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!

Playing Catch Up

Eustice got to meet my friend Alice who was visiting L.A. from Moscow… the one in Idaho.

 Eustice was kinda annoyed that I blogged without him. Especially since I have a backlog of photos that needed to be uploaded.

I haven’t told all his stories of late, and he really is fond of me telling his stories to you. So here is a massive image heavy update for you…

With Adelle at Trade Joe’s. Eustice says she’s got beautiful hair.

Eustice went with me to get my hair cut. This is Chris, my stylist. He Rawks.

Dr. William Ridgeway gives Eustice a check up. He’s been our family vet for over 20 years. He puts up with Eustice calling him Uncle Bill.

Having a good time at Bubba Gump’s.

More good times at Bubba Gump’s.

I had to explain to Eustice that “Ambur” is not the traditional spelling. He said it worked for him.

Eustice heard this fine young man singing and wanted his picture taken with him.

At Harbor Hyundai getting an oil change.

This is LaLa. Her Mom knits with us on Wednesday nights.

Soshana got Engaged!

Tina, The Eyebrow Queen, gives Eustice a kiss.

So this kinda sorta catches us up. I recently attended the Orthodox Jewish funeral for my Step-Mom’s Dad who was 101 years young. I had to leave Eustice at home that day. The impulse to take pictures of Eustice would just have been too strong. If my Step-Mom saw me taking pictures of Eustice my funeral would have been next.

However on the walk to the graveside Rob told me that he had to suppress a chuckle as they placed the casket in the back of the hearse. He could just see Eustice sitting, in a very serious and dignified fashion (of course), atop the casket. When I told our friend Monicaroni about this she made me promise that if she died before me that I would take pictures of Eustice at her funeral.

It’s not always about Eustice…

This is an actual instant message conversation that I had today with my next-door neighbor. Names have been changed to protect the sane. 

TheNeighbor: Hey how do I stick my tongue out at you

TheNiceLady: you need to find the drop down window for the smilies.

TheNiceLady: =:)

TheNiceLady: I can show you later. We’re going to go get eggs. And stuff.

TheNeighbor: eggs what kind of eggs, like chicken…..or human

TheNiceLady: gross. We’re getting sharks eggs 😛

TheNeighbor: hey….one’s gotta ask

TheNiceLady: and also platypus eggs and maybe an ostrich egg. To make pie crust.

                       okay? Nosy pants.

TheNeighbor: okay that’s scary

TheNiceLady: do you have some clean newspaper? I need packing material. The only box I have is too big.

TheNeighbor: disturbing question …why?

TheNiceLady: because I’m mailing an xmas gift to a friend. I can’t have the body rolling around too much. If the blood leaks out she’ll never get the package.

TheNeighbor: oh yeah, I think I might even have packing material let me look

TheNiceLady: 8-}

TheNiceLady: =P~

TheNeighbor: okay that’s gross

TheNiceLady: :-h

Where Crayzee is Mainstream

This may have been the highlight of Eustice’s year.

You may not have known, but Eustice is a gamer. Well, by proxy anyway. He sits on my desk while I, and sometimes Rob, play World Of Warcraft. He was quite excited to be able to go along with us to the official Launch Party at Fry’s in Fountain Valley.

You know one of Eustice’s favorite hobbies is meeting new people, and there were so many interesting people to meet that he was having me run around in all sorts of directions. Rob kept getting lost. We weren’t lost, we knew where we were!

First thing when we got there Eustice wanted to stop to speak to the woman sitting at the Press Table.I have no idea what they talked about. No longer being a member of the “press” myself, I was not privy to the conversation. He did say that she was clearly a well informed woman. I think Eustice enjoys keeping me in the dark about some things a little too much. 

If it wasn’t for the fact that no one would notice Eustice walking up to them on his own, sometimes I think he would just skip off without me.

 Then he stopped and visited for a while with this nice gentleman. You can see Eustice sitting there on his knee. He really did have one of the best “seats” available. He said it was one of the rare times that being handicapped came in handy for him.

 We stopped for a while and checked out the new NVIDIA 3-D Graphics card. To see the screen in 3-D you have to wear special powered sunglasses. I had to take the sunglasses away from Eustice before I could get a picture, because he had started mindlessly chewing on the attached USB cable while watching the demo.  The 3-D really was sharp and impressive. While I understood how distracting it might have been… I was just really glad that no one noticed his little teeth marks. He also visited with the NVIDIA rep and a clever woman making murloc balloon hats.

Eustice is really fascinated by all things murloc. He says it has nothing to do with the fact that they might eat him… but I’m not so sure.

The next order of business was snacks! Lee’s Philly Gogi was there and Rob and I had to have us some Gogi tacos. They were yummeh. Eustice took a sniff…he ate a little of the seasonings on top and then gave me dirty looks. I pointed out to Eustice that it was not like the cow was anyone we knew.

Really, sometimes his sensitivity is sweet and other times; well, it’s just kinda hard to enjoy a delicious gogi beef taco when there is a sheep you love nearby giving you dirty looks.

I told him that if he didn’t stop it he couldn’t have anymore of the lemonade from Hot Dog on a Stick and I’d put him back in my purse.  I really think it was the idea of no more of the best lemonade in the world and not being inside my purse that adjusted his attitude.

Of all the people that Eustice met, I think this young woman was his favorite. I don’t know why the Dwarven race is his favorite but it just seems to be. As you can see they clearly bonded. 

Here are some other pictures of the people Eustice met.

I think this is Mr. Lee of Lee’s Philly Gogi. This was before we ordered.

One of the Cataclysm Developers.

PIRATES! …and their pet murloc. Eustice is on the murloc’s head.

Eustice also met some Warlock’s Minions.

A blood elf and her friends. She said she’d heard of Eustice’s “kind” before. We were all a little baffled by that. Eustice was rather disturbed by the strangely pale hands of her purple friends. He notices things like that.

Elephant Parade

While letting the dog out on a wet and cold night I called back into the house to Rob : Honey! There’s an elephant parade! Bring Eustice with you!

He took a minute to answer… Eustice wanted to come outside where I was freezing my bare feet, I know he did. But instead, I hear from the back of the house “Take a picture. It’s too damn cold.”

So I had to answer honestly “I can’t. They’re in India.”

This is why Eustice and I haven’t had much to say lately. We’re married to a wonderful man who doesn’t run outside for an elephant parade.