Why I'm In Love

Frogger

I receive the request to add Frogger to my arcade of my website. Ask and ye shall receive.

To play Frogger and several other old school game, click here.

It's tough...I haven't made it across once without getting smushed!

Cap'n Stella's Pirate Party

Death of a Parrot


Take That! AAARRR!


This Bird Doesn't Lay Eggs, It Lays Candy

See pirate party invitation

Tuchman in Bamberg, Germany

Something looks out of place in this picture??? Hmm...Harbor Tours??? I hope if you see this Nicole you get a little laugh out of it...Do you recognize where this picture is from? Think a few years back.

Tuchman is stationed in Bamberg, Germany...it's a pretty little town...check it out

My Pirate Name

Mad Mary Rackham
Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Bad Luck/Good Luck

BIRTHDAY DRAMA IN VERMONT

For my birthday, Angela got me a very colorful (like rainbow colorful) wire/bead lizard, made me a cute card (yes with more lizards), and got me a rockin' plain green t-shirt seen in the pic below.



Then Saturday she had a surprise-filled day all planned out for me. Angela, Stella, and I fired up the old Kia and headed to Vermont. I've never really hung out in Vermont. In fact, I've only driven through VT. a few times on my way to New York and I was not impressed...I don't know, the places I drove through on route 9 kind of creeped me out. So Angela, who loves Vermont, decided to get me to love Vermont too.

Ever heard the saying, "Love works in mysterious ways"?

We drove on route 14 along the White River, through Sharon, North Pomfret (accidentally), South Royalton, Bethel, Randolph and I think Brookfield.

In Brookfield we visited with a good friend of Angela's who had a house on top of a big hill with a very green and pretty view down onto Randolph and the surrounding hills and fields. We stayed a long time soaking up sun and gardening, lounging on a rock like a lizard, then eating extra sharp cheddar, perfectly ripe canteloupe, and sipping on cool white wine.

After a nice mellow wine buzz was achieved, it was time for more surprises...meeting Angela's sister, Devon, followed by dinner at a place called River Run...she would not tell me anymore details than that...like what kind of food this place had etc, and after dinner we'd be headed to Montpelier.

Here is where the drama begins.

We stop for gas just outside Montpelier on the way to her sisters. I pay for the gas with my debit card (which I take out of my purple cassette tape wallet which I set on the back end of my car).

.

I get in the car and we go 10 minutes down the road to Angie's sister's house. I meet Devon who is very pretty and very pregnant. We drop Stella off and as we're leaving I look to grab my purple wallet, but it's no where to be found. I immediately start panicking and feeling sick.

I left my wallet on the backend of my car, wide open. FUCK! Stupid, stupid, Sarah. I've lost shoes off my car before, but not my wallet. It had $67 in cash, my 2 credit cards, all my gift cards from work ($100 value), and my debit card, and driver's license). And due to Angela forgetting her wallet at home I was, until a few minutes ago, the only one with money for dinner. We drive back to the gas station...we see no sign of it anywhere...I left my name and phone number with the woman running the gas station. As we're leaving the gas station, Adam and Co. show up (they forgot that they were part of the surprise, I wasn't supposed to know anyone was supposed to be meeting us for dinner).

We forge on and go to dinner at the River Run Restaurant and I struggled with not completely bawling and breaking something so I busy myself with sucking down some Red Stripe and eating loads of soul food. How conflicting...feeling so happy that my girl and our friends are doing so many sweet things for my birthday, yet feeling so absolutely idiotic and mad at myself for letting my wallet and it's contents fly all over Vermont (and there were rivers we crossed over too that stuff could have flown into).

Anyhow, River Run is a soul food restaurant in Plainfield, Vermont, serving up dishes of fried pickles, fried green tomatoes, hushpuppies, pulled pork, fried chicken and catfish, and of course collard greens and cornbread. The fried green tomotoes were fucking fantastic! The pulled pork too. Angela's very very nice friends payed for our dinner, because we had no deniero, no lira, no kronor, no nothing.

It's dark; we head to the Langdon Street Cafe in Montpelier for music and more drinks. My cell phone suddenly comes back into service area when we get into downtown. I check my messages. Some nice old guy had found my wallet and some cash and cards. As I'm listening to the message my phone rings and it's a policeman saying that someone dropped off my driver's license at the Montpelier PD. Someone else had found it. It looks like this:


Someone ran over my license. It's got a war wound.

After I retrieved my license from the PD, we drive up to the old guy's house which is across from the local gun and ammo club...this guy gave me the longest worst funniest directions ever...when he mentioned the gun range I got a little nervous. I thought he might be a big gun-toting, Republican, homophobe so both Angie and I decided she should stay in the car.

Turns out he was a really nice steel guitar maker with a really sweet wife, who when I offered to give them something in return for them returning everything to me, said they wanted nothing, except for me to stop on in if I'm up in the area ever again. He had been on his nightly walk down the road when he found all my stuff scattered all over a bridge (I am so lucky my shit didn't fly off into the river). All my money and even some change, all my cards too, everything except my driver's license (which someone else had found), and my debit card he had found on his little walk. So out of this whole debacle, the only thing still missing was my debit card. In celebration we go back to the Cafe in Montpelier and have a drink, chat with some interesting characters, and dance briefly, then go grab Stella and drive 2 hours home and stumble into bed at nearly 3am.

Sunday morning I cancel my debit card. It's only 10 bucks and means a week a without having my card...but I always use my debit card...I rarely ever have cash on me.

Sunday evening before I go to DJ at the Red Door, I'm at my condo in Dover, and I dump my purse out on my bed to find my little notepad that I write my silly lists on. On the top of the stack of crap from my purse, I notice a receipt. It's the receipt from the notorious gas station from the day before. I think, hmm...why was that in my purse, that should be somewhere scattered on the roadside in Vermont. Then I look past the receipt and I see my debit card! I say out loud to myself, you've go to be fucking kidding me. I had taken the receipt and debit card and stuffed them into my purse back at the gas station and that's why I forgot all about my wallet because it seemed like I had put something in my purse.

Grrrr!! and Yeah!!! all at the same time.

Tea Time - Lori's Mysterious Gift Revealed!

Thanks so much for your "tea bill" mystery gift! Here's what I'm going to order as soon as my new debit card arrives (to pay for the shipping only).




With my gift certificate I will get:
** 1 bottle vanilla coconut white tea (this sounds so good)
** 1 12pack of Republic of Tea recipe notecards (only $5!)
** 1 50teabag tin of Vanilla Almond Black Tea (mmm...vanilla)
** 1 36teabag tin of Mate Latte (a yummy chocolate-y tea)
** 1 sampler pack of the Tea of Inquiry (green tea with toasted rice)

So many teas to pick from...this was not easy. There's about 50 other kinds I want to try...I didn't know there were such tea versions as red tea and white tea. And they have 3 types of chai tea (my favorite) and lots of good sounding ginger teas too, but I didn't even get any because I wanted to have fun trying new flavors.

THANKS LORI, YOU ROCK!

Birthday Gift Number 1 -- You Rock, Lori!!!

The Pookster is always trying to keep my breath fresh :) She's the ginger queen--I love ginger! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. You provided the spiciest part of my birthday last night, literally.

I did not not end up at any bars...I ended up in the kitchen cooking up a peanut-butter, chocolate, marshmallow surprise house-warming gift for Angela.

Yesterday, feeling quite guilty after my day of eating glazed donuts and cheese danish, I decided to go for a long run down to Bayview Road and back via the sneaky, wooded Old Garrison Road/Path. (On a quick side story, I've never eaten a Twinkie...I mentioned this to my coworkers earlier this week after they were discussing Hurley's line in Lost about Twinkie's lasting forever. So technically yesterday, the first birthday presents I actually received were 2 packs of Twinkies, sweaty, icky Twinkies. They'd make a great picture sweating whatever it is they're sweating...I'll take a picture this weekend...I still don't know if I'm going to eat them.) Back to my run, which lasted about an hour and kicked my ass. It felt great. I need to start doing this about 3 times a week. But my shoes are old and suck. I might as well run barefoot.

As soon as I walk into the apartment, Hamer hands me a 4 pack of Boddingtons (he read my mind, scary), one of which I immediately crack open and swig...nothing like thirst-quenching beer after a long run! Water any one? Then he hands me a package from 1923 Reindeer Way in Delaware. This is Lori's very non-woodsy urban address...there are no reindeer in Delaware. Inside Lori's package are 2 tins of Ginger Altoids (zing, zing), 2 CDs by artists I've never heard of; Inara George and John Legend, and a card with this mysterious line: "One more item arriving by post, if it hasn't already, consisting of one bit of paper to be used in exchange for items pictured on the other bits of paper."

Lori, I am definitely curious...curious like my altoids....Thank you so much for your gifts!

On Turning 25

Happy Birthday to Me!

You will find me tonight at one of the 3 bars in the Seacoast that serves Boddingtons on tap (The Barley Pub in Dover, and the Coat of Arms or Muddy River Smokehouse in Portsmouth). You later then may find me on the street in a creamy beer induced coma.

This calorific morning was filled with Mimosa, a bit o' cheese danish and a glazed donut with chocolate filling and chocolate cookie crumbs on top, followed by 2 cups of coffee, and coming up soon a can of Rockstar. I will be cracked out at work today. Somewhere in the dictionary under calorie-hogging, over-priveledged Americans is a picture of me with a donut in my fist slamming an energy drink (also I will be pictured under the definition of "oxy-moron"). I promise that I never normally eat this much crap but my office insists on Hansel and Grettle-ing us up.

In my spare time, working hard of course, I am sharing with my coworkers a 2 Disc New Wave 80s mix that I just burned, complete with the Psychadelic Furs, Thomas Dolby, The Cure, Oingo Boingo, The Rave Ups, The Smiths, Squeeze, Soft Cell, the Waitresses, Trio, Yaz, Was Not Was, Reflex, Spandau Ballet, Split Endz, Talking Heads, Visage, X, and for more cheese, a little Bangles, Bananarama, Belle Star, Flying Lizards, Dire Straights, Kajagoogoo, Duran Duran, Motels, Thompson Twins, Lena Lovich, the Vapors, and Wang Chung.

Anyone else got any good cheesy retro new wave-ish 80s tunes or bands they want to recommend to me?

Mmm...what a wonderful day!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, ANGELA!