Happy Fall!!

Well it looks like winter has arrived on Whidbey Island...and with winter comes the panic of people who arent used to the snow.

Something that really surprised me when I moved out here is that even though we're pretty far north, it really doesnt snow much in the Puget Sound area. Rain? Yes. But snow? Not so much. I had the joy of watching people freak out 2 winters ago when we had several feet of snow dumped on us, and it looks like it may be the same thing this winter.

It should be noted that this area lacks the ability to remove snow from the roads. There are no snow plows on the island and using salt is illegal in the state (something about affecting the salmon in the water, though I heard yesterday that they were using salt in Seattle so maybe this is something that has changed.)

Yesterday it snowed about 2 inches and you would have thought that the world came to an end. There were accidents everywhere. Everything starting shutting down. People who were on base were stranded there for a while because it was taking over an hour for everyone to leave through the only open gate. I can understand some of the panic. Without removing snow from the roads, the snow quickly becomes packed ice, so it makes sense that people would panic while driving.I think the best part about all of this is that in the middle of the snow panic, there was also an earthquake! Mr.V and I didnt feel it and I have to admit that Im a little disappointed. Earthquakes terrify me, but this was a small one, so I think I would have been ok feeling it. We were outside taking pictures when it happened, which is why I think we didnt feel it. Once we came back inside, Mr.V immediately got a text from his friend asking if we felt the earthquake, followed by several Facebook status updates about it. Meanwhile Mr. V and I were saying "what earthquake?" It seems that the general consensus is that it felt like a quick jolt. One guy said "It made my head sort of snap forward" while others described it as "It felt like something huge slammed into my house" Based on the fact that most people seemed to notice movement from inside their house, Mr. V and I assume we would have felt it had we been inside our house at the time. It figures that during the 5 minutes we spent outside we'd miss the 2nd exciting thing of the day. We actually doubted that the earthquake even happened but here's the map from the USGS earthquake site. I circled the quake in red. As you can see, the epicenter was right off the coast of the island, right in line with Oak Harbor. So apparently it really did happen and we just managed to miss it.And this is what the rest of fall is apparently going to look like. We've been experiencing below freezing temperatures for the past 2 days and it looks like that will continue for the rest of the week, so I doubt the snow is going anywhere any time soon. (And before anyone asks - my cats are indoor only cats that we occasionally let outside supervised. We weren't torturing them by putting them in the snow. We left the door open and the ones that wandered outside on their own seemed to really enjoy being in the snow.)

A Little Old-Fashioned Fun

Back in December, about 2 days after Mr. V got home from Iraq, he decided to buy himself a truck. But not just any truck...THIS truck:

That would be an old 1964 Ford pickup truck. Its rusted everywhere. It has the same engine that it had back when it was made in 1964. Its missing a door handle on the inside passenger door. The windows are cracked, a rear view mirror is missing. Wires are hanging out everywhere. There are all sorts of things wrong with it. To top it all off, it even came with a ski mask under the seat and a bumper sticker that reads "Jeffrey Dahmer says that tattoos taste better at Tiny Tim's Tattoo shop". I wish I was joking about that last part.

Mr. V's first car was a 1960-something Mustang that he restored. (He'd probably hate me for not remembering exactly what year his first car was.) He loves old cars and enjoys restoring them. We've been saying that we wanted a truck so we could haul stuff around (i.e. firewood, anything large that we buy), so this truck is perfect. It can haul stuff, and in his free time (that he never has) he can restore it to its original condition.

In the meantime, the truck sits on the street in front of our house as a huge eye sore. He's driven it a few times to run errands, but I have to admit that I'm not too fond of riding in the truck. The first time I went for a ride in it, we ended up broken down on the other end of town, and had to call my friend's husband to come rescue us. The few times that Mr. V has driven it without me as a passenger have been hit or miss as far as how well it runs. We bought an antique cabinet at a garage sale a few weeks ago. We had paid for it with the promise of coming back to pick it up in a few hours. The truck made it 30 minutes down the road to pick up the cabinet, but the people we bought the cabinet from had to push Mr. V down a hill so he could do something with the clutch to jump start the engine (you can tell that I know nothing about cars) after it became clear that the truck wasn't going to restart on his way back.

Since Mr. V clearly doesn't have the time to restore the truck any time in the near future, he tries to find other ways to play with it. This past weekend he decided to organize a group of friends to head to the old drive-in movie theatre on the island. I have to admit that I was skeptical. First, I didn't think the truck would make it to the drive-in and back. And second, I didn't think that anyone was going to humor him in regards to using the truck to get us to the drive-in. I'm happy to say that I was wrong. We ended up gathering up several friends and headed off to the drive-in.

Since the bed of the truck is rusting away, Mr. V bought some straw to line the bed with so we could sit back there. Then we packed up some blankets, some hand warmers (did I mention that its supposed to be summer now?), a battery powered radio (the drive-in's sound system is a radio station and the truck has no radio) and some old fashioned coke in a bottle and we were on our way.

I am happy to report that we made it there without the truck breaking down! The theatre was showing a double feature of Toy Story 3 and The A-Team. I wanted to see Toy Story. He wanted to see The A-Team. So we set up some chairs, laid some towels on the straw so we could sit on it without being poked, wrapped ourselves up in some blankets and had a great time!

I have to admit that I had much more fun than I was anticipating. I guess my apprehension about the truck in general, combined with the cold weather, made me think I was going to be miserable all night. I was freezing, and 3 layers of clothes (t-shirt, sweatshirt and jacket), 2 blankets and some hand warmers didn't do much to help, but I still had fun.

Now we're looking forward to planning the next drive-in adventure!

There are a lot of things that I don't like about this town and general area, but this is the kind of stuff I never did anywhere else. I didn't grow up in a place where I could go to a drive-in, while looking at the sunset over the mountains, and see cows and horses and barns in the distance. I love new adventures, and this was definitely one!

(packing up the truck with blankets in anticipation of the weather getting even colder once the sun set!)

(the straw to cover the rusty truck bed)

(me - looking very apprehensive about going for a ride in the truck)

(getting the straw all laid out)

(The Blue Fox Drive-In - since 1959!)

(old fashioned coke bottles and if you look closely at the back window you can read the Jeffrey Dahmer bumper sticker)

(The Olympic Mountains in the distance)

(Everyone waiting around for the movie to start - it should be noted that its about 9:30pm here and it hasn't even started to get dark yet)

(around 10:00pm and the sun is finally setting)

(eating and waiting for the movie to start)

(all bundled up waiting for the movie to start)

(still waiting for the movie to start)

(group shot before the movie - my friend's dog is in the bed of the truck too, but he's hard to see. I love this picture though!)

(10:30pm...still not quite dark, but dark enough to start the movie. Its hard to see but this is an old advertisement for the theatre)

(around 11:00pm...notice that the sky still isn't completely dark yet)

Happy Summer!

Today was the first day of Summer! Of course you would never know that if you lived where I live. Today, Whidbey Island, Washington welcomed summer with a scorching 56 degree day!

Yesterday, the day before the start of summer I had to turn my heat on again. I tried to hold out. I was bundled up in winter clothes because I was refusing to turn my heat on just one day before the beginning of summer (you know summer - a time when using a heater shouldn't even be considered!) I finally caved when my thermostat said that it was only 60 degrees inside my house. Since I like the house kept around 70, this was a little cold for me. I am happy to report though, that I know for a fact that at least 3 of my friends up here also turned their heat on yesterday. That fact made it seem a little better to me. I have to admit that I had thoughts of "Come on Brooklet, suck it up and deal with it. Its not THAT cold." So knowing that I wasn't the only one who caved and used the heater made me feel a little less pessimistic. Clearly I wasn't the only one on the island shivering for most of the day.

So today welcomed summer. In typical Washington fashion the sun rose at 4:27am, which meant that light was already coming in my window around 4:00am. The sun set at 9:57pm and at 10:20pm, when Mr. V went outside to take a picture, there was still light. (its a little hard to see in the picture because of the clouds, but there is definitely still light showing through.)

One would think that on the longest day of the year, it might actually feel like summer. Nope. Not this year.

Instead, the local news had a very cheerful weatherman explain that on the first day of Spring back in March, there was a high of 57 degrees. Today, on the first day of Summer, there was a high of 56 degrees. He cheerfully pointed out that while its only one degree, the first day of summer is still COLDER than the first day of Spring, and neither temperature is a "normal" Spring OR Summer temperature. I'm not exactly sure why he was so cheerful.

So needless to say, last summer I experienced the hottest summer in Seattle's recorded history. I don't think this is the coldest summer (yet) but its still pretty darn chilly and not normal in my mind. Next summer should be the last summer I spend here before our next move, so I'm holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, I'll get to experience some normal weather up here!

Life on an Island

This morning I was stomped on by 9 cats, because Mr. V slept in and didn't have to go to work at 5:30am. However, he usually feeds the cats at 5:30 when he wakes up, so needless to say, by 5:45 the cats were pretty ticked off that they hadn't been fed yet and they chose to take it out on me. Why they didn't stomp all over him is beyond me. That coupled with the fact that Mr. V snored all night long, while I laid there wide awake, has made me a pretty cranky Brooklet today. For those of you who don't know me. You don't want to be around me if I haven't had a good night's sleep - trust me.

Being cranky gives me a good excuse to vent about random things today...mainly life on a small island.

There are definitely some downsides to living on an island in the middle of the Puget Sound. The biggest downside being that there is only one way off the island, in the form of a really old bridge, that while pretty with a nice view, looks like it can crumble to pieces at any second. That's the only "normal" way to get off the island. The other 2 ways are via 2 ferries. One at the south end of the island and one sort of in the middle of the island.

Problem #1 is the Port Townsend-Keystone ferry. Its small. Very small. But its the only way to get yourself to the Olympic Peninsula (big thumb-like part of Washington on the coast) without spending 5 hours on the road. Reservations are a must because getting a spot on the ferry without reservations is hit or miss. I've managed to get on it without reserving a spot before, but that's never guaranteed. In fact, once I was the very last car that they let on. So if you want to take a trip to the Peninsula, you can't do it spontaneously. Even if you get on the ferry with no reservations going TO Port Townsend, there's no guarantee that you're going to get on the ferry coming back.

Aside from the reservation issue, this is the smallest ferry in the area, and Whidbey is prone to some horrible windstorms, which also shuts the ferry down (this happened to my friend about a week ago as she was trying to come back from Port Townsend). The larger ferries run fine in the wind. This tiny one, not so much.

It also shuts down if the tides are too low too.

I've heard stories about the ferry shutting down for various reasons, but I never experienced it for myself until a few weeks ago. Mr. V and I took a weekend trip to Forks and the Olympic National Park (pictures to follow in another post). Everything went smoothly on the way over there. The way back, however, did not go well. We had everything planned. We had our reservations. We even got to Port Townsend early enough to possibly get onto an earlier ferry if their were spots available. But when we got to the ticket window, a very bored looking man told us "Sorry no ferry." That took a second to process. What did he mean "no ferry"? We could see the ferry sitting right there. He seemed bored and annoyed as he explained to us that the ferry was broken and he had no idea when it would be working again. Fantastic. Mr. V asked him what we were supposed to do. He told us to go to Kingston. For the record, I had no idea that there was even a town called Kingston in Washington. It turns out that Kingston is about an hour south of Port Townsend, on the Puget Sound side of the Peninsula. From there you can take a 45 minute ferry to Mukilteo, and then hop on the ferry there, land on the south end of Whidbey Island and then drive for 45 minutes home. All together this put us back home 3 hours later than we originally planned. I suppose thats better than the 5 hours it would have taken if we had driven down the whole Peninsula, through Seattle and then back up to Whidbey. The kicker of this all was when I got a phone call as we were halfway to Kingston from a woman who told me "I am just calling everyone with ferry reservations to tell them that the ferry is broken." Well thanks lady. You were about an hour too late. That phone call would have been helpful before we got to Port Townsend! Needless to say, I never knew how much I appreciated bridges before that day.

Problem #2 is the lack of stuff on the island. I'm sure many, many people can argue that living in a quaint area, without lots of suburban development is just grand. I would agree to a point. However, I think I would function better in an undeveloped area, that had a well developed area close enough so I could get to it without wasting an entire day in the process.

This past Friday Mr. V and I went to Mt. Vernon, a good 45 minutes to an hour away, depending on traffic. The road leading off of Whidbey is a 2 lane road so getting stuck behind an 18 wheeler is basically my worst nightmare as I drive off. So what's in Mt. Vernon? Everything. Whidbey has a Walmart. A very small Walmart. Walmarts that aren't Supercenters are typically 5 times the size of the Walmart here. Mt. Vernon has every restaurant you can imagine and every major retailer. However, it just seems like such a hassle to get there all the time. Whenever we go into town we have to arm ourselves with a list of stores we need to go to because it never fails that we end up back home, having forgotten something important.

Usually we spend an entire day in Mt. Vernon, but on Friday we actually made great time! I wanted to go to Joann's and Michael's for some crafting needs, and for the first time ever we made it back home before 4pm. But then I looked in our bags and realized that we didn't have one of our bags. It turns out that the lady at Joann's had actually given us 2 bags. But she only handed us one. I guess its partly our fault for not noticing that she had put our stuff in 2 bags, but in the end, she did forget to hand us one. Thankfully, we called and they still had our bag of stuff. Mt. V wanted to just return the stuff in the bag so we didn't have to go back, but out of our 2 bags, that was the bag that had everything we went in there for in the first place. The bag we took home had random stuff that we bought on a whim. So yesterday, we drove back to Mt. Vernon, got our bag and came back home, feeling like we wasted a few good hours of the day.

So thats my random venting for the moment. I miss living somewhere that had roads connected to it in all directions. I miss living somewhere where I can have all of my necessities met without needing to spend my entire day getting to those necessities. I like being in a smaller town, but you have no idea how much I wish a larger town was at least close to us. That would be my ideal living situation.

On that note, I'm going to go take a nap, if the cats will let me. Maybe I can manage to lose this crankiness for the remainder of the day.

My Trip Home - With Some Whidbey Weirdness

I've been back home in New Jersey since the 12th and it was an interesting trip.

It all started with the Whidbey Sea-Tac shuttle. Mr. V had to work and couldn't drive me to the airport so I had to hop on the shuttle to get there since leaving my car at the airport would have been much more expensive. The shuttle is great, but slightly annoying in the fact that they won't allow you to book a shuttle that will get you to the airport less than 2 hours before your flight. I understand why they have this policy, but it would also be nice to just say "Hey I claim responsibility if I miss my own flight." So with this policy in place, I had to take a shuttle that left Oak Harbor at 8:15 and arrived at Sea-Tac at 10:30..for a 1:30 flight.

I was already pretty cranky, because if you know me, I'm not a morning person. I planned on attempting to take a nap on the way down to Seattle. But this is where I ran into some fun Whidbey Weirdness. When I got on the shuttle in Oak Harbor, about 5 other people also got on. One lady was saying goodbye to her son and another lady was alone. As soon as we got on, the lady who was alone started talking to the lady with the son:

Alone Lady: "Oh hi! It looks like you were saying goodbye to family. Were you just out here visiting?"

Lady with son: "Yes, my son just had heart surgery, so I came out here to help him through the surgery and recovery."

So far a pretty normal conversation, but this is where the lady, who was by herself, got really weird. She proceeds to start asking the lady with the son tons of questions:

Alone Lady: "Why is your son out here?"

Lady with Son: "He's in the Navy."

Alone Lady: "Oh can he stay in the Navy with a heart condition?"

Lady with Son: "Well he's not sure. He has to go to some follow up appointments before they decide if he needs to be medically discharged."

Still a normal conversation right? But it was at this point that the Alone Lady proceeds to burst into tears. And not just small tears. I mean full blown crying, gasping for breath tears. In between sobs and gasps she manages to get out something along the lines of:

"Oh your son is soooooo wonderful! *sob* It is SUCH a huge sacrifice to serve your country. *gasp* I thank God every single day for the people in our military *sob*." She proceeds to ramble on for at least 15 minutes crying and saying these exact same things over and over.

Now don't get me wrong. I am grateful for our military too and I understand the sacrifices made. Heck, I'm married to a guy in the Navy. But I have NEVER seen someone react like this to the military. I've seen people get choked up. I've seen people who are very grateful. But I have never once seen a person so hysterical that she can barely breathe as she thanks someone for their service. It was actually a little weird, and she sort of seemed a little unstable.

By this time the shuttle had reached Coupeville, where it made its next stop to pick up more people. At this point the crying lady desperately asked the shuttle driver if he can go into the convenience store at the gas station where the shuttle pickup was, to buy her some tissues. He looks at her like she's crazy and tells her that she can get out and buy tissues herself (he was nice about it), but eventually he gave in and got her the tissues.

After blowing her nose loudly, several times, the woman proceeded to cry some more and then launch into an explanation about her entire life. In betwen sobbing and gasping I learned that her husband had been in the Navy, but he got out after only a few years because she "just couldn't bear the separation". However, this apparently led to them not having a steady income and now they have no insurance...and her husband has back problems and her medical bills are $1000 a month...so if the heart guy is able to stay in the Navy then he should...in case his wife has large medical bills in the future...oh and to serve the country too. She was still crying hysterically at this point.

By this point the woman in the seat across the aisle from me was rolling her finger around her head making the crazy symbol and rolling her eyes. Then the lady behind me yelled at the top of her lungs (this lady had to be at least 70, if not older) "Excuse me sir?? What's the policy about cell phones on the shuttle?" He replied "You're welcome to use them, just please be considerate of other passengers." However, apparently she didn't want to use a cell phone, she just thought that the crying lady was on a cell phone. She proceeded to tell the driver that someone had been on a cell phone for the entire trip, and she was loud, and needed to quiet down. When the crying lady didn't quiet down, the old lady spent the rest of the ride sighing as loudly as possible.

We hadn't even reached the ferry yet and I was ready to shoot myself.

By the time we finally got to the airport I was thrilled to be out of that van. My plane boarded on time and I thought the annoyances of the day were over. But apparently these particular Delta employees missed kindergarten because they can't count. There were several people trying to fly stand-by and they let 5 of them onto this flight. But....there were only 4 empty seats. The flight attendent must have walked up and down the aisle 10 times, if not more, counting empty seats because she had one person who had nowhere to sit. I didn't realize that it was that hard to realize that there wasn't a single empty seat on the plane.

My luck continued though, because a guy, probably in his mid 30s, sat down next to me. He was a stand-by passenger and apparently he thought that he deserved to sit in first class First he called his wife while the flight attendents were trying to figure things out and ranted to her about how unfair it was that he couldn't sit in first class. I guess he missed the memo about the fact that stand-by means you take whatever seat you can get. When he hung up with his wife, he then proceeded to rant to me. Awesome. Thankfully, a flight attendent managed to switch him to first class, because she was cleary sick of his complaining, and a very nice, very quiet man, with a book and headphones, sat down next to me. He had been a stand-by passenger sitting in first class who thankfully agreed to move to any seat if it meant this other guy would stop complaining.

So FINALLY they figured out that this one woman just simply wouldn't fit on the plane so they had to take her off and tell her to wait for another available flight. By the time we took off, we were 20 minutes late! I was a little annoyed because I had a layover to make in Salt Lake City, and someone's inability to count or recognize that there are no empty seats almost made me miss my connecting flight.

Needless to say, my day wasn't off to a good start!

I'm happy to say though, that at this point, everything started going right and the rest of my trip was uneventful. I'll bore you all with info about it at a later time :-).

For now, I'm enjoying one last dinner with my grandparents before heading back to the Pacific Northwest tomorrow. (Do I really have to go back?? :-().

Grizzlys and Eagles and Hawks...oh my!

First things first. If anyone reading this knows how to scare away a hawk, to make it never come back, PLEASE let me know how. And please let me know soon.

Not only has my life as a Navy wife moved me out of my comfort zone and ALL the way across the country to the Pacific Northwest, but it has also introduced me to things that I have never had to deal with before (although I guess that could also be filed under "out of my comfort zone").

First, as soon as we moved here Mr. V wanted to check out the Cascades National Park. Please see one of my very first blog posts for a recap of that adventure. The short version of that event is that I learned what "real" camping is. Apparently, there are places where you have to get a permit to go camping. I believe its called a back country permit. When I questioned Mr. V as to why you would need one of these, his answer was something along the lines of "Well that way, if a grizzly bear kills you and you don't come back, the park rangers know where to look for you." I'm sorry....GRIZZLY BEARS??? What happened to the somewhat cute and not quite as terrifying black bears of the Appalachian Mountains?? The horrifying thing about that comment was that he was dead serious.

Second, one of the first things we discovered when we moved here was that there are bald eagles EVERYWHERE. At first, I liked this. I thought it was pretty cool to see bald eagles everywhere. I had seen them in zoos before and we saw one once behind out apartment in Jacksonville, but I had never truly witnessed these giant birds in their natural habitat. As a kid I always learned that bald eagles were "beautiful" and "majestic" and that is the description that I also carried with me. What people fail to mention is that these "beautiful and majestic" creatures are actually vicious, violent, cold blooded killers. I guess in the back of my mind I knew this, but I try very hard not to watch National Geographic shows that involve animals killing animals. That's not really my cup of tea. So needless to say, when I witnessed the way these creatures kill, live and in person - NOT on TV, my view of the bald eagle population around here drastically changed. I no longer think they are pretty and majestic. It now creeps me out when I see them flying around and sitting in trees around here. As far as I'm concerned, if all the bald eagles in the world disappeared tomorrow, they wouldn't be missed by me.

To illustrate what I am talking about, here's a picture of the bald eagle killing an innocent, cute creature. Last April a group of friends and I were at another friend's house for a barbeque. We were all sitting on his porch, enjoying the cool air and the scenic view of the water in front of his house. A small cluster of ducks were floating around carelessly. Everything was beautiful and serene...until a "beautiful and majestic" bald eagle appeared out of nowhere. In a split second it killed the serenity of the moment by swooping down into the water and grabbing a duck out of the water. To make matters even worse, he then proceeded to fly around a few times as if he was showing off his catch!! Of course, all the guys around thought this was the coolest thing ever. I wanted to cry. It seriously disturbed me and any time someone mentions how great it is that there are bald eagles everywhere I think of that moment. I know its the food chain. I know how nature works. But I really had no interest in seeing that nature demonstrated right in front of me. Since Mr. V was one of the ones who was excited to see the eagle with the duck, he grabbed his camera and as the eagle made one of his passes in front of us (this was probably the 2nd or 3rd time he flew past us showing off) he snapped a picture. The picture is small, but if you click on it and zoom in, you can clearly see that the eagle is holding a poor little duck in his talons :-(. Maybe I shouldn't post the picture, but I promise, it was much more disturbing in person!

Now finally, what brings me to this post in the first place. If you've read my recent posts, you'll know that I have a family of cats living in my backyard. They are completely feral, and we have set out on a mission to trap them all to get them spayed/neutered, so they don't reproduce in our backyard. However, feral or not, they are cats. I'm a cat lady. I have 10 cats of my own. So while the cats in my backyard my never be cuddly or sweet, they still look like the cats in my house, and they are fun to watch in the backyard when we sit and watch TV at night (ever see a cat climb trees, jump from tree to tree and then on the roof of a house?) I would never want anything bad to happen to these guys. I realize I can't protect them from everything, but I'd like to make my backyard as safe as possible for them.

Once we realized we had feral cats out there Mr. V and I had a conversation that went something like this:

Brooklet: "You know, my friend, who works at a local vet, said that they frequently get cats that have been dropped by eagles."

Mr. V: "Yeah a friend of mine was driving to work and saw a cat fall out of the sky - it was dropped by an eagle."

Brooklet: *horrified* "What if an eagle swoops down into our backyard and kills the cats?"

***It should be noted that cats being caught and killed and/or dropped by eagles is apparently something that happens often around here. Another lady told us a few nights ago that her friend had an eagle nest fall out of tree and there were 20 collars inside of it.****

Mr. V: " No there's no way that can happen. Our backyard is small, fenced in and has trees. Its too small and cluttered for an eagle or a bird of prey to swoop down into."

Brooklet: "Are you sure?"

Mr. V: "Yes, absolutely."

Fast forward to yesterday. I was in another room when I heard Mr. V yell "Brooklet come quickly!" I ran into the living room to see what he was yelling about and he says to me "Remember when I said our backyard was too small for a bird of prey to swoop down into? Well....I think I was wrong."

It turns out that a hawk had swooped down into our yard and was sitting calmly on our fence. Granted, a hawk isn't an eagle. But its still a bird of prey and it can still easily kill small animals. Needless to say, we haven't actually seen any of the backyard cats in 3 days. I seriously doubt that one hawk would have been able to kill all 6 of them that quickly, but where did they go??

I did some research today and learned that cats may be scared away by hawks, so I am hoping that is what happened and that they will come back. In the meantime, I also learned that once a hawk appears somewhere, it will come back, especially if there is a food source for them.

Fantastic!! Now I have a hawk living in my backyard and I'm worried about the cats out there. So back to my original question, does anyone know how to make a hawk go away and stay away?

At this point, I really don't think I will ever be completely comfortable in Washington. I've had enough of the "beautiful" nature out here! I miss my back yard in New Jersey. There were woods behind my house, but the only creatures we ever saw were deer, squirrels, chipmunks, an occasional wild turkey, and a groundhog that lived under our shed. That is much more peaceful and much more preferred by me!

Whidbey Weirdness (Its been a while since I ran into any...)

Dear Lady in the Dollar Store,

Yes, I am aware of the fact that I am wearing a shirt that says "Hard Rock Cafe Paris". Yes, I've been to Paris. I may have completely misjudged your words and intentions, but you seemed to think it was odd that I have been to Paris, yet I was shopping in the dollar store.

First, I have a house full of cats. 10 of them at the moment, along with 4 small foster kittens. They tear through certain toys like you wouldn't believe. I refuse to pay $15 for a stick with a string attached to it, with a toy dangling off the end. These types of toys are favorites of my cats (and probably all cats), but they really like to pull that toy off the string, therefore breaking the toy. Its much cheaper for me to buy 2 of them at the dollar store (and oddly, the string on the dollar store one is much thicker than the expensive ones), because in about a week, when they pull the toy off of it, I will have lost $2 instead of $15. That seems perfectly logical to me.

Second, everyone can benefit from saving money, so please take your weirdness and go ask other people questions about the places they have visited and give them weird looks. Actually, don't do that. They'll probably be just as annoyed as I was.

Thank you for your time,
Brooklet


Dear Weird Creepy Man in the Dollar Store Parking lot,

Yes, I am aware of the fact that there is a Florida license plate on my car. Yes, I am also aware of the fact that there is a United States Navy sticker on the back of the car. Yes, I am aware of the fact that I am VERY far from home.

In case you haven't noticed, the vast majority of this town is in the military. Therefore, its not odd to see Florida license plates on people's cars, or any other state for that matter. Its not weird. Really, its not. The simple fact that I have Florida plates and a Navy sticker on my car does not give you enough reason to stand in the parking lot talking to me while I load bags into my car (yes lady from inside the dollar store, I bought more than just cat toys). I'm really not sure why it was so amazing to you that I am far away from Florida. Perhaps you've never left Whidbey Island. That could possible explain your weirdness and creepiness.

Brooklet



Wow...so apparently it starts to rain, and the weirdos come out in full force! I have to admit that while these people are annoying, I kind of missed some of the weirdness :-).

Wonderful Washington Day 5 and 6

After spending 4 days riding the ferries back and forth to various locations, we decided that we needed some time to see the local sights, and relax at the same time. So we spent the next 2 days exploring Whidbey Island.

Day 5, Thursday, July 22: We slept in to get some much needed rest, then we packed lunches of peanut butter and jelly, with a side of apples, and headed off to Fort Ebey State Park. Whidbey Island has tons of small state parks, most of which I have never seen, and Fort Ebey was one of them. We took a short trail down to the beach, where we ate our lunch and just relaxed and watched the water. This day started out in typical Washington fashion - cloudy and cool. So sitting on the beach, was actually pretty relaxing and comfortable. I'm not sure how long we stayed there, but the tide was out, so we walked around on the large rocks that are usually covered by water, and I collected more rocks to line our garden. As we were getting ready to leave, some random people on the beach asked us if we had ever been to this beach before when the tide comes in. We said no. She then informed us that if we came back at 5:00 that afternoon we would be pleasantly surprised by the ocean sized waves and the surfers that came out to surf those waves. I had no idea that we got ocean sized waves on Whidbey Island, and to be honest, it still doesn't really make sense to me as to why we get waves like that, but regardless of whether or not it makes sense to me, it turns out that we do, in fact, get ocean sized waves here.

(Fort Ebey State Park)

So we left the beach, and headed off to hike a short trail that led to an old gun battery from the World War II era, when Fort Ebey was an actual functioning fort. We explored the battery for a while, and then we headed down to Coupeville so Alice and Carol could see the cute, historic downtown.

(gun battery at Fort Ebey State Park)

Once in Coupeville, we saw the historic downtown (which takes all of 2 seconds, although it is a very cute historic downtown), got some yummy ice cream, and checked out some gift shops, and then just before 5:00, we decided to head back to Fort Ebey to check out these amazing waves that we were told about.

I have to admit, we were very impressed by the waves. We got there just a little after 5:00. The tide was in, and most of the beach that we had played around on before, was gone. There was a large group of surfers (or what I perceive to be a large group of surfers, since this is Whidbey Island - 20 people), and there were HUGE waves! Granted, I grew up on the Jersey shore, so waves don't truly excite me. I've seen some pretty big waves in my lifetime, and these waves weren't quite up to par with my normal definition of big waves, but it was still pretty amazing. We sat and watched for a while, because I think all 3 of us were in shock that waves this large actually happened on an island in the middle of the Puget Sound. We took some pictures, of course, but the pictures really didn't do it justice. If you're in this area, its definitely something worth checking out, although, if you're looking to see some hot, good looking, good surfing, surfers, this is not the place to do that. The surfers were actually pretty bad, and half of them were balding :-).

Day 6, Friday, July 23: We had planned on going back to the San Juan Islands on this day to see Orcas Island and Lopez Island, but when we woke up it was really foggy, in typical Washington fashion. Part of what we loved about the San Juan Islands was the beauty of them, but the beauty is hard to see when its covered by fog. Since we didn't have any major plans though, we decided to drive to the ferry terminal and ask if they knew what the weather was going to be like on the islands later on in the day. The ticket lady told us that she was pretty sure the fog was going to clear up, but she couldn't guarantee it. So we debated a little, but in the end, we decided to just stay on Whidbey again for the day.

Our first stop was Mt. Erie, which I believe is the highest point in this area. It offers you an amazing view of Whidbey Island and the surrounding areas and islands. We drove up to the top and took in the view for a little while, then headed down towards Coupeville to go to Fort Casey State Park. Fort Casey is an old army fort, and on the property is the Admirilty Head Lighthouse. We took a short tour through the lighthouse and then explored the fort for a while, before heading back home to get some rest. Overall, it wasn't a very eventful day, but it was a fun relaxing one.

(View from Mt. Erie)

(Carol, Alice and me on Mt. Erie)

(Admiralty Head Lighthouse)

(Fort Casey)

Wonderful Washington

On July 18th, my friend Alice came out to visit me for 2 weeks. She brought along her roommate, Carol and the 2 of them spent a week here on Whidbey Island with me. Alice has another friend, Elizabeth, who lives in Seattle, so for the second week, we all went down to Seattle to hang out with her. We were joined by another of Alice's friends, Jan, while we were in Seattle. It was tons of fun, and I have to admit that as someone who gets really anxious when meeting new people, I had a great time and absolutely loved Carol, Elizabeth and Jan. I have a lot of stuff to write about the entire vacation (yes it was my vacation too even though I live here), but since it will take a long time, I thought I'd write a quick overview of our fun, and then write blogs about each event separately.

So this is what we did:

Saturday, July 18: Late night pickup of Alice and Carol from the Sea-Tac airport

Sunday, July 19: Slept in a little and then we went on the obligatory visit to Deception Pass, followed by watching a beautiful sunset at Washington Park in Anacortes

Monday, July 20: Visited San Juan Island and enjoyed a beautiful ferry ride through the San Juan Islands to get there. We explored the small town of Friday Harbor, and went to San Juan National Park.

Tuesday, July 21: The Olympic Peninsula - lunch in Port Angeles, afternoon in Olympic National Park, and dinner in Port Townsend before catching the ferry back to Whidbey

Wednesday, July 22: Back to the Olympic Peninsula to visit Forks and La Push, home of Twilight

Thursday, July 23: Spent the day on Whidbey Island, exploring Fort Ebey State Park and Coupeville

Friday, July 24: Early visit to Fildalgo Island/Anacortes to see the view from Mt. Erie, then it was back to Whidbey to explore Fort Casey State Park and the Admiralty Lighthouse

Saturday, July 25: day trip to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to visit Stanley Park and Lynn Canyon park

Sunday, July 26: A relaxing day that ended in Seattle as we said goodbye to Whidbey and went to go see Elizabeth in Seattle. We ate dinner that night at a fun little bar/grill called the Pig and Whistle.

Monday, July 27: Tour of the Seattle Underground

Tuesday, July 28: I came back to Whidbey to babysit for the day, while everyone else enjoyed a fun sightseeing day in Seattle

Wednesday, July 29: The hottest day EVER in Seattle's history - 103 degrees. We saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in IMAX 3D at the Pacific Science Center, then spent time playing around at the science center. That afternoon/evening we we wedding dress shopping with Elizabeth, who just got engaged, and then ate Indian Food (which I had never eaten before) at the Tandor Hut in Seattle.

Thursday, July 30: A visit to the Seattle Aquarium, the very first Starbucks, Elliot Bay Bookstore, Pike Place Market, and Piroshky's Russian Bakery (thanks for introducing that place to me Mrs. M ;-)), then touristy shopping at cheesy gift shops

Friday, July 31: Day trip to Mt. Rainer National Park

Saturday, August 1: The morning was spent helping Elizabeth out at a homeless shelter/church that she works out, the we visited the animals at the Woodland Park Zoo, and celebrated Jan's birthday that night with dinner at the Space Needle.

Sunday, August 2: Jan left early to fly home to Kentucky and the rest of us spent more time at Pike Place Market and went on a Harbor Cruise in Elliott Bay. Then I went back home to Whidbey and had to say goodbye to my vacation and hello again to the reality of the real world :-(.

I'm going to try to write a blog about each day, so hopefully that won't take me forever to do, and hopefully it will be more interesting to read than just a list of things that I did :-).

Reality Check

Have you ever had one of those moments where something just hits you? Kind of like "wow...I really live in Washington, its not just a vacation." Well, I already had my "I really live in Washington" moment and today I had my second reality check moment. An earthquake. Yes, thats right - an earthquake. In all fairness, I didn't know it was an earthquake at the time, but suddenly the fact that I live in a place that has several fault lines running underneath it, and is surrounded by 5 active volcanoes, seems a little scary.

Mr. V woke up this morning around 4:30 to get ready for work. Around 5:30ish, I woke up and felt the bed shaking. At the time I didn't think much about it. Whenever one of our cats stands up and stretches it makes whatever piece of furniture he/she is sitting on vibrate. In the past, whenever a cat has done that, we've joked around and said "Was that an earthquake? Nope, just a cat." Well, this morning I felt the bed shake and when I looked up to see which cat was stretching, I was a little surprised to see a bed free of cats. Again though, I didn't think much about it. I was annoyed that I had woken up and chalked it up to Mr. V making noise as he got ready for work.

It wasn't until a few hours later that I heard a news report that there was a 4.6 magnitude earthquake in Seattle at 5:30 this morning. The first shock I had was that I had no idea you could feel a 4.6 earthquake (sometimes I love the fact that I grew up in a bubble). The second shock was that not only can you feel a 4.6 magnitude earthquake, but Seattle isn't just right down the road from us. Its close, but at the same time, not really. Which means that if the epicenter was directly below Seattle, and it could be felt here on Whidbey Island, then I better learn something about earthquakes!

I have to admit that I have a mixture of shock and denial about the whole thing. Part of me thinks its pretty cool that I felt it. Mr. V claims that he didn't feel anything, but he was rushing around getting ready for work at the time and not in a still position anywhere. He originally told me that I was imagining things and there is no way I felt anything. He ate his words though when he pulled up a map of the area. The map was various different areas surrounding Seattle and it was colored in to show how much of the quake was felt by people. Whidbey Island was entirely colored in, with most of it showing that people felt mild vibrations, while a few on the south end felt moderate movement.

Soooo yeah...this was a wakeup call. I don't do well with natural disasters. I grew up in a place that rarely had any type of natural disaster. Maybe a blizzard here and there or a small hurricane, but thats all. Earthquakes are a new thing to me.

Add this to the fact that I just finished watching the news where they reported on today's earthquake and compared it to the earthquake Seattle experienced in 2001. Apparently they occured along the same fault line and they were nice enough to show me some scary pictures of the damage from 2001. They went on to talk about a volcano that's about to erupt in Alaska, and how that is not connected to today's earthquake here (at least, not that they know of). However, they did point out that this area is surrounded by 5 active volcanoes, one of which erupted 28 years ago (Mt. St. Helens) and has been recently rebuilding itself. A news reporter cheerfully pointed out that a severe earthquake in this area could possibly trigger volcanic activity. Awesome.

So that was my wakeup call. Earthquakes and volcanoes. Not exactly something I have prior experience in, and not something that I hope to gain experience in. I can handle a faint rumbling, but anything more than that is going to send me packing back to the east coast!

Whidbey Weirdness

At first I thought I was imagining the weirdness of this town, but with each new experience I realize that my initial assessment of the locals was pretty accurate. Yesterday I had my 3rd weird experience with some locals so I thought I would explain ALL of them to you to better illustrate my point.

Experience #1: When we first moved to Oak Harbor it took almost 3 weeks to get our internet set up at home. Mr. V and I spent a lot of time at the town library checking our email and playing around on the internet. One day I showed up at the library and had this conversation as I sat down at an open computer:

Random creepy looking man: "HI!!!!"

Brooklet: "Hi."

(random creepy looking man continues to stare at me)

Random creepy looking man: "Are you Daniel's sister?"

Brooklet: "No, I'm sorry. I'm not."

Random creepy looking man: "Oh I'm sorry. You looked just like her.Amazing."

Brooklet: *smiles politely* "No problem."

(I continued to check my email, not giving another thought to the creepy looking man next to me.)

(fast forward to 2 weeks later - I'm at Kmart picking up some random items.)

Brooklet: *pays for items and begins walking out of the store*

Random creepy looking man: "HEY!!!!"

Brooklet: *looks at man confused - doesn't recognize him*

Random creepy looking man: "You're the girl from the library!!"

Brooklet: "umm....?"

Random creepy looking man: "You remember. I thought you were Daniel's sister!"

Brooklet: *starting to remember* "Oh hi!"

(I continue walking out of the store, my hands filled with bags.)

Random creepy looking man: "So how are you?"

Brooklet: "Umm, I'm good. Just picking up some stuff that I needed for the house."

Random creepy looking man: "I'm John!" (note: I have no idea what his name really was, so for the purpose of this story I'll call him John.)

Brooklet: "Oh. Hi John." *begins the process of figuring out how to get to my car and away from this guy."

John: "And what should I call you?"

Brooklet: "Oh I'm sorry. I'm Brooke."

John: *tries to shake my hand even though I clearly have my hands filled with bags* "Its so nice to meet you Brooke. Did you know that I'm writing a book?"

Brooklet: "uh no I didn't." *wonders why I should have known he was writing a book*

John: "Yep. Its a true story. Its all about my life and the things I have gone through. That's why I was at the library. I was working on my book."

Brooklet: "Oh" *takes a step closer to the parking lot*

John: "Yep I'm writing a book. But I have some problems spelling words. That's why I use the computers at the library. They tell me if I spell something wrong. Its a beautiful day isn't it? Its not often you can see the sun around here."

Brooklet: "Yeah I've noticed that."

John: "I was in the Navy. That's why I live here. Because I used to live here when the Navy told me that I had to live here. I worked for the FBI too. After the Navy. I worked for the FBI but I don't anymore so I live here again."

Brooklet: *stares at man's nasty crooked rotting teeth and rudely wonders if he was a janitor at an FBI office because there is no way this guy was actually IN the FBI*

John: "Are you in the Navy? I was in the Navy."

Brooklet: "No, my husband is in the Navy. We just moved here so I should get going. I still have lots to unpack."

John: "Oh ok. Well it was nice meeting you. What's your name again?"

Brooklet: "Brooke"

John: Oh thats right. Brooke. The girl from the library. Maybe I'll see you at the library soon." *his face lights up* "You can proofread my book! Like an editor. I'm sure you can spell better than me. Will you help me and proofread my book?"

Brooklet: *knows the internet will be set up at home in a day and probably won't return to the library for a while* "Uh....sure...I guess."

John: *looks at his watch* "Oh! Look at the time! I should probably go home. See you later!"
(he's gone before I had a chance to blink)

I chalked up this particular incident to bad luck on my part, and a random strange guy on his part. When I told Mr. V the story, he concluded that the guy was probably a serial killer. Awesome.


Experience #2: Mr. V and I are bargain hunters. We love garage sales, thrift stores, antique stores and anything of the sorts. We've found some amazing things throughout our bargain hunting experiences, including some items that are almost brand new (and some that are completely brand new). If you look around enough, its amazing what people will throw away, when there is no need to throw it away. So one day we were driving by a neighborhood that had a "Free Stuff" sign on the street. We decided to swing by and found out that this family had a garage sale the day before, and anything they hadn't sold was being given away for free. (note: Since this is a huge military town, LOTS of people have garage sales all summer long, and when they are over, the leftovers are given away for free. We have found that its all people who are moving to a new location and they are happily selling things that still look brand new. Its worth it to check out once the nice weather rolls around again.) I had been looking for a magazine holder for a while, and one of the first things I noticed was that there was a free magazine holder on the street. It was dusty, but otherwise looked brand new. So of course we stopped. I grabbed the magazine holder and Mr. V picked through some other things. As we were looking through stuff, the owner of the house was still bringing stuff outside and encouraging us to take everything. We ended up with the magazine holder, some flower pots, a space heater, toaster oven, interesting pieces of driftwood and some other random things. As we were hunting through stuff we ran into Weird Whidbey person #2.

Random man: (to Mr. V) "Oh hi! Do you live in this neighborhood?"

Mr. V: "No we live across the street a bit. We just stopped by because we saw the sign for the free stuff."

Random man: "Yeah this is great isn't it? I live in this neighborhood and people are really nice around here. These are my kids - *points to 2 kids on bikes* - This is Tommy (again, I have no memory of their actual names so I'm making some up), Tommy is 10. This is Jason. He's 8. I have 3 other kids. Let's see....Anthony is 7 and Carla is 5. And oh! Matt is 11 and I'm their dad. They love their dad. They love spending time with me. And I love spending time with them. See? These guys on the bikes with me. We're just out riding around having fun."

*As he's talking, Tommy or Jason losses interest in his bike and starts picking up random things from the free pile. I cringe as he picks up MY magazine holder that I've claimed and drags it across the street, probably scratching it up, then drops it hard on the ground. Images of my perfect magazine holder disappear as I realize its probably scratched and cracked. Thankfully, no damage was done.*

Random man: "Hey do you like the outdoors?"

Mr. V: "uhhh yeah I do"

Random man: "My family and I go hiking a lot. We like Deception Pass, and we also like Mt. Erie and this place and this place (he goes on to mention several other hiking areas). We go hiking whenever its nice outside. But we didn't go this weekend. No. This weekend we're just riding our bikes around having fun. You should come hiking with us. Not next weekend because we won't be here. But the week after that. Yes definitely, you'll come hiking with me, my wife, and my 5 kids. Because we love hiking and we like hiking with our friends. You can be our friend now too."

Mr. V: *stares at man with baffled expression*

Random man: "Hey have you been here long? Let me guess, Navy right?"

Mr. V: "uh yeah"

Random man: "Oh wow! I was in the Navy. What do you do?"

Mr. V: "I'm a pilot."

Random man: "A pilot. WOW! What kind of pilot?"

Mr. V: "P3's"

Random man: "You know I know we have P3s around here and we also have Prowlers. Those planes are different from each other. I used to work on planes. A long time ago when I was in the Navy. I worked on planes. On the ground though. WOW! So you're a pilot huh? What are you going to do when you get out in...what...2 years?"

Mr. V: "No actually I have about 6 more years before my commitment is up."

Random man: "WOW 6 years? Thats a long commitment. But you can fly commercial aircraft then right? Will you do that? Will you work for an airline? I would work for an airline. Because then you can still be a pilot!"

Mr. V: "uh huh..."

*During this time, another child has shown up, along with several other people who are now digging through the free pile. The 3 children continue to play with items in the pile, making me nervous, because they look like they are about to destroy everything I have claimed. Meanwhile, Random man has somehow lured us away from the free stuff, so now the neat little pile that we collected is in danger of being claimed by some other person. I am getting annoyed quickly.*

Random man: *goes on and on for a while about flying, while Mr. V stares blankly at him trying to figure out how to get away.*

Brooklet: *sighs loudly*

Mr. V: *Takes my cue and starts wandering back to his pile of stuff and moving it into the car*

Random man: "So yeah we should definitely go hiking next week. I like making new friends. I'll call you ok? Oh wait, I can't get your phone number because I left my phone at my house. My house is only 3 streets away. You can wait here and I'll go get my phone..."

Mr. V: "no no no...its ok. Look just give me your number and I'll call you." *obviously attempting to NOT give this man his phone number*

Random man: "No! I know what we can do. You can call me. I'll give you my number right now. Thats right, where's your phone? Ok are you ready? Type this number in, and then call me. Right now. Call me. Now you're number will be on my caller ID and I can call you back! Great idea!"

Mr. V: *does what he is told...unhappily*

*after a few more weird exchanges about the Navy, hiking, and airplanes we managed to get away from this guy when I started carrying stuff over to the car, and standing next to the car. Mr. V said he had to help me and we booked it out of there. We concluded that this man must also be a serial killer. Thankfully, he must have met a new friend after us because we never got a phone call from him.*

So this brings me to my 3rd incident. This one happened yesterday and confirmed my theory about this town being crazy.

Experience #3: Around 4:00 yesterday afternoon, our doorbell rang. I opened it to find 2 elderly people standing there with smiles on their face.

Woman: "Hello there!"

Brooklet: "Hello..."

Woman: "We're your neighbors. We live behind you."

Brooklet: *wonders what we did wrong since we have lived here for 5 months without ever seeing these people* "Oh...hi. Nice to meet you."

Woman and Man: "Nice to meet you too."

*silence*

Woman: "So we just wanted to let you know that we have a cat."

Brooklet: *thinks they must have noticed the 9 cats living in our house* "Oh?"

Woman: "Yes our cat. He's black."

Brooklet: *trying to fill in silence and figure out whats going on* "Oh...I like black cats."

Woman: "OH! How nice! I thought you might be a cat person because of your decorations!" (we have a cat garden decoration in our front yard)

Brooklet: "yeah. We have a house full of cats. 9 of them actually."

Woman: "WOW! 9 cats? Oh good. Then I know you like cats."

Brooklet: "....."

Woman: "Our cat likes to roam around. Sometimes he jumps over the fence that separates your yard from ours."

Brooklet: *making a connection* "Oh! We've seen a black cat in our backyard. We put food out for him because we didn't know if he was a stray or not. He doesn't seem very friendly, but he's not wild either."

Woman: *giggles* "Oh he's not mean. He's just shy."

Brooklet: "Well, I'm glad that we know he belongs to someone now. All of ours our strays and we had been wondering about him. I'm glad I didn't take him inside if he is yours."

Woman: "Oh well he may not be our cat."

Brooklet: ".....???"

Woman: "There are several black cats that roam around here. Our neighbor has one. We have one. And another house has one. But ours jumps over the fence a lot. And over the fence is your yard."

Brooklet: "Well, we've only seen one black cat in our backyard and when he leaves, he jumps over the fence to your yard."

*Mr. V appears at this time*

Mr. V: "Maybe we can take a picture of him the next time he is here and you can see if its him."

Man: "oh we probably couldn't tell if it was him or not."

Brooklet and Mr. V: *blank stares as we try to figure out what the heck these people want*

Woman: "Your cats don't go outside do they?"

Mr. V and Brooklet: "no..."

Brooklet: "We're kind of paranoid about letting them out. Plus one of ours ran away from us, and didn't come back home until 3 months later. We don't want to go through that again."

Woman: "Oh how nice! He came back home?"

Mr. V: "Well someone found him and returned him to us."

Man and Woman: *look amazed*

Brooklet: *seeing that that didn't 'get' it* "Well he had a collar on with our phone number. So a man found him, read his tag and called us."

Woman: "Oh. We used to put collars on our cat. But I don't like them. If someone were to grab my cat, the collar just makes it easier for them to grab. And I don't want someone to grab my cat." (note: I have heard of people with cats who don't like their collars. I've heard of people who are afraid of collars that don't stretch or snap because they cat can get caught and choke to death. I have NEVER heard anyone say they don't like collars because someone might grab the collar and therefore grab the animal.)

Mr. V and Brooklet: "Oh..."

Woman: "Plus he's a black cat and they are targeted more." (note: I knew that. Humane societies put out notices every year at Halloween telling people to be careful with their black cats, so of course I'm now wondering why this woman lets her cat outside if she thinks there are too many dangers outside.)

Man: "Yeah we don't want something bad to happen again."

Woman: "I had another cat. I had to take him to the vet because he was constipated. They X-rayed him and found a pellet in him. Someone shot him with a pellet gun! Can you believe that? Its so dangerous for them outside. That's why we only let ours out at 7am every morning. He comes in at night." (because clearly, the world is only dangerous at night. There is no way someone would shoot him with a pellet gun during daylight hours...)

Mr. V: "If you let him out at 7, we usually see the cat around 8 in the morning. So I bet its him."

Man: "Artie."

Mr. V and Brooke: "Artie?"

Woman: "That's his name."

Brooklet: "Oh....well if I see him again, I'll call him Artie...."

*This random conversation continues for a few more minutes. They eventually leave, without ever telling us why they came to our house. Did they come over just to tell us they had a cat? Did they come over to make sure we liked cats since their's apparently hangs out in our backyard? *

Side note: Mr. V decided too late that when they mentioned the dangers of letting cats outside, we should have said "Oh you have a black cat? That's really too bad. I hope it wasn't the black cat that we saw squished on the road last week..."

So, in conclusion, WHY do they weird ones keep talking to us? Who are these people? None of those conversations made any sense, so we're starting to wonder why these people seem to flock to us. Maybe its US. Maybe we are the weird ones because we just don't 'get' these people....ugh...who knows....