Net Crimes & Misdemeanors

After the scare with Dad last Saturday night, I was hoping nothing would happen while I was gone. The car service came to get me on Monday morning at 5:45 am to take me to Boston airport. I was flying Delta. Got on the plane and luckily had the middle seat empty - yay! But we didn't leave the gate. A tire was flat. Then they had to replaced it. So we left late. Not good. Got to see The Devil Wears Prada on the plane and it was better than I expected. Meryl Streep was deliciously evil. So, we made it to LAX late and by the time I took the bus shuttle to the American Eagle terminal to get my connecting flight, they had just given my seat away. So I had four hours to kill. I got back on the bus to the main terminal and hit the only gift shop, LA Gear. If you've seen Pretty Woman, you'll understand when I say the salespeople there were just filled with themselves and judging everyone who walked in. One guy was beyond gay (and I am not being mean saying that). He actually "...

I saw my friend, Vivi (V2 as we call her), yesterday afternoon for a massage. That's how we met, she became my massage therapist after my right shoulder would get sore after airplane trips. I really needed a massage and I have a long flight tomorrow to Monterey, California. We chatted during the hour session, then hugged and confirmed dinner last night at around 6 pm at a local Japanese restaurant. Chris & I got to the restaurant early and had a good time. So when we got home, we were ready to watch The Omen (the new one) and relax. Chris called his parents house and when he hung up, he began freaking out. Something was wrong with his dad and his sister, Sandy, was calling the visiting nurse to come by and would call us back. When she didn't call right back, Chris was certain his father was dying. He tried calling twice and no one picked up. I finally called, got Mom, she sounded calm, then asked to speak to Sandy. I asked her if we should come and she said yes, she was sca...

Sunday morning I packed and got my car ready to go for my road trip to Delhi, NY. According to Yahoo directions, it would be about five hours. I figured six with lunch and breaks. I also took my massaging/heat seat cushion from my office and put it on my drivers seat in the car. I had an audiobook loaded up to listen to, kissed the dogs and Chris goodbye and headed out. I had 3/4 of a tank of gas when I left at 10 am. The drive was long, but with the massage action of the seat cushion, it was more than bearable. The foliage was gorgeous and when I hit my last highway, it was a two-lane road through the country, near the Catskills and even more gorgeous. I got to the Buena Vista Motel at about 4 pm. And it was not even half as bad as the reviews claimed it was. My biggest beef was that they still had me down for one night instead of two, even after Marty (from SUNY Delhi), Cindy (from Wolfman Productions, who booked me) and I called to confirm two nights. But it wasn't a problem an...

. . .such as Elton John Wolfgang Puck Pierce Brosnan Joan Rivers Ben Stiller Drew Barrymore Dennis Miller Suzanne Somers Wynton Marsalis Naomi Judd Vanna White Danny Glover Susan Powter Chuck Norris Paul Reiser Sandra Bullock you really should pay attention to details better. The publicist for the above is my publicist. Yes, the one who screwed up my radio interviews the other day. Oh and I forgot to mention that when they sent me the list of radio stations, they listed my publisher's telephone number in New Jersey as my contact number instead of my home office number. Which means the radio stations would never have gotten me on their shows if I hadn't caught it. And the plot thickens. Remember the radio station that missed having me on their show because the publicist forgot to give me the station's phone number so that I could call in? Well, I had a book signing on Thursday night (noted below) and then had to take my car in yesterday morning for an oil change and checkup...

Friday, October 6th Alexa, from ODU, drove me to the airport and was afraid we'd be late. She needn't have worried. My flight was delayed from the original flight at 9:45 am to 11:30 am due to the weather in Philly (my connecting airport). I was hoping I'd get out of Norfolk before that nasty nor'easter blew in. I did. But once in Philly, again, flights were delayed. I didn't get on a flight until 330 pm, but had lunch with a group from Wyeth Pharmeceuticals out of Boston and a Philly lawyer who was headed to Los Angeles to visit his son and grandson. So it wasn't bad. Finally got home, exhausted. Chris had a cold. Oh boy. I took some more Airborne. Saturday, October 7th Since Chris was sick, I went to his parents house to help out. Dad's feeding tube was leaking, so we called the visiting nurses and they sent someone over. Francie was nice and tried to stem the flow from where the tube was inserted in Dad, but we ended up taking him to the emergency room. W...

WHO@ Newsletter October 9, 2006 I couldn't make this up if I tried. . .Whoa, Nelly! 'Why the long face?' http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2022466.html?menu=news.quirkies A new pub landlady got a shock when she discovered one of her regulars is a horse. Jackie Gray recently became landlady at the Alexandra Hotel in Jarrow, Tyneside. She says she got a pleasant surprise when carthouse Peggy joined owner Peter Dolan for a pint. The 12-year-old's tipple is a pint of John Smiths and pickled onion crisps. Mrs Gray said: "When I bought the pub a few weeks ago I heard rumours that one of the regulars was a horse but I didn't quite believe them. It was a hot day when the horse came in and I was shocked at first because I have never run a pub before." Mr Dolan, 61, from Jarrow, bought Peggy six years ago and discovered her fondness for the pub when she followed him inside. According to the BBC he said: "Peggy's no bother at all. Most of the regulars kno...

I talked with Dad the night before I left for Norfolk, VA and he sounded like his old self. I told him about Chippy and had him laughing. Chris spent two hours with his mom at the hospital on Wednesday with the head nurse, who is also in hospice. He wishes the hospital had done this last week. She answered so many questions for them and made them both feel tons better. He said his dad also felt relieved. What a difference that two-hour talk made. I had ordered a book about chipmunks at Barnes & Noble and Chris picked it up. It's cute, about raising chipmunks and other critters and I told him to give it to his dad. Flew to Norfolk yesterday - connecting flight, no non-stops. It was a long day. Took an hour nap after checking in to the Hampton Inn, then was picked up at 6 pm by Gretchen from Old Dominion University. Set up my laptop, checked the mic and audio and was ready to roll. The campus bookstore had set up a mini store in a side room, complete with cookies and beverages an...

I didn't post about Chippy, mainly because of what was going on with Dad. But I hadn't seen Chippy since the day before I left for Seattle last Wednesday. I was really worried about him. Went out every morning calling him. This morning, the other chipmunk, Sweetie, was sitting on the fence post. I can tell her from Chippy because she's bigger, has bright white circles around her eyes, bigger rounder ears (Chippy has a nick out of his left ear) and a bushy tail (Chippy's is short). She ran when I put food out, but came back and let me talk to her. I went on the porch, put food on the end of the lounge chair and the porch railing and waited. She came. Walked around the chair, shaking her tail. Jumped up, then down. Then up on the railing, stuffing her cheeks and watching me the whole time. I talked to her and she finally just sat there and stared at me. She finally went away. I put more food out and went inside. A little later, I took Bandit outside and there was Chippy! ...

I had to go to a mediation hearing for a car accident I was in back in 2003 yesterday morning. Can't post anything about it yet. Will when it's over and done with (trial is in March). If you want to read "between the lines," you have to go to my Livejournal because I can make my posts private, for friends only there. I had a ton of things to catch up on - paying bills, filling book orders, updating my speaking schedule, etc. Chris' mom called to say Dad wasn't coming home because the nurses felt he wasn't strong enough and he was nauseous. I was relieved, in a way. I took the dogs to do errands, came home and Chris said his mom had called again. She said Dad told her we'd hugged him and rubbed his back and he felt better. This is going to be tough. The doctors told Dad there was no hope. No second opinion was going to save him. So I took it upon myself to follow up on some info a friend told us about. His dad had terminal cancer and was told of Essiac...

Getting home Saturday night was a nightmare. The flight from Seattle to Detroit went fine. In Detroit, we were supposed to leave the gate at 5:27 pm. We did, but sat on the runway until 6:27 pm waiting in line to takeoff. There was weather to the west that was making the Air Traffic Controllers have to reroute that traffic. So it backed everything up. Then, when we were third in line, the airport shut down due to thunderstorms, so no one could takeoff. We did and during the flight at 7:30 pm, my reading light began to blink on and off. I looked up and down the plane. It was only my light. No one else's. I looked at it and watched it blink on. Off. On. Off. A few more times, then it was steady. The woman next to me raised her eyebrows. Someone was trying to "talk" to me and I don't know why. Hmmm. The plane finally landed in Manchester, NH just after 8 pm. But wait, there's more! Everyone is standing up, getting their things from the overhead, when the pilot announ...

I know I'm still on east coast time, but I woke up at 4:45 am PST, in my Radisson hotel room and began to cry in the dark. The news is not good. After my first lecture yesterday morning, I called Chris' cell phone twice and was put into his voicemail immediately. I kept hoping no news was good news. Not yesterday. Chris finally called me while I was outside of the building, sitting on a park bench in the shade, a nice cool breeze going by. He was crying. The doctors began to perform surgery on his dad and basically closed him right up. The cancer is so aggressive there is nothing they can do. They give him 4-5 months at best. Chris is devastated. So am I. I am probably one of the few daughter-in-laws that feel like a daughter instead. I have always loved both of Chris' parents, and they in return. We've done a lot of things over the years together, shared laughter and tears and they were there when Chris was not around when he was in the Marines. I'll never forget w...

I was wrong about my dad-in-laws operation - it's this morning, not yesterday. Yesterday Chris had to pick his sisters up at the airport. I flew out of Manchester yesterday morning on Northwest to Detroit for my connecting flight. That was only about 1 hour 40 minutes (and no plane problems like earlier this week, ha ha). Grabbed a sandwich and water to eat on the next flight, which would be almost five hours long. I tried to upgrade to first, but it was full. Pout. The plane was pretty full, so there was someone in the middle seat. I had a window. Thankfully, we were all women and no one wanted to talk. My throat is sore and Chris said last night he thought I was getting a cold. I took my Airborne and a Benadryl. The latter knocked me out, so I slept most of the flight, listened to my iPod and read. Got to Seattle and was shocked to see sunshine. You always hear how it's always raining in Seattle. Not true. I'm here to speak for the Thurston County's prosecutor's o...

Took JetBlue to Pittsburgh on Sunday. Had to leave the house at 6:30 am to get to Logan Airport in Boston. I was pooped! The first flight to JFK was delayed because as the plane was pulled away from the gate to the runway, the APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) died. So no lights, no A/C, no nothing. So the plane had to be pulled back to the gate. The pilot comes on the intercom and tells us that they use the APU only on the ground until the engines are started and it's "not really necessary." So they jump-started the APU and the engines (his words) at the gate and we left. Chris freaked when I told him. He said the APU *is* necessary and they shouldn't have flown. Well, we made it to JFK, so I was happy. Ran to my next flight, grabbing a sandwich on the way. As this jet is taxiing down the runway, a burst of gray smoke blasted from the right engines (on my side of the plane, of course). The pilot came on and told us it was just condensation. I would think that would be white...

Just a quickie: Since I'm not home to feed Chippy, Chris has been putting the food on the lounge chair on the porch for me in the morning. But this morning he got the bright idea to put me on speaker phone on the cordless, put it on the chair with the sunflower seeds and let me call Chippy. So I'm saying, "Chip chip chip chip, Chippy, where are you?" It worked. I couldn't believe it. Chris is going to videotape it tomorrow morning, but until then:

WHO@ Newsletter September 25, 2006 If you're in the Pittsburgh area, I'll be speaking at Indiana University this evening - it's open to the public. Email me for details. I couldn't make this up if I tried. . .What next? Plays in alien speak? '2 b o not 2b?' http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2009688.html?menu=news.quirkies Education chiefs may turn Shakespeare into text speak so children can relate to it. The Department of Education has issued guidelines to schools to be more creative. They are even backing the scheme to take a new approach to plays by the Bard. Classic lines such as "To be, or not to be?" would be revamped into "2b o not 2b?". Sean Dickinson, headteacher of Park Community School in Havant, Hants, said: "The core issue with Shakespeare is that it's become dull. "Using technology like text messaging is one approach to fuel expression and creativity." Colin Chuter, of Priory School, Portsmouth, said: ...

Last week I flew to DC to speak at the AMC Conference at Quantico (the USMC Base). I flew JetBlue - hooray! Got to Dulles and went to Avis to get my rental car. I've been getting their special of the week and never know what it's going to be. That day, it was a Cadillac CTS. It looked like a pimp car. A nice pimp car. All tricked out, leather, XM satellite radio, all the bells and whistles including heated seats. I turned on the radio and rap came thumping out with the bass turned all the way up. Every station preset I touched was rap. Seriously. Even on XM. I was laughing so hard I almost peed. So I'm driving to Quantico, trying to figure out how to reset the stations (it was a digital display and no manual in the glovebox). At a stoplight, with some rap song blasting away, I look over to my left and this black guy in a car is staring me, his eyes wide and his mouth an "oh" like "What is that white honky woman doing in that car listening to rap?" It w...

WHO@ Newsletter September 18, 2006 Tomorrow is speak like a pirate day (really)! http://www.talklikeapirate.com/ Arrrrrrrr * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NEWS TO USE AND PASS ALONG! (DISCLAIMER: The following news items were found on the web and were not written or endorsed by WHO@; they are for informational purposes only) HP case illustrates thorny issues of work privacy - 09/18/06 http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=111124&ran=247816 If you have a job, you have no privacy when it comes to using the office computer. Judge rules bitter blogs are online stalking - 09/18/06 http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/6760022p-6629130c.html If you think your ex-husband is a lying, cheating, scamming, con artist with no conscience and no soul, you're entitled to your opinion. Cyberfraudsters detained in Spain - 09/18/06 http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=4202 A large group involved in cybercrime and online fr...

Dad is doing okay - he was in good humor. We brought Chris' mom with us and she was okay as well as can be expected. She's worried, of course, as we all are, but we're all taking it one step at a time. Dad will know more tomorrow when he has more tests and whatever to decide what the next step(s) should be. It's driving us nuts with the waiting, but better to wait than to borrow trouble. ---------------- Dad did tell us a funny story, though. He'd been moved to a new room and we asked why. Turns out his roommate in the old room couldn't hold his bowels and kept going all over his bed. Dad said it began to smell so bad, he pulled his sheet up over his nose to get clean air. When the nurse came in, she kept apologizing and moved Dad to his new room and a non-crappy roommate (ha ha). We could just picture him holding the sheet up over his mouth trying to watch the baseball game on TV. Tee hee! ----------------- Chris is still on a wicked pirates kick. He got The Id...

The things I forgot to mention: Weird happenings in the house the last couple of days. Every once in a while, something out of the ordinary happens at home. Two nights ago, we had dinner, then sat to watch Long Way Round (Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman). Chris sniffed the air and said he smelled something weird, electrical-like. We paused the DVD, went into the kitchen and the microwave was merrily microwaving nothing. Mind you, we'd been in there not 10 minutes before cleaning up dinner dishes and nothing was wrong then. We unplugged it. The next morning I turned on the stereo and TV, as usual, to Fox News. I watched a few minutes of the news, then went into the kitchen to get the dog's cheese (for their pills) and my OJ, went back in the living room and the cable box had turned itself off. There is no way to do this without pressing a button on the remote or on the cable unit itself. Very weird. I turned the cable box back on and the microwave works fine. -----------------...

So, it wasn't the beginning of chemotherapy for my dad-in-law the other day. It was just an appointment with the chemo doctor, then another doctor and more tests. Then this morning, they found out (after two messages on their answering machine - mom and dad were out to breakfast) that he has a blood clot in his lung. So he had to go to emergency, was admitted and put on a blood thinner. They have to check all of him out now to make sure there are no more blood clots before even thinking of doing anything else. Chris is doing okay - he's upset, but glad he can help his parents out by taking them to and from the doctors, hospital, etc. His mom is holding up well. She's always been a lady and I gave her a big hug when I saw her today. Chris' parents are like a second set of parents to me. I know most spouses don't get along with their in-laws, but I've always loved them. . .from day one. I'll do what I can to keep them smiling through this all and giving them e...