The Rescuer!

Today my coworkers and I leave for lunch at approximately 11:30.  I drive past the classic car restoration facility and my coworker in the back seat shouts “BACKUP BACKUP!!”  I slam on the brakes and slowly backup past a beat up ford on the right side of the road.

“THERE!!” my coworker shouts.

Trotting out from under the car was a little coyote puppy, probably only three or four weeks old.  I pull the car over to the sidewalk and we all decide to help the little critter.  The little pup trots over to the empty field next to our building.  My coworkers and I encircle him with a towel but he manages to escape past us.  Fortunately for us he trots over to the classic car building and in-between the cement wall and a fence.  I cut off his escape with the towel so we can call animal control.

One of my coworkers brings over a bowl of water and I set it down in front of the pup which I’ve named ShiverPiddles.  He’s so young his eyes are still baby blue.  It takes him about ten minutes to build up the courage to get close to the water bowl and finally drinks for several minutes.  His tongue is white he’s so dehydrated.

We call animal control but they say it will take at least an hour to get to our location.  We decide to pull ShiverPiddles out and put him in a box until animal control arrives.  I give Stretch the towel and he reaches in and pulls ShiverPiddles out who has piddled a big puddle in the process.  I place the water bowl in the box and we close it and cover it with a towel.

About an hour later animal control arrives and picks up ShiverPiddles to take him to an animal santuary where he’ll get some medical attention.  So we’ve done our good deed to mother earth and her little critters for the day.  I wish I would have taken a pic but it slipped my mind at the time.  Next time for sure!

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The Crash that Wasn’t!

Well I write this post with one hand today as my left hand is in a sling.  I luckily didn’t break any bones (Got Milk?), but I did hyper-extend it and I might have some possible ligament damage.   While I’d like to report that I heroically crashed on my motorcycle while attempting a triple at Pala, I unfortunately cannot claim such an honor.  Instead I must resort to the actual embarrassing account of what really happened.

So… Saturday evening I decided that I would ride Milestone Race track Sunday morning.  I would load the bike that night and leave in the morning.  I backed up the truck to the bottom of the driveway and placed my motorcycle ramp against the tail gait and locked it into place.  I have a winch installed in the truck bed that allows me to slowly load my bike into the bed of the truck.  Very handy when I decide to go riding by myself.  SOOO… I walk my motorcycle to the bottom of my ramp and install the winch hooks onto the forks.  I walk into the garage and pick up my two tie-downs.  I walk up the ramp and place the tie-downs in the loops then start walking down the ramp.  Unfortunately my left foot got stuck in the ramp step.  I tried to twist to get it out and started falling to the left.  In the act of falling my foot is freed from the step and slipped through the step taking off a small layer of shin skin in the process.  I’m now uncontrollably and fully committed to falling and I brace myself for impact with the cement.  With my left arm fully extended I hit the ground.  A loud “Crunching Pop” sound follows my impact.  Oh No… I look at my elbow which has instantaneously swelled to the size of a grapefruit.  I look around to see if anyone has witnessed my “dismount” from the ramp.  Thankfully my graceful landing was unobserved.

So… J leaves the fire station to take me to urgent care.  Several X-rays later I’m dismissed with thankfully only an uncomfortable sling to wear for a week and some pain medication.

Its day number four and the swelling is slowly going down.  I have more movement and my strength is slowly returning back to its normal wimpy state.  So while I’d prefer to report a more brave or heroic account of my mishap, I must unfortunately admit that Farrah the Clutz has struck again…

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Surprise!

So following along with my last post of stories that made us laugh in light of our recent tragedy, I decided to share another story from my childhood.

My brother and I were “Latch-Key” kids which means that when school was over we came home to a parent-less house.  We had lots of unsupervised time on our hands to kill.  On one of these afternoons, my brother and I decided that we would make a chocolate cake.  We got out the Betty Crocker Moist Chocolate Cake Mix and all the required ingredients.  My brother and I dumped in the mix, the eggs, the oil and the water.  We mixed it with the mixer and prepared to grease the pan with butter.  While getting the butter from the refrigerator, we spied an open can of Alpo Dog Food next to the jello.  Reading each others thoughts we both smiled and grabbed the can of dog food.

Before pouring the cake mix into the greased pan, we scooped a big dollop of Alpo and let it drop into the cake mix.  It was vitally important that the Alpo NOT get blended into the cake.  It needed to stay in one big dollop as it cooked.  We slowly poured the mix into the pan so as to not disperse the Alpo any more than necessary.  We laughed hysterically as the Alpo slid into the pan undiluted with the cake mix.

The cake went into the oven and cooked till a toothpick came out clean.  Thankfully the smell wafting from the oven did not reveal our secret. The cake smelled just like a normal delicious chocolate cake.  Well pulled the cake out of the oven and let it cool before we put the chocolate icing on it. Once the cake was iced and put on the cake display plate, we stood back and admired our culinary skills.  The special cake was named Chocolate Surprise Cake.  The idea was, whoever got the slice of cake with the dollop of Dog Food, SURPRISE!!!

To this day I’m not sure who ate the slice with the special ingredient.  I can assure you, for once in our lives my brother and I stayed clear of eating any of the Chocolate Surprise Cake.

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Romeo and Juliet, a lesson on Life…

Most of you don’t know, but my grandmother passed away on Mother’s Day.  In reality it’s a blessing in disguise as she had been suffering for several weeks after falling down an escalator.  In the process of going through her belongings with my family we shared stories to help lift our spirits and cheer us all up…  Below is one of mine.

I was in sixth grade and had to write a report on the story of Romeo and Juliet.  I started to read the book and just got more and more frustrated with the Shakespearean language.  I would read a sentence then instantly forget what I just read.  It just wasn’t clicking…  My mother decided to help me.  She said she’d go to the video store and rent the movie Romeo and Juliet so at least I could get a general idea of what I was attempting to read.  She drove to the video store and asks for Romeo and Juliet.  The video clerk goes into the back room and gives her the video.  My mom returns home and hands me the video.  That evening my mom and dad were going out to dinner so my brother and I were to stay home and watch the video while they were gone and we’d discuss the video when they returned.  Well mom and dad leave, Nathan (my brother) and I get the snacks ready, turn the lights off and prepare to watch the video.

Now I’ve never seen Romeo and Juliet before so at first this video did not set off any alarms with my brother and I.  That is until Juliet starts giving Romeo a blow job!  My brother and I look at each other and look at the video being played.  I eject the VHS and look at the title.  “Romeo and Juliet”.  OK… I give my brother a questionable gesture.

“Is this right?” I say
“I don’t know? I guess so…” My brother says

We put the video back in and hit play again.  Perhaps the blow job is part of the book we say to ourselves.  It became totally clear that this wasn’t the right video when Romeo, Mercutio and Tybalt have a gang bang with Juliet on the balcony!

We turn off the video and almost peed our pants we were laughing so hard…

As soon as my mom and dad return home we informed them that the instructional Romeo and Juliet video was indeed instructional in ways that they had not intended.  My mom instantly drove back down to the video store and explained that the clerk had given her the XXX rated version of Romeo and Juliet!

After telling this story to my family, the tears of grief were replaced with tears of laughter.  Truely the best medicine…

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The Vegas Trip!

While traveling back from Las Vegas for the AMA Supercross we stopped at a couple of touristy spots to do some Geo Caching and to allow the blood to circulate back into our legs after sitting for so long.  One of these stops took us on a very old road that was literally covered with sun bathing locusts.  The front end of the Touareg was COVERED with locust corpses.  Now I’m not a slow driver and I’m certainly not going to slow down due to some insects on the road.  Well the combination of the speed and the sheer number of locusts created carnage on a large scale.  Bug guts smeared across every inch of painted surface!  We found the caches and pulled some of the dead and half dead insects from the grill, windshield, fog lights, hood, mirrors and just about everywhere else after every stop.  It was a locust smorgasbord!

(Image snatched from the internet)

In the afternoon we stopped at the Mad Greek in Baker for some good eats.  While getting out the car we noticed a nail in the right front tire.  This wasn’t just any nail,  this nail is HUGE .  The strange part is that it was embedded in the sidewall of the tire.  We stopped at Discount Tire in Victorville to see if the tire could be fixed.  They basically just laughed and said they wouldn’t even attempt to fix the tire.

The best part is that the Dunlop tire held its air pressure from Baker all way home and even now.  Yes the nail is still in the tire.  I drove into work this morning and a driver pulled up next to me and gestured for me to roll down my window. Playing the part of Dumb Blonde…

“You’ve got a nail in your tire!”
“Thanks!  Its a Volkswagen.  I like it a lot.”
“No no, You’ve got a NAIL in your TIRE!!”
“Why yes I did buy it new.”
“LADY, YOU’VE GOT A FUCKING NAIL IN YOUR TIRE!”
“No I’m not tired, I got some good sleep last night.”
At this point the driver sped off in a hissy.  I know its mean, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

So the nail will remain in the tire until my new Dunlop tire arrives.

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