat self.

I was still in my fat ,jet lagged haze when it was time for the new baby to be born. I felt really overwhelmed at the thought of being home alone with these two monkeys ,for 2 or 3 days.

I talked to my aunt Mary Lou one night while the monkeys were in the tub .Little did I know that my piece of crap disposable cell phone was eating up 15 dollars for a 10 minute phone call. I had big plans to sit on the phone and catch up with all my peeps. This was NOT to be. My sons no longer had house phones either. All of you who think I ignored the call we were supposed to have , sorry . I had no idea i would be phone- less.





I digress, oops.  The big day arrived and luckily my co- mother in law ,was off work for the day .So she was there to help with the grand babies at the hospital .We took the two kids down to the cafeteria to get breakfast but they were closed for a couple hours.So we had the brilliant plan of giving the kids some snacks from the vending machine. Many mini donuts later ,those kids were so hyped up I thought they were gonna fly right out of the hospital.

We were finally brought in to see the new addition. Isaac Scott Thomas .He is absolutely adorable :)

Miss Hayden had a few terrible moments at the hospital . While mom was pregnant she was convinced that SHE also had a baby in her tummy .When hers turned out to be a doll , she was pretty devastated. She was also sad that mom was sick (from the meds) and she did not want to leave her.

Rough day for my poor girl.
















Did I mention that the temp outside was 8 below ZERO!This made it ultra fun ,letting the dogs in and out.



Well the kids and I managed (barely) to make it on our own for a few days .

We all slept in the living room because by the time the miracle of sleep came , there was no way this Kee Kee could carry any kids up the stairs .

Lots of people came to see Mom and Isaac at the hospital. Sweet really, especially since shortly after arriving home ,Hayden and Mason both came down with a lovely stomach virus, complete with diarrhea and vomiting.

Im sick

Then Kee Kee developed a sore throat. Next thing ya know poor mom and Isaac had to quarantine themselves away from the rest of us and stay upstairs.

Needless to say , we didn't really go any where except the grocery store during my entire stay .

The kids were still sick when I left for the next leg of my trip. Off to Jacksonville.

Shortly after arriving in Jax ,I became sick as a dog. I tried to keep my germs to myself and thought "oh I'll rest a couple days ,talk on the phone and chill." It was then that my son informed me he no longer had a home phone and then, I totally lost my voice. 

Lovely. 

We did manage to do a few things in spite of me being ill. Thank you Dayquil.

I didn't get to hang out with Conrad as much as I had wanted . I hope no one has gotten sick.

We went to a really cool restaurant called Clarks fish camp. 

They had TONS of taxidermy animals.Awesome place!

I went to the beach ,with my daughter in laws step mom .Thanks Roxanne! Did I mention ,it was 85 degrees that day? !

And I went with my son Ian ,to see a play where he works. The play was "Butterflies are free"

Its a dinner theatre ,pretty cool .As you can see the play was starring Blair, from Facts of life. And her cute daughter. 

       Next thing ya know it was time to head back to the UK. My flight was over booked (meaning jam packed) .I got zero sleep .Hubby picked me up at 7:30 the next day .All I could think about was "get me to my bed, must sleep before I die." 

So, we are about 20 minutes from home and all of a sudden we hear this hideous noise. He pulls the car off into some farmers driveway. 

Oh , joy ,we have a flat tire. I lounge in my seat while he attempts to change the tire. After about half an hour ,I think he is done.I open the door and he says "there's no place to put this stupid jack. " 

WTH? I get out and pace around for a minute and notice that the front tire is ALSO flat. 

Now were really screwed. 2 flats. On a Sunday. Oh crap . So we wind up calling a taxi ,who takes me home. Hubby has to stay and wait for the tow truck. They tow the car to a garage and then we have to buy 2 new tires. This is why we can't have nice things. lol

So that was my fabulous trip. 

Hubby left today for work and now it will probably take me the rest of the week to feel normal again. 

                                          I miss everyone already :(

P.s. All the people I never got to call , you may now call me on the Arkansas phone ,it should ring here in the UK :) 

                                                          Love Kee Kee

Never trust a man with your lemon bars....

  As I said earlier, we have company coming for dinner this evening.
Around noon , I still hadn't been to the grocery store because hubby had to go get the tire fixed (well ,buy two new tires) and I was cleaning and cooking some delicious lemon bars for dessert tonight. I tell my husband "I could go ahead and go now, if you can take that cake out of the oven when the timer goes off. "




"sure, ok. "     so I head off to the grocery store. He calls me about 10 minutes later " Are you sure this thing is done? " "Are the edges brown?"  "Yeah, but not very brown." " ok, well set the timer for 5 or 6 more minutes and then get it out "




Meanwhile ,I go to two grocery stores and then I'm standing in the rain putting all our excess junk mail in the recycle bin , in the grocery store parking lot. Hubby calls me again .

"I just fried your cake."   " What!?" " I set the timer for 5 minutes ,then I got a phone call and kept working and I forgot all about it." " Is it ruined? "








                                                       I'll let you guys see for yourself.

                                     (insert cuzz words here) and start over making new dessert. Ugh!

My Danish cracker box (living room)

and dining room.

We don't call him the bunny for nuthin' ,look at that weirdo

                                               Ok, I have an hour and a half to finish everything....I'm pooped.

                                                                               Have a great evening Peeps! Luv me

Maximum kick baby

      ok...now where was I?



Oh yeah, off the Effexor and doing fine except for one extremely annoying symptom, the God awful insomnia!



My spouse has been working out of the country, nearly EVERY week, Monday-Friday. So at first I was thinking, as I'm wide awake at 2 A.M. , "man ,I can't sleep when you're gone."


 That made no sense. I was home alone in America for months at a time, I slept like a baby.



Well, also home in America, I drink caffeine free diet coke, they do not have that here, AT ALL. So I had switched to Pepsi Max (just because it tasted better than the "coke light" ) That is what I've been drinking for months.


 Well ,one day , I dragged my exhausted ass out of bed, after being awake half the night and went out to run my errands.

 Here in Denmark it is RARE to find a place where you can buy yourself a nice fountain drink, to go.

 So as I grab a 16 ounce bottle of lukewarm pepsi max, I notice, for the first time ever, these words “maximum kick, no sugar"

I thought to my exhausted self, OMG, I wonder if there is extra caffeine in this shit?

Of course I googled it up as soon as I got home, imagine my surprise when I saw this:



"The Max Factor

In addition to being a zero calorie soft drink, Pepsi Max is also marketed for its increased caffeine content and the addition of ginseng, both of which give it the appeal of an energy drink. In comparison to the 38 mg of caffeine in regular Pepsi, there’s 69 mg of caffeine in Pepsi Max."

Hello, stupidity! I've been frying myself up every day with EXTRA caffeine.....this is after the pot of coffee I drink every morning.


Now, I'm having to wean myself off my extreme caffeine over dosage, am I feeling like a bee-otch? Why yes, yes I am. Senile? Yes, feeling that too. Shaking my head.


Hey, I said it was stupid, not exciting :)


************************************************************




Well, let me see .....what else is new since I haven't been blogging.




I have been spending my spare time going to flea markets and yard sales, (great fun! ) however ,now that it's about to be freezing ass cold, those are about to end. :((


I have tired to offer myself up as a volunteer, and since I do not speak Danish I have been rejected like the plague. Then, as fate would have it, this co-worker of hubby's asked me if I would be willing to help his daughter with her English.


All Danish kids take English in school starting about 4th grade(maybe)



I'm still in the discovery stage. I go meet her once a week and give her things to do in English, during the coming week.Then we discuss it all ,when I meet with her.
 Oh, she will be 15 tomorrow so it's not like I'm starting from scratch. (Thank God)
So, we'll see how that goes.


Cavuto has begun licking his stomach bald once again. This time I think it's because O'Reilly keeps beating him up.

 Picture it: the middle of the night, Cavuto is out prowling the house hunting for bugs or whatever, he starts his loud howling . Meanwhile, O'Reilly is lying next to us on the bed. First he wakes up, lifts up his head and listens ,then he gets all huffy, storms out there ...and the next sound we hear is Cavuto squeaking because O'Reilly has just pinned him down and started biting him.He is stifling that poor baby's personality. I don't know what to do about it ..except off to the vet for another steroid shot for Cavuto.Or maybe I'll start spanking O'Reilly. LOL 


Tonight we have an entire Chinese family coming over for dinner. My little friend TingTing is bringing her hubby, Mom and baby . So, I must get busy. My spouse was home all weekend and we were trapped here because there's a screw in one of the tires.(meaning ,yes, the house is a sty) 


                                               Happy Monday Peeps!
                                                    Love me

Sometimes my stupidity shocks me.......

          Sometimes my stupidity shocks me.......



   I know it's been FOREVER since I've blogged and believe me; it’s been cramping my creativity. My husband is extremely opposed to my having a blog because..What can I say..To know me is to love me, right? (lol) So, people who work for him started reading my blog. This is just not a good thing, for some people to have so much info/ammo on him.



  Well, I have finally figured out that I can have a "private blog" ,unfortunately ...this means that YOU my wonderful peeps will have to sign in, to read the damn thing. I am going to give it a shot; I hope that you will too. If not, I guess I will just write anyway and save it up for Hayden and "Maybe, Conrad"/Hamza


   I say "Maybe, Conrad" because as you know, Wes and Melanie are expecting a baby boy, Dec. 14th.
So far, the chosen name is going to be Conrad Wesley Black. When they had the first sonogram ,and saw that the baby was a boy, Wes jokingly began calling the olive sized fetus, Hamza (as this was one of the fabulous baby names they had recently seen) I have actually mailed packages addressed to Hamza Black.

Just recently I said "What if it turns out to be a girl?"    Wes said “NO! We’ve seen his package, he's well endowed."   lol  (they all are at that age)


Well, where the hell was I going with that? Oh yeah , maybe I'll just be writing to babies.

Speaking of which, you know recently ,I posted on FB ...all these cute ,cute baby clothes I had been buying at flea markets and thrift shops. Well, a few weeks ago I made 2 separate boxes of that cute stuff to mail, One for Hayden, and One for Hamza. Imagine my shock when it cost me 5 times what I paid for the cute stuff to MAIL it. Then, like 2 days later I had to explain to my spouse where this hunk of money had gone.

"Oh, remember all that stuff I bought for the babies? It cost a fortune to mail it out of Denmark."

Today, I finally tried to find out why neither Logan nor Wes have received these boxes. WTF'nF? It appears that for some reason the damn boxes have now been sent BACK to ME! I am sooo mad!
I can not pay to send them again.
 Now, by the time I go out for my visit in Jan. I'll have no clothes for myself in my suitcase because I'll have to BRING that stuff. Poor Hayden and Hamza will be 3 sizes larger than their cute Danish clothing. (So NO laughing when you see pics of them, looking like cute stuffed sausages, bursting out of their Danish baby clothes.)

They WILL be photographed wearing that cute shit if it's the last thing I ever do!

Ummm.. What else, oh ..As some of you know....I have been on antidepressants (of one type or another) since the year before Tommy died. When clinical depression struck, they were a Godsend. The bad part came later. Years later....I begin telling my doctors (in each country) "I am not depressed any more, if anything, I have an anxiety problem, I want to get off of these antidepressants."

Effexor had been the best working one, over 10 years on that shit.

Well, my UK doctor (3 years ago) totally ignored my request. My Denmark doctor, 2 years ago said " Oh, I don't want to do that until I get to know you better." As I'm getting ready to go home, for 5 months.

Are you kidding me???

So, this past spring when I went home, I demanded to my U.S. doctor to "get me off this shit!"
He began weaning me off of it immediately, by cutting my dose of 150 mg/per day, in half.

I did that for 2 months and YES the withdrawal effects were immediate.

Effexor is especially awful to stop. The physical symptoms are pretty severe, that is why doctors are afraid to HELP you stop taking it. I once ran out of it, when we first moved to Arkansas and our insurance had changed. I went ONE week without any and by the time I got to my doctors appointment I felt like I was about to die, my (normally low blood pressure was through the roof) NOT pleasant.

Anyhow, my US doctor, God bless that cute lil thing, he cut the dosage down and then cut it down in half again. By that time, I was ready to return to Denmark and refilled my last prescription, this was the lowest dose there is 37.5 . At this dose ,I was a frazzled nervous wreck (anxiety overload) ,My husband ,who hadn't seen me for a couple months, noticed how frazzled and anxious I was.

So , I got here with 30 days worth. How to ration or split, when they are the stupid little balls inside a capsule? The side effects were horrendous. Just at the lowered dose.....tick tock.... two weeks later I tried to split the pills..Ha! The little balls were all white, the static electricity made them stick to everything. I was way too blind (impatient) for that crap. I spent two weeks with brain shocks, blindness, ringing ears, totally useless, unable to drive...ect.. ect..

I tried to describe it to my husband, I couldn't do it. The best I can come up with is this: Imagine if someone removed your head, threw it in the dryer for an hour and then reattached it. Everything was on sensory OVERLOAD. Every sound is amplified, every movement is amplified. A speck in the corner of your eye looms huge, for days I thought my cell phone was ringing, No it was my own ears.

I felt like it would be better if I could not move my head at all. I thought about making myself some sort of neck brace. And an eye mask wouldn't have hurt either.

Keep that dryer head immobile and blinded....that would lessen the hell of it all.

Luckily...nearly a month later ....it's all GOOD! No more antidepressants! And here's the real unexpected thing.... my "anxiety problem" ? Ha! Apparently THAT was a symptom of the damn Effexor. I'm as calm as I used to be when I was young,.Beleive me ,that was a LONG time ago. That used to be my NATURE. I used to go to the doctor with 3, under 5 years old kids in tow and my blood pressure was so low, they couldn't believe I hadn't fainted.



       Well....I haven't even gotten to the stupidity part..... (sorry about your luck ,as my darling spouse lovs to say) No, really...it's the stupid time diff... it's betime for old ladies here.....


                   To be continued.............


                                      Love me
 

Magic Mike

A couple days ago, my friend Eva called me and said “I’m calling to tell you what your plan is for this evening.”

I was at the grocery store, “oh really, and what IS my plan?”

“Emilia and I are going to pick you up in my black chariot and we’re going to meet a whole bunch of girls at Applebee’s, have one drink and then go see the movie ,Magic Mike.”

Mmmm, ok. My only question was “Why Applebee’s?”

Apparently, that’s just where they all decided to meet.

All righty then, I’m in.

 So she picked me up and we got to Applebee’s there were about 10 women at our table, some were Realtors that they knew and some were just friends of those Realtors.

We were sitting next to these 2 real young girls who were having jello shots.

The girl next to me (whose name, I naturally, have forgotten) said “We’ve had about 12 jello shots; it’s ok though I’m an alcoholic.”

We took pictures, admired each others sun glasses and the girl next to me kept ordering more jello shots, then she tells the waiter “Her (meaning mine) drink is weak man, I think she should get a free jello shot.” Eventually he did bring Eva and I a free one.

I actually have NEVER had one before. It was like boozy jello .

We had been running late from the get go, ….BTW after popcorn and a diet coke …$23.00 to take myself to the movies. (Outrageous!)

The movie was about a male stripper, in case you didn’t know.

I will let you educate yourself right here:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/magic_mike/

To me, it was more like choreographed dancing than stripping, but hey, I’m no stripper expert. The movie actually had a decent plot in there, but unless you’re young, it wasn’t like it was so riveting that I couldn’t go out side and smoke (twice)

And here’s how I missed the entire last part of the movie.

Picture it; I had gone outside for the second time, to smoke. I sat down on the curb (like white trash ya’ll) and as I’m sitting there, I see this individual come up and start trying to open EVERY car door, down two rows of cars.

My immediate thought was “OMG he’s trying to steal someone’s car.”

I called 911 on my cell phone and I told them “I am at the Behind the mall cinema and I’m sitting here watching a guy try to break into every car in the parking lot. I told them what he looked like ect… “

They said “I’m sorry I can’t understand what you’re saying.” And they HUNG UP on me!

A couple minutes later I see the thief drive away in a black car. Was it HIS? I have NO idea. The police never showed up. The movie got out and when MY friends got out there I told them what had happened and I went to show them what the guy was doing, I randomly grabbed a door handle on some cars back seat and it opened right up. UNLOCKED!

THEN, I went in and asked for the manager and told him what had happened and wrote down both of my phone numbers.

I never heard a thing from them OR the police, NOR did 911 call me back (since they couldn’t understand me!)

It occurred to me later that maybe the guy wasn’t trying to steal a car, maybe he was just stealing anything he could, from any person stupid enough to leave their car unlocked.

Needless to say, I am livid about the response I got from 911 AND the manager of the theatre. Today, I tried to find out about the police log…..to see what theft crimes were reported that night but as of yet, I have had no luck. I even went to the library to try and see it in the newspaper, all they had was the Sunday paper.

Note to fellow humans, LOCK YOUR CAR DOORS, you idiots because NO ONE is looking out for you.

If you happened to have been robbed or your car was stolen a couple nights ago at the movies…let me know….I can identify your suspect.

In other news, I believe it was earlier that same day…I nearly killed my stupid self.

That morning I went to the thrift store and I saw this ceramic bird (a toucan, maybe) when I went to take it out of my cart, the tail hit the cart and broke off. The cashier says” do you still want it?”

Yes, I did! I knew that I had a brand new tube of super glue and it was a clean break on the bird.

Ok, the last time I tried to open a tube of super glue, I had to stick a pin down the opening, after removing the outer cap.

I got home, broken bird in hand and went straight for the super glue. I could not even get the outer cap off….so I do what any woman would do…I try to screw it off with my teeth.

Imagine my shock and horror when all of a sudden my entire mouth is flooded with super glue! It was on my lips, my chin, the roof of my mouth AND my teeth.

By some miracle, I had the presence of mind to NOT shut my mouth.

 

So picture it…there I am …mouth wide open, tongue hanging out, drooling, as I rush to the bathroom. I managed to get it off of everything except my teeth.

My teeth still feel like I have hard water scum all over them.

I know, sounds sexy, right ;)

Note to all of you: Should you ever flood your mouth with super glue…do NOT shut your mouth, and do not call 911, they will just hang up on you.

                                   Hope you all had a great 4^th of July

                                                     Luv me!