An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

Did you watch Dark Shadows as a kid? If so, you probably remember it as creepy and downright nightmare inducing scary. It aired from '66 to '71 and it's been interesting to hear people's memories of the show. Just a few years difference in age and it's a whole different viewing experience. I only remember seeing it one time after school when I was someone's house (not my usual babysitter's). It scared me so much that I watched it from behind a piece of furniture. My friends who are just a few years older than I, remember gathering every day after school to watch the latest episode and letting themselves get scared. Or, scared by someone like Jello-Shot Queen's Dad who would walk in and yell "Boo!" at them during the show. Some of that group either watched it with their parents' knowledge or snuck around behind their parents' backs to watch it. I haven't talked to many people who watched it in syndication. Probably because by t...

Some of you may remember how I got George. I had been thinking about getting a cat but hadn't made any real effort. A friend of mine said that the stray cat she'd taken in had kittens and she was looking for homes for them. I waited a while wondering whether I was ready for the commitment then cast my fates to the wind with a "Do you have a girl left, because, if so, I'll take her?" message. She did and I ended up with the most interesting demon cat in the world. On Tuesday, my friend Rhonda posted this message and picture on Facebook. And this is how my earthday started. 5 tiny kittens, hoping to find and trap the moma cat. They are just starting to open their eyes. Mike named the grey one Ernest I liked her post then tried to put it out of my mind. But, then she called me out directly .  Kathy Pfister , ready for a new kitten the end of may? I tried a little deflection saying I wanted two girls and that I had to wait until the end of June because of wo...

I hosted Book Club tonight and we have a new member. This is only her second month and I didn't know her before that. I felt badly for her last month because I announced to the group that George had died and then pretty much tried to hold back tears the rest of the evening. We were wrapping up tonight when she said to me, "Is there a kitty here?" I assumed she saw some toy that I had missed in the cleanup and said, "There used to be." She came back with, "Yeah, I just saw it go into hiding." Or, something really similar to that because I was too much in shock to record it all. What I'm sure she saw was the A/C coming on or going off and moving the door into George's room. For a pet owner (and she is), that's easy to extrapolate as a furry creature making a movie. However, wouldn't it just be like George to actually be haunting me?

I was out with a group from work last night and one person asked the question, "What's your guilty TV pleasure that you're embarrassed to tell people you watch?" Some answers were The Hills and Maury Povich. I get those as being good answers to the question. When it came time for me to answer, I didn't have one. Not only do I think I watch good TV shows and quickly jettison the bad ones, I tell everyone about what I watch so there's nothing I need to keep secret. I think it helps that the only "reality" TV I watch is cooking shows. However, I started thinking about channel surfing and coming across movies that I've seen many, many times but I find I can't move the clicker off of them. Some of them are great movies like Die Hard, Ghostbusters, Caddyshack and The Princess Bride. Others, however, are not great movies. They are, in fact, really bad movies. But, something in me keeps me on the channel. The worst one that comes to mind: ...

I was in Germany when this text came from a colleague from my office: Did you grab a wand the last time you were here? In Universal Studios. My reply: No. But I want one! I'll pay you back. I ultimately paid $.89 a minute at international calling rates to discuss which one I wanted. Hermione's, of course. When I got back to the office, this is what was waiting for me. So awesome! It's actually quite pretty with vines and leaves on it. And, it has a bit of a heft to it as well so it feels "real". All of us nerds have taken turns swinging it around while reciting Harry Potter spells. None of which have worked, by the way. Ripoff! He also brought me a Ron Weasley pin. Gotta love the Gingers!

On my first trip to Germany, the "Dad" in our group was a seasoned veteran of overseas travel. The first thing he did after we got through security was to find an ATM to get Euros. I made note of that for this trip because I could see us taking a cab to the hotel and the driver saying upon our arrival, "No, I don't take credit cards." and us trying to persuade him to take USD off of us. We did look in Houston at a currency exchange place in the airport and, well, let's just say you'd have to be really desperate or so rich you don't care about money to use one of those. The exchange rate and fee were wack. So, after we collected our luggage and went through customs in Frankfurt (fastest custom inspection ever, btw), we were in search of an ATM. We found what looked like one but we couldn't figure it out. Fortunately, there were also people at a teller station right next to the ATM so we decided to go with a human assist. How much to get was ...

While in Frankfurt, my companion and I decided to take a city bus tour. When we bought the tickets, I asked if they did the tour in English as well as German and was told they did. Sweet. It was one of those double deckers with an open top. We got on and climbed to the top level and situated ourselves. I looked in front of me and saw this: Ten Languages! The only problem was that there were no headphones in sight. I had my own pair so I plugged in and I told my companion, "They must come around and hand them out." The bus then started filling up and a couple sat in front of us. The man looked at the language selection then looked for the non-existent headphones then went down the stairs. My companion started to follow, thinking the guy knew where headphones were but before he got to the stairs, the man came up and sort of shrugged at his wife and sat down. We took that to mean there were no more headphones to be found. We tried to share an earbud apiece but betwee...

I had researched the heck out of Frankfurt for tours and activities and my companion and I decided on taking a city bus tour. Everything I saw online said the tour ticket office was next to Paul's Church (Paulskirche). We asked the desk clerk at the hotel how to get to Paul's Church and she had no idea. In fact, she looked like she had never heard of it. They did have a big tourist map at the front desk and I was able to find it so she told us it was a 15 minute walk. My companion had already figured it was 1.2 miles away so more than 15 minutes for old, fat, Americans. I persuaded him to walk with promises to stop along the way for beers. Well, beers for me and Coke Zeros for him. After stopping twice, we finally made it to the area on the map where Pau's Church was supposed to be. The only problem was, there were about seven churches that we found but none of them were Paul's. He said, "I read online that it had a copper dome so look for that." I rep...

Once I figured out how to get the power on in my room (FYI, I forgot several times and tried to turn on switches without putting the key in the contraption at both hotels we stayed at), I took a quick shower and proceeded to try to dry my hair. Did you catch the "try" part? I tried the hotel supplied dryer. Its maximum effort was little better than blowing air through your mouth. In addition, it also turned itself off after 10 seconds of use then refused to turn back on until a few minutes had passed. So, I got out my own dryer and plugged it in using the same adaptor that I used in Reinbek on our last Germany trip. Instead of a gentle breeze, I got haboob level winds at a temperature near molten lava. For about 10 seconds then it turned off. Well, it didn't exactly turn off, I blew it up. Because that specific adaptor didn't convert wattage. Did I mention I used it in Reinbek with no issues? Sigh. I went back to using the hotel dryer and managed to get ...