stacey ewing

Can’t believe a whole year has passed since we lost the wee Shadout Meeps. :(

We still miss her dearly.

I do believe Maui just punched her ticket on the gravy train… ;) This cat is just way too cute (and so is her human, haha). Oh, and I guess the name is going to stay.

According to the Sacred Texts Archive, Maui is “a demi god whose name should probably be pronounced Ma-u-i (Ma-oo-e). The meaning of the word is by no means clear. It may mean “to live,” “to subsist.” It may refer to beauty and strength, or it may have the idea of “the left hand” or “turning aside.” The word is recognized as belonging to remote Polynesian antiquity.”

She came with that name. I want to change it to Lily but Tim wants to leave it. We’ll see.
She a diluted tortie with more personality than Anthony Robbins and Robin Williams combined.

mort, mortimer, mortis, morty, morty-mort, buddy, dude, The Dude, dudey, buddha, boodie, buddha-boy, boodie-doodie, lunch box, bud, bub, fat-boy (by aaron), boy, tha’boy, mr. man, son.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we had to drive home fairly early so that we could get home in time for Tim to play a gig down in Micanopy. We ended up leaving the station wagon in Ft. Myers with Jay- he was going to have it towed over to his mechanic on Monday and he very generously loaned us his truck to drive home so we didn’t have to rent a car.

Turns out it wasn’t the timing belt after all. It was the starter, a related fuse, and some very, very, very, very, very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad spark plugs. So, lucky, lucky, lucky for us, it cost much, much, much, much less than the $800-900 we’d anticipated!

Early this morning, Jay and Lorraine very kindly drove up (little more than halfway) to meet us at Wesley Chapel and trade out cars. We had a nice breakfast and hang with them at the Cracker Barrel before heading back home.

Anyway, Tim and I can’t thank the two of them enough for SUCH a great (and fun!!) holiday and for ALL of their help with our car situation. They both went far out of their way to help us and we know it wasn’t easy getting up that early and driving all the way north to meet us at 8:30am. ouch! Thanks you guys!! <3

On Friday, Jay had to put in some flight time with the Sheriff’s department so Lorraine, Tim, and I were left to our own devices. We drove out to Gulf Coast Town Center and dropped Tim off at Dick’s Sporting Goods while we browsed books at Borders. about an hour later, Tim met back up with us and we walked (and poor Lorraine hobbled on her crutches), over to Bass Pro Outlets. She and I found some comfortable camping chairs to sit in while we waited on Tim to finish fondling all the hiking/camping gear.

We headed back to the casa so that Tim could nap and Lorraine and I could kill more Nazi Zombies(!) while we waited on Jay to get home from work. Thanks big-big to her cuz Jonathan for taking us up past level 4- boy-boy had our backs! ;)

When Jay got home, he and Lorraine treated us to dinner at one of their fav restaurants, Two Meatballs in the Kitchen. Can I just say, “best calamari, ev-ar??” So flippin’ good! The dark, dark, dark, dark chocolate cake of freakin’ death was totally awesome too! Wish we had a place like that up here!

To work off somma those good eats, we went over to the Bell Tower Shops to walk around, window shop and drool over all the pretties at Williams-Sonoma and J. Jill. Lorraine and I met back up with the guys over at Brookstone (click each for larger view- haha):

and then before security escorted us out:

I tried to take pictures of Jay and Lorraine (again, click for larger):

But the images all blurred out because Tim was standing behind me, making them laugh:

The center was really pretty at night:

Thanksgiving Day was AWESOME! Lorraine spent all day in the kitchen cooking her butt off and set out quite the spread (sorry, we were all too busy stuffing our faces to take pictures). Everything was really yummy!! Rascal was really happy too- getting pieces of turkey that “accidentally” fell off the table when Jay wasn’t looking! ;)

Afterwards, we wadled over to the couches, cradling our “food babies,” and tortured their neighbors for the rest of the afternoon with SingStar karaoke on Jay’s PS3 before moving on to Buzz. Oh man, Buzz was just SO boring because NONE of us are competitive at all… har! ;)

Later that evening, Jay made the HUGEST mistake by showing Lorraine and I how to play Call of Duty 3. Oh yeah! We dominated the game, decimating Nazi Zombies for the rest of the night, until the guys begged us to shut it off. PWNED I say, PWNED! ;)

Definitely thankful for family, friends, health, and happiness.

On Wednesday, right after work, Tim and I loaded up the car and hit the road, driving south on I-75 to Ft. Myers. The plan was to spend Thanksgiving with my brother, Jay, and his girlfriend, Lorraine.

We’d anticipated heavy traffic on the interstate but certainly didn’t plan on the ‘stop-go-stop-go-stop-go-stop-friggin-go’ traffic that turned 40 miles into nearly two hours. *well, suuurprise!* There were more than a few moments when flipping a u-turn across the “grassy knoll” and heading home almost became a reality, but we soldiered on and eventually traffic eased up a little bit once we passed Zephyrhills.

We stopped in a nameless armpit of a town south of Z-hillz for gas and ::shudder:: fast food (since we’d skipped dinner to get on the road as soon as possible). We were in and out of there as fast as we could possibly could, since the “local color” was out en force, whoopin’ it up for the holiday- doing donuts in the McD parking lot with giaganticon 4-wheeled trucks emblazoned with stars-n-bars (niiiice).

We’d planned on arriving there by 10ish but the way things were progressing (or not), our arrival would be delayed to around the same time Jay got off duty at 11pm, which was fine.

TOTALLY bored about 35 miles outside of Ft. Myers and with a strong need to entertain myself, I started to annoy Tim by calling out the remaining mileage every time we passed a mile marker. Not too long after I called out “20!” the car made a LOUD popping noise.

Stacey: What was that??!

Tim: Did you hear that??!

Stacey: Was that the Timing Belt?? Did the timing belt just blow on my gorram station wagon??!

(the car starts to decelerate)

Tim: Sounds Like…

Stacey: I thought Ford just checked our engine!

Tim: Yeah, well if this trucker over here in our blind spot doesn’t let us over, this situation could get pretty interesting…

Stacey: Define Interesting…

Tim: Oh god, oh god, we’re all gonna die?

Stacey: Just get us to the side of the road…

Tim (deftly threading the needle between two semis): That part will happen pretty definitely…

It was only approx. 38 degrees out and LUCKILY Tim was fully outfitted in his warm North Face hiking fleece and Keen hiking shoes, so he was able to hike a half mile to figure out which mile marker we were closest too (I’d forgotten which one we’d passed in all the excitement). He called the marker number in to Jay, who in turn very kindly called dispatch and had them send a wrecker.

The wrecker, with tow lights flashing, Jay, with his FWC lights flashing, and Lorraine, with her hazard lights flashing, all showed up at the same time! Lorraine loaded us up and took us back to their place while Jay and the tow truck driver followed. Upon arrival, the boys helped the tow truck guy unload the car into a parking space outside the building and it wasn’t long before we were all hanging out in the living room having a good laugh about the whole situation. So what if our 4.5 hour drive turned into 7.5 hours, we were finally at our destination!! :D

This morning we slept in a bit (which means I snoozed the alarm about 10 or 15 times before finally turning it off and getting up. Our awesome little travel clock, the one I bought Tim 10 years ago for his Alaskan cruise ship gig, finally gave up the ghost :( so we’re back to an old giaganticon digital monstrosity that is terrifyingly loud, so snoozing the alarm isn’t as pleasant as it once was. heh that didn’t stop me this morning… :)

I got up and got around so I could meet the Accidental Environmentalist at the Farmer’s Market for the Need-a-Bag Project. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of stopping by the bank on the way there and got stuck in a line (someone two cars up had obviously NEVER used an ATM machine before…sigh) so I was running about 10 minutes late and the poor girl was nearly frozen by the time I got there.

A.E. had already done all the work of collecting the bags and stowing them away for next week, so we got the heck outta there toute de suite and regrouped over at Kay’s Coffee on 34th for a cuppa and a muffin. Had SUCH a great time chatting and catching up that I almost lost track of the time. We parted ways- AE was off on the great saturday candle wick hunt and I headed home to gather up The Tim.

The boy was ready to go when I pulled into the parking lot so we hit the road and headed down to O-ca-la to meet the Wood-Harvin for lunch! We all grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed over to Gander Mountain so the Wood could look for jeans, the Harvin to find a gift for his pa (and some shoes) and for Murray to fondle all the hiking gear in the store. I was just along for the ride and tried not to pay too much attention to the stuffed critters scowling down on us from shelves and poles, cursing all of us and our children and our children’s children… After 2.5 hours of goofing off (hey, the place is pretty big!), the Wood-Harvin had to go back and help Momma Wood prep for a party.

Tim & I drove home and when we got in, we fed the kitties right away before they decided to take matters into their own hands (thank god they don’t have opposable thumbs, we would’ve been screwed long ago…). He went in and practiced for a couple of hours and I finished book #3 of the weekend.

WARNING! SPOILER ALERT AHEAD: He and I met back up over pad thai and watched a Japanese Ninja vs. Sammurai Shakespearian-based Love Story where EVERYONE dies in the end. God I hate those movies sometimes, can’t there ever be a happily ever after ending just once?? They were such a cute couple… sigh. Oh well, at least the ninjas were cool (yeah, I KNOW, ninjas are ALWAYS cool!). :)

What a great day. :)

The venerable Dr. West graced us with his presence this weekend with a surprise visit! We picked him up in Jacksonville and had a freakin’ amazing time until he headed south to visit his ‘rents on Tuesday. The only downside was that he was sans handler… J-nelle was sorely missed this trip and yes, in February there WILL be a party to end all parties!!

Best news of all: Our dear doctor deftly defended his doctoral dissertation and will be degreed December 12!

The weekend was so action packed that I completely forgot to take pictures again (dammit!)! So, the only evidence of his visit are all the little gifts (expertly hidden around the house) that just keep on giving and giving and giving, such as this one…

And for the record, let me just state that I had better not find ANY of my comic books “signed” by their “authors!” :P (oh yes, there will be blood…)