Meet Shakes Romero

This is Mr. Shakes Romero. He's 12 and we love him very much. The management at 1015 is sad to report he'll soon be going through chemo and radiation therapy for persistent tumors. So if the humans act funny, please bear in mind our cats are our children, and it devastates us much like your child's sickness would devastate you.

neighbor problems still persist

Crazy Mary was taken away last Monday in an ambulance. She was found unconscious from bing drinking.

So now, since she runs a flophouse from her keebler house, a freaky family of three that don't seem to be at all related (yet VERY family-like, still), are staying there in her absence. And they're keeping out all the other flophousers, which seems to be causing some drama on our sidewalk. A guy who looked a lot like Jimmy Buffet went off in a huff Friday evening, screaming obscenities. Very un-parrothead-like. The pre-op transsexual took the rejection much better than him on Thursday.

Crazy Mary's Back

Ugh. She's back.



She screamed pretty much the entire night last night. I didn't go to work Thursday from lack of sleep and my nerves making me all nauseated. When I went out to grab some dinner, she was standing at attention at her front door with her hand over her heart and a hat cocked in front of her eyes like a marine. And then she accosted Justin in our driveway. She was going on about the Chinese and Russians, but felt the need to state that Persians were alright.

'Turo in Bean Town

'Turo's in Boston this week. Last night was our 2-year anniversary. I got flowers. Aww.

Anyway, before he left, we made up a goofy little Texas saying for him to spring on them. If someone suggests something that he finds disagreeable or incongruent, he's supposed to exclaim that "possum fat don't fry like that." We'll see if that'll catch on. If not, that dog don't hunt.

This little Texas-ism hoax pretty much represents our marriage: Booger, it's been two happy years of fun and happiness. You're not just my husband, you're my best friend. Together we can, to a point, create our own reality and reject the ideals of others. I'm lucky to have found such a fun partner, and I look forward to many years of hoaxes and high jinks with you. Happy anniversary.-Wifie

Banana Split

I think Crazy Neighbor Mary (a.k.a. Crazy Mary) has FINALLY been kicked out!! The pics shown here are the ruins left from Crazy Mary's front door shrine. I heard the landlord's nephew, whose apartment is behind Crazy Mary's, lost his job at Kroger and blamed it on her latenight yell-a-thon sessions. That, plus the Heights Homeowner's Association was exerting their own style of Homeowner's Association pressure.

Here are some Mary highlights:
-Yells ALL NIGHT LONG--used to howl at the moon with her annoying little dog that she dyed pink.
-Accused a handful of neighbors of raping her.
-Called ambulances semi-frequently, only wouldn't open the door for them because of
Anthrax.
-Once ran around the neighborhood yelling the "good word" and claimed the funny hat
she was wearing was because "they" were "broadcasting live."
-Would introduce herself with the preface..."Perhaps you know me from my foreign
films..."

I am actually sad to see her go, 'cause now I'M the craziest person on the block again.

Friday: last day.

Our last morning here only afforded us enough time to quickly pack our stuff and head on over to the Brood Bakker (bakery) for some breakfast croissant and cappuccino. I stupidly said "I'll have the serveen tiip (serving tip)," because that's what was sitting over the bread. I felt so stupid.

The much touted Schiphol airport proved to live up to its reputation as the best airport in the world. The whole airport looks super-mod and un-airportlike. They've got a cool domed bar and retro lounge areas in sixties shades and sleek design. We did some shopping before our flight, but we missed the airport satellite Rijksmuseum. This sucks, because they had a great exhibit titled "Low-lifes in Dutch art history." Too cool.

late post for Thursday: our last full day here

Okay, it seems I cursed our nice weather by talking about it. Thursday was quite cold and foggy. Thankfully it did not rain.


I feel like this kitty looks: Big smile 'cause I'm having a great time, but I feel dirty and like I'm about to capsize from lack of sleep and too much walking.



This morning we were FINALLY able to get up pretty early (curse you, jet lag!) and go out for breakfast. We hit a much-touted pancake house. The pancakes here are a cross between a crepe and a pancake, and they serve them with whipped cream, fruit, almonds, etc. Ironically, our breakfast of two pancakes and two cappuccino cost us a whopping 33 Euro!! That's more than we spent for dinner last night. Hmm.

Since this is our last full day here (and the Euro doesn't appear to even want to cease kicking our American dollar asses) we've decided against going to Brussels. So we've opted to finally take that canal cruise. View the pics on the Flickr page. There's oodles of them. It was nice finally being able to concentrate on the architecture without fear of breaking your leg on a cobbled street or get hit by a bike or tram. But it was COLD. Uncomfortably so, for me.

Quick nerd note for all the English majors out there: Amsterdam carelessly throws around exclamation points!! As you know, that's a big no-no in English grammar! But they do! They use them for everything! Just as I am now! I'll attempt to find some examples soon and post the pics here to back me up on this. It's really annoying!