Living My Life Like a ~Randomly Connected~ Song*

I am interrupting this blog post with an important update!! I am a guest blogger!! Please check out the link and while you are there, check out Vikki's stories of married life and just living! : Laugh Lines!  

Now, back to my blog! 
 
So, I briefly held a monkey hostage this weekend.

Just to clarify:

1. No monkeys were harmed in this brief hostage-taking.
2. There was only one monkey.
3. There was wine involved. And Parrotheads.

This is the monkey of question:

If you woof someone, set them free...

 He is of Chinese pedigree, according to his tag – and the rather poorly translated 'wuv' which reads 'woof'. Unless Chinese monkeys actually do 'woof', which his owner adamantly believes to be true.

We met 'Woofy' and his owner, Amanda, at Grafton Winery.

We were there with two old friends to listen to some music, have a glass of wine on an otherwise dreary Saturday and celebrate our anniversary. You know, keep it quiet. Low key. But instead of a peaceful winery with people sipping pinot while sampling cheeses we were greeted by a Cabin Fever Party – Hawaiian Leas, a light up flamingo, a trop-rock band and a winery full of Parrotheads. 
As feral Parrotheads, Bart and I felt right at home.

There was also raffle tickets, tiny drink umbrellas and wine.

Through some rather...friendly extortion...I managed to get the crowd's support in acquiring Woofy.

(It should be noted that I never intended to keep Woofy.)

Bart, fearing for the monkey's safety, did some UN level negotiating and for the price of one dance, Amber was reunited with her pet. And Bart and I were invited to join the Parrotheads of the River Bend. (As it turns out, Amber is the group's charity director.)

and if they woof you they will come back...or if you get the band to do a shout out...either way...

I guess my point here is this: keep your eyes and your mind open and be ready to always have fun. You just never know when you will meet a new friend, learn a new song, taste a new food. We left the house on Saturday expecting to hear some tunes and talk with some old friends. I never intended to kidnap a monkey. Amber never intended to wind up on this blog. Bart...well, he never knows what's going to happen.

We left the winery and drove literally straight up the bluff and spent the rest of our evening enjoying the lovely fireplace in our rented condo. 

Fine. It was electric. But it was still pretty.

(A little background – Parrotheads are people who embrace the music of Jimmy Buffett. As a sanctioned Parrothead club, the mission is to Party with a Purpose. The clubs gather, or Phlock, for fun and to support a variety of causes. On this particular day, Parrotheads of the River Bend raised money for a local no-kill animal shelter; click on their name if you would like a full list of their charities, activities and their manatee. Yes. Manatee. And after such a warm welcome by the group, Bart and I are reconsidering our Feral Parrothead status.)

I would love to have included some photos of Grafton, the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, that horrifying road up to Aerie's Lodge and some of the winter nesting bald eagles. I should also mention the delicious breakfast we ate at Ruebel Hotel - present in Grafton since 1904! However, it was cloudy on Saturday so I held off on picture taking until Sunday. Visibility was about three feet on Sunday, the whole region fogged in after a cold front just missed dumping ice and snow on us. Seize the day. Lesson learned, God.

This turned out to be a blessing as it allowed us to drive back down the horrifying bluff road and make it home in time for me to sign up for the Color Run 5K.

It will be my first 5k.

But it won't be the first time I get stuff all over my white clothes.

*Living My Life Like a Song~Jimmy Buffett

The Awesomest Thing I Have Seen In a While

I was recently lucky enough to get a free pass weekend from the family. They gave me use of the 'good' car and I took myself on a little road trip to see my best friend from high school. It was a four hour-ish drive. (If you factor in the occasionally zoom down the highway at 80MPH for which I practiced a variation of the Hagar defense – I am sorry officer. But I just can't drive 65.)* Plus, I was super excited to see my friend.

She is one of those people who just wrap you into their lives and even though I had not seen her in over a year, it was as though it were 1978 all over again. Of course, that doesn't mean I still wasn't nervous. I stressed for weeks that we wouldn't have anything in common. Except that we have nearly everything in common. We both have two kids who are all within two years of one another -graduating college, looking for first jobs, dating. We all own boats – her a fancy power boat, me a laid back sailboat. (which is a weird metaphor for our personalities. She zooms around at 300Hp, jumping waves and leaving a wake a mile wide. Me, I drift here and there with the wind. And we both have husbands. Which leads me to:

THE AWESOMEST THING I HAVE SEEN IN A WHILE,

mostly because it is not in my house!

It has been suggested that we have an 'odd' collection of decorative items in our house...three foot wooden otter, papier-mâché shrunken head, zombie finger puppets... But nothing prepared me for:

THE AWESOMEST THING I HAVE SEEN IN A WHILE

mostly because it is not in my house!

This is why you never leave a husband unattended.

Yes, this is an aquarium diorama. Yes, it is in the stairwell of my High School best friend's basement. Yes, her husband put it there. (While she was out of the house.)** Several, but not all of the fish were caught by him and his buddies. The turtles and frog were mail order. Every time I walked past the stairwell I had to stop and study it. And I always saw something different. And this could only happen because her husband is so amazingly handy and had spare time after putting in their beautiful new floors and re-doing the kitchen.

But now that I think about it, I did not see any tiny Barbie scuba divers floating around in Jacques Cousteau mode.

Looks like that thank-you gift will be going in the mail today...

*No tickets were issued in the driving. And in my defense, I had no intention of going that fast, I blame it on McD's  lattes and those little licorice bites.

**Did I really need to clarify that she was out of the house when this was installed?