I'm in the Dusseldorf airport waiting for the flight home from the annual StempelMekka show in Hagen, Germany, It's 3am, and I have about four hours to entertain myself till the flight to Heathrow.I'm hoping to get a T-Mobile connection to upload when I get there. Alas, no photos to document the weekend :-( My camera SD card decided to be a non-participant this trip, and my download cable has gone to that Black Hole in the Sky to join the endless parade of wayward car keys and glasses that are the bane of my existence. I borrowed a camera to take a pic of some of my dearest German friends, and will upload it when it is emailed. The evening has been an adventure that I'm quite proud of. I successfully purchased tickets at the automat machines, made two train and one bus transfer to get here, and took part in several German conversations in which I truly believe I did not have that Deer in the Headlights look when people start speaking German to me. One was a begger boy on some nasty pharmaceutical (he got my handful of German Euros), a drunk needing a match, and a lovely older couple on their way to Sweden. Hurray! You noticed that I'm at the right airport before my flight leaves? -- two very important factors in my well-being that contribute mightily to the current low level of bitching and whining. I'll go on about the show later, but first I want to tell what a wonderful evening I was lucky to experience with Judikins Judy and Rob, Judy's folks, Chuck and Ieky (I'm VERY sorry about the spelling), Steven and Carol (LINK) the Mekka host, Wolfgang and his girlfriend, Barbara, and two more people that I hold near and dear, Marion and mein schatzschen, Lu :-). Marion always brings me a huge bag of of sinful Lindt chocolates, and Lu makes me feel like the most special person in the world. We just went out to dinner, but most of the time we all scatter after a show, so the chance to spend a relaxed and happy evening with good friends is a rare treat. It's a memory that I'll hold close for a long time. Of course, there were a few comical moments, so now it's time for Linda's Stupid Trick. I had to take a train from Hagen to Dusseldorf, and as the plane didn't leave until 7am, I was in no big hurry to get on the road. Fortunately around 11pm, several of us decided that a bit of wine (and chocolate) would be nice -- after all, we hadn't eaten for at least two hours. I had a couple of bottles in my suitcase (generously gifted by Heidi (more about Heidi, Doris and Friedl later) and wanted to share one...but the suitcase was in the trunk of Marion's car, so she left me have her car keys. I know that several of you have a general of idea of where this is going, but no, I didn't lose the keys. This is a NEW Trick. I couldn't get the truck open with the key, so I tried to pull the trunk release lever located under the dash...but her car doesn't have a trunk release lever, and I pulled the cover off the fuse box. I had to climb in and under the dash to get it installed again, and it took quite a long time to get it back on...mostly because I'd pulled it out in the dark and kept trying to shove the poor thing back in upside down. Anyway, Marion came out and opened the trunk, and was quite surprised to learn 1. she had a fuse box, and 2. where it was, so I guess this was a valuable experience for us both. She still gave me a ride to the train station.
So now I'm on my way home. I'm eager to have clean clothes and sleep in my own bed, but this weekend has passed much too quickly. It really is a long and hard ride to get to Mekka --Anxiety over flights, hauling suitcases from train to train, dealing with a foreign language, driving in a strange land with unintelligible signage, the list could continue... but every time I leave here I am counting the time until I can return. I feel blessed to have been given the opportunity have experiences and share moments with such wonderful people, and they will be often in my thoughts until we can meet again. Oh dear, I'm getting weepy right here in the departure lounge. I miss you all so very much already :-(
I do want to talk specifically about Heidi, Doris and Friedl, but I think I'll save that part until I have the pic.
Bis bald.

Linda

I'm sitting in the O'Hare Admiralty Club waiting for my next connection on the way to StempelMekka in Germany. I always feel so special in here. There's a woman curled up in a chair near me, and she's kicked off her shoes and one sock has a BIG hole in it. This made me feel really good, which probably doesn't say much for my moral fibre, but this has been an unfortunately typical travel day for me...up at dark-thirty, grabbed everthing lined up at the door and was almost on my way, but was halted at the last moment by a ralphing Cosmos. Cleaned up the mess, swore a bit at the dog (who just stood there wagging his tail; HIS issue was over)...so of course I forgot my itinerary. Therefore, couldn't check my luggage all the way, and had to claim and re-check it in Seattle. Then there was some sort of security whoopsie at the airport and everyone had been evacuated from the "sterile area", so we all had to go through Security again. Just barely made the flight. Then I tried to board the wrong plane in Seattle. Yup, this is about "normal" for me. I'm amazed that I can dress myself. I'm convinced that some day I'll be found wandering some city's street lacking some vital garment.
I didn't find tie to post my pics of the Bluegrass festival, so they'll have to wait until I get home next week. it was a grand time. I took a mandolin and banjo workshops. The banjo and I are getting along fine, but this may be a love/hate sorta relationship with the mandolin. Creighton spent his days polishing the chrome on the Scotty and listening to the bands. I hadn't even noticed that the Scotty needed polishing, but it kept him occupied. He wasn't much of a Bluegrass fan previously, and I think we may have now lost him entirely. I think the Gospel Bluegrass pushed him right over the edge. "I'm using my Bible as a roadmap; Heaven is my last stop".
See ya here next week!

Linda

Home again, home again. Pets are alive and the house isn't burned down, so it's about as good as we dare hoped.
The storm was fun, but not as dramatic as we'd hoped. Took a few pics, but they just looked like a grey day, and didn't capture the wind/wave/rain sounds. It pretty much passed through by mid-morning, just leaving the pool a mess and the ocean bottom too stirred up for good snorkeling.
So it's time again for...Ta-Da...Pet Photos Day!!


"I am the alien canine Cosmos the Omnipotent sending a Vulcan mind-meld to the puny humans. I want left-overs. Lots of left-overs. No more of that nasty dried kibble...and also, round-the-clock petting, scratching and walkies. Pay no attention to the inferior rat dog below."

"Yeah, right, Goof Boy".
We're taking the Scotty camper on it's maiden voyage tomorrow afternoon. Just 30 miles north of Spokane to a Bluegrass Festival, but it's our first chance to explore the area since we moved here in March. I'm taking a couple of banjo and mandolin workshops. Hope to post some pics here when we get back.

Linda

This is going to be a long post, comprising most of the last week. It has a lot of pics, and I can't get the text to match up with the pics :-( And the web page is all in Dutch, so I'm a bit limited on using the web tools. We cashed in all my American frequent flyer miles and are down in Curacao. We planned a whole week of a whole lotta nuthin'. Brought guitar, crocheting, snorkel gear and a couple of trashy novels. We're staying at one of those "all inclusive" places, so you can just stumble downstairs anytime and there will be some sort of food available. Maybe not what's top on the list of cravings, but considering my aversion to cooking, I'm happy with whatever I find....AND, they clean up after us, too. What a bonus! Not many Americans down here. Mostly South Americans and Hollanders. Duh! We're 35 miles off the coast of Venezuela, and Curacao IS part of the Netherlands Antilles. Of course, everyone speaks Dutch, Spanish, the local dialect and English, leaving us, per usual, as the Anglophiles with only one language.
OK, it's a couple of parrots. Can't add much to that.

The town looks a lot like Amsterdam with humidity.


All the buildings are old stucco colonial construction that has been maintained/restored. The historical story is that a governor said the color white hurt his eyes, so all the buildings are brilliant colors of the rainbow. No mamby-pamby pastels for these folks.
Here's a shot of an alley with a way kewl 3-D relief. I guess it's cement. It doesn't appear to be molded, and I don't know how they shaped everything in situ, but it sure is pretty.


There's a water channel to the harbor that divides the town in half. They built a 600' pontoon bridge that spans the channel, and it swings open when ships pass through. It's about half way open here.


So each time a ship shows up, a long whistle blows to let everyone know that the bridge is going to open -- because they'll be stranded on one side or the other. But it's really a signal for the crowd to run like hell and either get on the bridge, or off it, before the gap gets too wide. One guy just came barreling along behind his family, pushing a baby stroller. As he got to the gap, he grabbed up the stroller and leapt to the other side. What a HOOT! This should be an Olympic event.
The hotel is right on the beach. Here's a view from our balcony.
We haven't told them yet that we have NO intention of leaving. Curacao is a mighty fine place, and I'm sure I could get used to living like this LOL
The hotel is right smack-dab in the middle of of a marine reserve, so we just wander outside and fall in the water to snorkel. Creighton has an Olympus waterproof digital camera, so we're having oodles of fun documenting the fish. Look out Jacque Cousteau. We just fill up the memory, run inside to download, and head out again (It would be nice to store to a memory card, but the bastards at Olympus designed the camera to use an expensive proprietary memory stick instead of a standard SD card). Paula and Teresa, I had to take the bracelets off. There are a BAZILLION little barracuda here that seem to find the bright and shinies facinating. They're probably harmless, but they really freak me out....and I've seen a few of their bigger relatives hanging around, so the jewelry had to go. Here are some pics of the less intemidating fish




...and one purple squid.

And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.....


It's Karoke night, so we're holded up in the room. We gave it a try, but it was too painful, in any language. Sour notes still leak into the room, so I have the telly tuned to a Spanish weather channel while I write to you, dear readers. There are warnings for tropical storm Felix passing near here sometime tonight or tomorrow morning. The weather station shows video from Aruba, but since I don't know if Aruba is just over the horizon, or up in the northern Carribean, it doesn't do us much good. From the video, it looks like it just got very wet there. C and I are quite excited, as this will be our first tropical storm.
I'm hoping to find an Internet location tomorrow so I can upload this....so it won't be like the postcards that arrive a week after we return home.
...later in the night....Karoke is still going strong, and they're coming around to tape "X's" on our sliding glass door. Storm is due to hit here at 5am. This is SO exciting :-)) ...
Later still. The Karoke has degraded to a group participation discord, and the bar is about shut down. The employees are busy bees gathering up all chairs, tables, beach loungers, etc, and everything else that isn't tied down, and hauling all into the bowels of the hotel. Guitar is back in its case, and stashed in the closet. The laptops and everything electronic are in a dresser drawer, so I guess we're as ready as we're going to be. I wanted to set the alarm for 4am so we'd get up for the beginning, but C says we'll probably hear it coming!!

Linda

Home from Pennsauken. $-250 revenue, 6875 miles, 32 travel hours, 7 legs, 5 delayed flights, 1 missed connection, 1 mountain.

Nuf said about the weekend.

Linda

Geez, back in another airport, this time on my way to the Pennsauken show. Does it seem to you that I'm ALWAYS in airports? Sure feels that way to me. Since last posting, I've been down to Phoenix for the Art Unraveled show. All the ladies seemed to have a good time in the classes -- one of these years I'm going to treat myself to classes, also, but not this time. I got an AARP discount at the hotel, which included several drink coupons, so Paula and I shared them at the bar Saturday evening. It was nice to have a relaxing chat, as most of the time we're running in our out of the shows, with only time for "hi" and a hug. And Paula had spare breakfast coupons for me, so both ends of the day were covered. I thought it pleasantly wierd that AARP folks got the drinks but no breakfast, but that suited me better, anyway.
My Photoshop is on the fritz, and the cropping tool won't work, so I still haven't been able to post the felted bowl after Teresa got it to shrink. In the meantime, I've finished a display box for the booth, and started another Christmas present bowl. Pics in due time.
Otherwise it's been a mostly a mundane week of pressing and trimming rubber. We finally got one of the kitchen curtains up. It's taken two months, so I'd guess that project will be completed by Christmas if I keep up the current balance of whining/bitching.

Linda

I'm finally home from Novi, and already have next month's Pet Peeve on traveling. I don't understand why people deliberately crowd in boarding lines. Do they really think they're going to get there any faster? And what next? Thirteen items in the twelve items checkout line? What anarchy! ANARCHY, I tell you!! But the rest of that story next month...
None of you knew, or probably cared, that C and I been coveting a camper for a LONG time. After endless shopping, the stars aligned today, and we found the Perfect Camper right here in Spokane.

The GPS antenna on the top, and the Ashtech sign are in honor of the Z-12 receiver -- the finest GPS receiver ever made. Also, today we were hired back to Magellan as GPS consultants...so it was an auspicious day in two ways.
You'll notice the Christmas lights left by the previous owners. Leaving lights up all year appears to be a Spokane tradition. Some even turn them on every night. I kinda like the idea that every day is a celebration. Reminds me of an old Rosanne Barr skit where she says that if she gets to the end of the day and the kids are still alive, she's done OK. I can relate to that.

Linda

Well, I'm sitting in the Detroit airport after the Novi show. I had a chance to voluntarily give up my early morning seat in exchange for another free round-trip ticket (at current prices, this is quite a prize. Most tickets are in the $500-$600 bracket)...but I'm here for most of the day. Can't post the pic, but Teresa did magic with my crocketed bowl, and it's beautiful. I'll post the pic soon.

So that leaves us with just dialog. I've been wanting to start a Pet Peeve of the Month, and this seems like a good time to start it -- no pic and in an airport; not pissed yet, but it's probably just a matter of time....and I'll be here for HOURS. It could easily be PP of the Week, but my New Year's resolution this year was to be a nicer person, so I set a tighter limit. I actually kept the resolution for about 6 days before I seriously want to bitch-slap someone, but, I didn't whack her, so it doesn't count.

You'll find that most of my peeves have something to do with traveling ( airports, hotels, convention center personnel, the all-powerful, get-them-out-of-the-gene-pool, your-tax-dollars-at-work TSA security), and this month we're going to start with Airport Baggage Claim Ediquette (which I can't spell--sure doesn't *look* right, anyway). Wouldn't it be nice if everyone just stood back from the carousel and waited until they spotted their luggage, and THEN approached to take it. Crowding around while your luggage hasn't even been unloaded isn't going to make it arrive any sooner. And when I can see mine, but you're in the way, so I'm jogging along in the background looking for a break in the mass of people so I can grab my luggage, it makes me cranky. And let's discuss the rugrats that also line up at the carousel along with mom and dad. It doesn't take all of you to get the bag. Really. And they don't need to pat each bag with a sticky fingers benediction as it passes. You might they're cute, but I don't. Finally, I'm probably tired, and most certainly cranky, and I'm trying to lift a 50-pound bin off the carousel. I'll try to not doink you or the kiddies, but I might not try too hard. So, next time you're getting your luggage, please keep these thoughts in mind, because ya never know, it could be ME next to you. LOL
Wow, I feel better. How long until next month :-)

Linda

Looks like Batman tripped getting out of bed, and then didn't have the energy to get up. Ah, what a Dog's Life.

I was going to tell the yarn story first today, but 1)Paula beat me to it, and 2) in the meantime, Mary Kay was kind enough to send me a pic of my clothes abandoned in her dryer.

Yup, I'm sure it was a kind gesture...hey, wait a minute...was that a jab? OUCH! Yeah, it sure feels like a jab LOL
Anyway, back to the yarn story. I haven't been interested in yarn since about 25 years ago when I made 50 granny squares for an afgan, and then didn't have the temperment to deal with stitching all those wretched squares together. Too bad I didn't know 50 mice to gift with little afgans. Well, a couple of months ago Paula and Teresa, especially Teresa, innocently introduced me to felted knitting/crocheting, and unleashed to yarn money on my back. Thus far I've crocheted two bowls. Here's one before the felting .


It looked pretty much the same afterwards -- it got fuzzy, but didn't shrink...so it's too floppy. Ditto on bowl number two. Ya know what they say about people who keep repeating the same failed procudure and expect to get diferent results.... Teresa currently has bowl #2 to see if she can get it to shrink.
These were made with Walmart and Joann's wool, so no big loss...however, the Dallas Yarn Frenzy has me stocked with high dollar yarns to screw up. Teresa, I'm counting on you :-)

Paula already posted our pic, but mine doesn't chop off Teresa LOL. It's me, Mary Kay, Paula and Teresa.

Next time I need to remember to stuff a hank of yarn under my chin. Hell, I might just have to carry one all the time. :-)
Paul's already described our day on her blog http://www.blogger.com/www.paulabestsilver.com/blog, and it's much better than I could do. We all had a grand time, and came away with great, albeit pricey, treasures.

Linda