peas with honey

What a "Dol"!

This weekend was my little niece Hannah's first birthday.  The first birthday is a very significant birthday in the Korean culture because of prior low infant survival rates.  Some Koreans didn't name their child until after the first birthday because there was no guarantee your child would make it that long.

 

Hannah (aka "The Banana" or "Peanut Magoo" -- it shouldn't surprise you in the least that I have these names for the little thing) also wore a traditional Korean outfit called a hanbok with bright pink, red and yellow material.  She looked so cute it was unreal....like a little doll.  She had a little hat on too (which we were all surprised to see her tolerate because she had previously absolutely refused to allow that thing to stay on her head for even a second).  After the requisite two million photographs of her behind the traditional rainbow-layered rice cake with raisins spelling out happy birthday in Korean, Peanut Magoo got down to business.  Her parents set a tray of objects in front of her and she was supposed to look at all the objects and pick one.  The one she chose would tell us about her future.  From left to right was a small paint brush (predicting a future as an artist), a ruler (predicting a future of being good with her hands or an engineer), a book (predicting a scholarly future), a rock (predicting a future as a geologist) and a pencil (predicting a future as a writer).  She was very distracted by all the people crowding around the table and her mother rolling up the long sleeves of her hanbok to allow her little hands to peek out.  I moved the rice cake out of her view because she thought that was pretty interesting (I could see why with all the colors and such).  My brother tapped all of the objects (I noticed he lingered a little longer on the rock....) and Hannah reached down and grabbed......the paintbrush.  There was a loud squeal as Hannah proudly held up the paintbrush and looked around at all the people taking pictures of her.  The squeal came from my mother (who was also jumping up and down).  "She picked the paintbrush.  I'm a very happy grandmother!"  Mother was so exuberant that people started taking pictures of HER reaction.  It was hilarious.  "My mental imaging worked!"  [The truth is that my mother had no idea that there'd even be a paintbrush because both of Hannah's parents are scientists.]  My mother is a graphic designer and artist so she was so thrilled that Hannah selected that paintbrush.  "It was the smallest thing on the tray.  She really had to focus on it for her little fingers to grab it."  Yes...we all saw that.  My mother talked about it Sunday and even mentioned it to me this morning on my drive into Phoenix.  Is it just me or is my mother happy?  I can imagine in the future when Hannah decides that she wants to be an astro-physicist or something, my mother will say with disappointment "....but you picked the paintbrush...." 

Wait 'til your mother gets home...

One of my jobs is to enforce campaign finance laws.  In that regard, I often send letters to candidates and their political committees asking them to file something or charging them a fine for filing something late.  It's all laid out in the law.  I get what the Sec. of State calls a "reasonable cause determination" and I basically enforce it.  We don't get that many, about 2 or 3 each reporting cycle.

 

I sent a letter to this state representative in May asking for some documentation for his campaign finance report.  He blew me off.  I talked to my boss and she said to give him a "second notice" and to notify our lobbyist that I was having trouble getting a response.  I drafted up the "second notice" and called our lobbyist.  He said that he'd give this rep. a call and see what was going on.  The lobbyist called me back and told me that the rep. said that he'd send me the stuff by next week.  I've had some experiences with this particular representative so I told our lobbyist that I was still going to send out the certified letter.  Our lobbyist told me that I should contact him if I didn't get any documentation by the end of next week.  He said that, if he doesn't give you the stuff, "I'll call his mother."  What?  CALL HIS MOTHER?  (We ARE talking about a representative in the Arizona House of Representatives!)  I laughed and told the lobbyist that he was being pretty funny.  The lobbyist told me in all seriousness that he definitely WOULD call this representative's mother if he didn't comply with our request and that his mother would make sure he gave us the necessary documentation.  Apparently everyone knows everyone in this state.  Isn't that crazy?  I think that should be our strategy for everything going forward....."don't make me call your mother...because I will."

A police state.

I was driving up I10 (Mad Max) this morning from Tucson and I was in the left lane passing a row of 18-wheelers.  This dark grey Charger pulls up and rides my tail.  I'm starting to get used to these jerks and get a perverse pleasure out of going EXACTLY the speed limit whenever they try to push me that way.  Now, I have to admit that I went about 4-5 miles over the speed limit because I know that's the error rate for most radar guns around here.  (Of course, I'm screwed under that logic if the gun gets me going 85 or so.....)

 

Anyway, this Charger is riding my tail and getting pretty close.  When I pass the last 18-wheeler, I pull over and let the idiot pass.  He zooms ahead and does that to the next person in the left lane.  I mean really.  I'm watching this tool ahead of me when we pass two AZ Highway Patrol cars (one on either side of the road).  One guy is in the median with a radar gun and the other has someone pulled over.  This Charger flashes his police lights (aka "rolling the cherries").  What?  That jerk was a cop?  Was he TRYING to get me to speed?  (Oh yes...it was a "he" because I gave him the "stink eye" when he passed me.)  What the hell?

 

There are WAY too many cops in this state.  I regularly see about 5-6 waiting to ambush anyone driving down the 10.  I know it's getting toward the end of the month (so they have to fill their quotas) but really....is it necessary?  And...if so...why are there still so many crazy accidents on this road?  Their presence has done nothing in that regard.  Yes....I'm ranting. 

Action shots....

Here are some action shots of me in Germany....and by "action shots," I mean a before and after picture of me drinking. 

Here I am drinking a beer with my driver at the time, Missy Rice.  No problem.

 

This could be later that night or way before I had any beers.  You can never be certain with me. I have the rubber gaskets that are used to seal beers (with those ceramic flip tops) over my eyes.

 

 

Here is proof that I have no ability to make big hair.  I didn't really fit in during the 80s....

 

Wild, wild west.

In my job, I often get calls from the Federal Government's Department of Justice.  Arizona, as a state, has to submit any legislative changes it makes which "affect voting" to the Feds for approval under the Voting Rights Act.  I think I explained this before but Arizona is a "covered state" which means that we're under the microscope with regarding to voting rights because of past abuses and discrimination.  It makes working as an elections officer particularly difficult.  So....part of my job is to submit what are called preclearance submissions to the Federal Government.  In these submissions you have to go into extreme detail about how many minorities and members of "language minority groups" (????) were involved in approving the change and how they could be affected by any change.  I think I had to put in a 20 page letter describing a House Bill that allowed counties to print sample ballots on white paper with a large colored stripe denoting the party affiliation (red = republican, blue = dems, etc.) instead of the previous practice of having them print it entirely on colored paper.  This was supposed to be a cost-saving measure for the counties but I sure blew a lot of money writing that thing up.... 

 

There has been a recent "crack down" on these approvals too.  So...I get at least one call a week from the Feds asking about some submission or the other.  I recently had to find out how many minorities were involved in coming up with the idea to have a Statewide Poll Worker Recruitment Campaign sponsored by the Secretary of State.  After ten or so questions, I told the Federal guy that it was starting to seem like the Dept. of Justice didn't want us to recruit more poll workers.  He didn't appreciate my observation (probably because it was true).

 

The funny part is about all this, and the main reason for this blurb, is that these guys in DC seem to have a very funny idea about what Arizona is like.  They always talk to us like we're out at some Pony Express station unable to comprehend how they (from the big city) could speak to us on those little ringing things sitting on our desks.  I've always thought that they believe we're all wearing cowboy boots, chewing tobacco, eating things with cactus in them and shootin' injuns out here.  (Which everyone knows is purely a weekend activity in this state...but I can't vouch for New Mexico.)

My how callipygous you are...

When I was a new second lieutenant in 1988 at my first duty station in Hoechst, Germany (a suburb of Frankfurt), I had the normal array of mundane jobs.  I was the fire safety officer, the range officer, the discrimination complaint officer, the "make sure everyone's fingernails are clean" officer, etc.  The minute you report to a new unit as a junior officer, the no-longer-most-junior-officer on post (the last officer to report right before you) gladly hands off all of these duties and piles the accompanying manuals on your desk.  Great fun.  I couldn't wait to give those manuals to the next guy....

 

One of the duties that all officers (except the big guns) had was be a Staff Duty Officer (SDO) about once a month.  That meant that you had to stay at work all night (and work the next day) and you got to sleep on this dirty, stained cot in the guard shack on post.  There was this specialist that had perpetual duty there at that time (I don't know what he did exactly to deserve that) and I can't remember his last name but I remember his first name because people called him "Scary Gary."  He WAS sort of creepy.  This was the first time I'd done this particular duty so I introduced myself to Scary Gary and he showed me around the shack I'd be staying in.  He explained about the coded messages that came in and how I would sometimes be tested with coded messages that could (or could not) indicate that we were about to engage in nuclear war.  It was just practice for when the message REALLY came.  [This was while the wall was still up and we were still in the cold war.]  Scary Gary told me that he expected nuclear war any day now.... 

 

Another of my duties was to inspect the soldiers who were assigned guard duty around the post that night.  Based on my inspection and subsequent ranking of their appearance, the soldiers could pick the time they stood guard.  So...it was important to be among the first picked or you'd be stuck with the 3:00 am time slot.  The soldiers lined up and I went through the inspection and picked a tall fellow named Nunley to be my super numerary (or number one draft pick).  I promptly left to go lead a class where soldiers practiced their breathing and firing techniques before going to the firing range to qualify on their weapons.  (This mainly involved balancing a dime on the barrel of the weapon as you pulled the trigger during the brief interval between inhaling and exhaling.)

 

When I got back from the class, Scary Gary informed me that the Battalion Sergeant Major (the top enlisted guy on post) had changed my super numerary designation from Nunley to someone else (I think he name was Hall).  What?  I told Scary to change it back to Nunley and I went out to find the Sgt. Major.  When I found him, he told me that Hall was a much better soldier and that he deserved to be super numerary over Nunley.  I told the Sgt. Major that it wasn't his call and that, while I appreciated his experience and input, I was the ONLY PERSON who could change my designation in this regard.  Being a crusty old Sgt. Major, he didn't take too kindly to a 21-year old blonde second lieutenant telling him this.  He said that he could and did change my designation.  I informed him that I had been commissioned by Congress, which meant that I outranked him....even if it was my first day in the Army.  Well....we weren't getting anywhere with this so I suggested that we talk to the Battalion Executive Officer.  He thought that was a great idea because, as he informed me, "Major Ball will set you straight about how things work around here."  OK, fine.  We went to see Major Ball and, after finding out what the issue was, he quickly dismissed me and made the Sgt. Major go into a "closed-door session" with him.  Ha!  I went back over to the SDO office and checked to make sure that Scary Gary had informed all the soldiers that Nunley was still No. 1.  Later that day, I saw the Sgt. Major across the quad and he gave me a dirty look and went out of his way to salute me.  Nice.  (I'm making friends all over the place.)

 

I tell you this as a background because it was how I met Mark Nunley.  I came to find out that although Nunley had been considered a relatively lax soldier who some people didn't think too highly of, he was a fantastic person with a quick wit and an imaginative problem-solver with a lot of intelligence.  I thought (and still think) the world of him.  I had none of that negative background to cloud my judgment and I thought he looked mighty fine that day.  On subsequent times as SDO over my time at that unit, I had to send him to the emergency room for stitches and bail him out of jail.  (He liked to drink and get into fights.)  He never forgot that I made him super-numerary that day though and he became a loyal soldier and subsequent friend-for-life.

 

When I was assigned a platoon, he asked if he could be my driver.  Sure.  One of the duties of the platoon leader's driver was to maintain his or her vehicle.  The Army had a program where they were trying to inspire personal pride and ownership in its vehicles so they encouraged everyone to name their vehicle.  Our Battalion commander had a policy that vehicle names began with the alphabetical letter by which your company was known.  For example, Headquarters Company's vehicles all had names starting with "H."  The name was proudly stuck on the lower middle portion of the windshield.  My platoon was in "C" company.  I had a policy where I had to approve all the names....you wouldn't believe the things these soldiers wanted to put on our vehicles.

 

As an aside, the soldiers in my platoon were not your ordinary grunts.  They were highly intelligent.  After all, this was a military intelligence battalion (jokes about that being a contradiction in terms aside).  They were trained to operate highly technical electronic surveillance equipment and most spoke either Russian or German (we were tapping into voice communications after all).  This high level of intelligence led to all sorts of ingenious high jinx from the soldiers -- which always had me on edge. 

 

I made soldiers show me what certain words meant in the dictionary before I would approve them.  I also wouldn't allow words from foreign languages (for obvious reasons).  I allowed "Charlie Don't Surf" and rejected a whole lot of sexually oriented words that I don't even want to get into....  I remember Nunley came up with a few suggestions, which I rejected, and then he suggested "Callipygous."  I asked him to show me what it meant in the dictionary.  He did and it meant "Having a beautifully proportioned buttocks."  What the heck, I said, "Yes and but if anyone asks you about it, you tell them it's referring to your butt and not mine."  Nunley was thrilled.  He put the word on my vehicle and whenever we went anywhere people asked us what it meant.  Nunley usually told them to look it up.  As such, not too many people knew what it meant.

 

On a rotating basis, companies loaned the SDO a vehicle (to jump into when there's a nuclear attack or to take Nunley to the hospital in the middle of the night with).  My company commander loaned out my vehicle and it was sitting right beside the guard shack (near the front entrance to the post).  The Battalion Commander had a word-a-day calendar.  His name was LTC Tartella and he really needed that calendar.  He was a fun guy but not exactly the brightest bulb...if you know what I mean.  Anyway, his word that day happened to be Callipygous and, lo and behold, my vehicle is sitting right there with that very word emblazoned across the windshield.  He stopped and noticed my name on the vehicle and, when he got back to his office, called me in.  He acted really stern at first but ended up telling me that he loved it.  Phew.

 

Nunley finished his tour in Germany and was stationed at Ft. Meade, Maryland (which is near where my mother lives).  Nunley wrote me to tell me where he was and what was going on.  I sent him my mother's contact information and instructed him to call her for Thanksgiving.  He did and my mother told him to come down to Virginia because a lot of people were coming over for dinner.  When Nunley got to my mother's house, she immediately put him to work peeling carrots.  She also made him tell the story about naming my vehicle.  He's been part of my family ever since. 

 

Nunley is no longer in the Army and he's living in Houston, Texas and working as a private investigator.  I no longer call him Nunley and he no longer calls me "LT."  He's still a very cool and funny guy and I talk to him about once every two weeks.  I consider him one of my best friends. 

 

The funny ways you meet the important people in your life....

German swimming.

When I lived in Germany, I noticed that Germans are weird swimmers.  They learn to swim in school (like we all should) but they all learn to swim without getting their hair wet.  My mother does this sort of modified breast stroke and, to her great credit, she can swim for a really long time that way.  Survival swimming.  She does 30 laps in the pool....with a hat and sunglasses on....  I had to take a picture because it was so amazing.  By the way, my mother calls those her Princess Di laps because she read somewhere that Princess Di used to swim 30 laps a day.  I think she got her hair wet though....

Of course, we Americans splash around like idiots when we swim.  I went to a lake near Frankfurt, Germany one time with a bunch of Americans and we were very conspicuous because we didn't float around with our heads above the water.  Instead, we jumped in head first (as if...) and even had a cannon ball contest.  The Germans weren't too impressed. Yes....I'm American and I can do an amazing belly flop!  Germans stayed far away from me because they knew that the book and cup of coffee they were holding (while swimming ) would definitely get water on them.  Global terror.

The People v. Mies

When I came home late Friday night, I heard a hissing sound in my kitchen and realized that water was flowing onto my kitchen floor from....my bottom storage cabinet drawer?  I quickly pulled out the drawer (which was already partially open) and saw that water was coming out of the water line between my sink and the refrigerator.  I went under the sink and shut off the water.  I then got a lot of towels and soaked up the mess.

 

The next morning I felt the line and noticed little notches....like bite marks...on the line.  Hmmmmm.  Who could have done this?  I present Exhibit A. 

The piece of line the nice Home Depot man told me how to cut out and replace with a connecting section.  It's a little blurry, but there are little bite marks on the tubing.  Small....young cat bite marks.  That brings me to Exhibit B. 

This is a picture of one of the especially pointy teeth of the only young cat in my house.  Now a little testimony: "I've known Mies for one month and one of his favorite things to do is go into my bottom storage cabinet drawer where I keep empty grocery store bags.  I have witnessed him on several occasions pull bags out and climb into the drawer."  Finally, the face of a criminal. 

There IS NOT ONE OUNCE OF INNOCENCE in those eyes.  In fact, they scream guilt!  I hereby move for a directed verdict and I (as the judge) grant my own motion.

 

On the plus side, I fixed something (that I thought was very complicated and would involve a midnight call to a plumber) myself.   

Money for love.

I went to my first bachelorette/bachelor auction last night.  I wasn't in it (God forbid) but my beautiful, young friend Jen was there.  We all went to give her support.  It WAS for a good cause after all.  Cystic Fibrosis research.  The people there were, however, total tools.  Or douches as my friend Kyle noted.

 

First of all, the pictures that a lot of the people submitted were ridiculous.  They looked like they came from the Glamour Shots store at the mall.  (I know that because my mother and I once got some Glamour Shots taken....we looked absolutely ridiculous and they made me look like Laura from General Hospital.)  Jen used her work photo (she's a star reporter with our local NBC affiliate).  Now Jen looks 1000 times better than her photo and Jen was the only person who looked good at this event.  A lot of the women there looked like they were used to charging for dates...if you know what I mean.  The only problem Jen had with with sweating.  She wore this coral dress that made any perspiration look like a freakin' flood or waterfall.  (Good thing to keep in mind when you're picking out dress colors, by the way.)  The poor thing was nervous as well....who wouldn't be?  Joe, Andrea, Kyle (who's also Jen's boyfriend) and I spent a lot of time fanning her pits.  It was also pretty hot in there.  Pretty glamorous start to the night.

 

The people were incredibly weird.  This one guy had on a suit jacket that looked like something Vanilla Ice might have worn and it had neon green and black graffiti-like marks all over it.  To top it off he wore these goggle-like eyeglasses.  Now, I don't know whether he actually needed those glasses or whether he thought they were cool.  THEY WERE NOT COOL DUDE!  I wanted to take a picture with him but actually chickened out asking him for one.  I know...I needed more alcohol in me.

 

Kyle and I saw this really nerdy looking fellow and told Jen that he'd been asking about her and that he'd told us he had a lot of money.  Kyle said that he told him to go for it.  Hahahaha.  Jen thought we were joking but she looked a little unsure.

 

There was an announcement before the auction and this fellow with cystic fibrosis came up to talk about how the research would help people with his condition.  Of course these "do gooders" could not keep quiet long enough to hear the poor fellow and kept drowning him out.  Nice philanthropists.  No one has ever accused (or will ever accuse) people from Scottsdale of caring too much.

 

The auction finally began and people stood on the little podium in the middle of the club.  It was embarrassing watching the person try to get higher bids.  This young ASU (Ariz. State Univ.) guy gets up and a bunch of cougars bid on him.  He looked scared.  They got into a bidding war and he went for over $5000.  Yikes.  I gave Jen a concerned look.  This older lady went up (49 years old -- too close to my own age for comfort) and she barely got $100.  I felt really bad for her.  Jen finally went up and the crowd went crazy!  She got $1700 and beat all the other ladies that night!  Of course, Kyle and I started jinxing other ladies (with our minds) because we wanted Jen to have received the highest bid.  That's just a thing you do for the people you care about...as they get auctioned...like cattle.

 

In the picture from left to right, it's Kyle, Andrea, me and Jen.  I don't know where Joe was for that shot....

 

Taking the bull by the horns.

Our office is having an underwear drive.  Yes...you read that correctly.  They're collecting underwear for kids or something.  I don't know why I find this hilarious but IT IS!  There are big boxes that are partially filled with bras and underwear all over the place.  I learned the hard way that they're only accepting NEW underwear.....

 

I heard this morning that an american got gored at Pamplona's running of the bulls yesterday.  (I heard this because I turn to the FoxNews Channel while I'm taking the 9 minute snooze after my 0530 wake up alarm.)  I went to the running of the bulls one summer with my friend Stacy in either 1989 or 1990.  Based on my experience, you really have to TRY to get gored because innocently running or standing near where the bulls run is not nearly enough.  These guys hit the bulls with newspapers and run around screaming and yelling trying to get the bulls to charge at them.  I feel nothing for the idiot who got gored.

 

First a little about Stacy.  She is a very old friend.  It seems weird to call her an Army friend but that's exactly what she is.  We were in Germany together (I was her sponsor), we traveled to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day (a whole other story probably coming down the pipeline soon) and to Spain.  One of my favorite times with Stacy involved going out to this Club called "The Dorian Gray" at the Frankfurt

Airport the day before we were going to a Rolling Stones concert.  This club had different rooms with completely different themes and music in them.  There was the Salsa room with raucous salsa music playing, the techno room (where a bunch of German sprockets barely danced) and the normal rock-n-roll/top 40 room where most people migrated.  In that main top 40 room Stacy and I were conspicuous because we actually enjoyed the music and danced.  You see...Germans don't really dance (they think it's not cool) and they just sort of slightly bend their knees or sway very slightly to indicate dancing.  Americans like me and Stacy jump up and down and dance with our arms flinging all around.  We really stood out.  While getting a drink (American dancing can be exhausting), MICK JAGGER walked in the club.  I was shocked and froze but Stacy yelled "MICK JAGGER" and propelled herself toward him only to be quickly deflected by one of his enormous body guards.  She safely bounced back onto me but I was very proud of her for her quick reactive skills.  I was also very impressed with the body guards.  By the way, Mick looked like walking death back then (in the late 80s).

 

Stacy and I drove to Pamplona, Spain from Frankfurt, Germany.  We were both in the Army at the time and both military intelligence officers.  She was working at a signals intelligence battalion, however, and I picked her up after work for our grand week-long adventure.  I thought I was really clever and tried to take a short cut over some type of ramp behind her unit building and ripped the muffler off my car.  It was an old 1978 Mercedes that I bought for $1500.  Ripping that muffler off the car was not doing it any favors.  So...we spent the first few hours of our "vacation" trying to re-attach the muffler to my car.  With a couple of wire hangers and some duct tape, we sort of affixed it and were off.  We drove south and through France and realized that there are about a million toll roads between there and Pamplona.  We barely had enough cash to make it.  Also, at rest stops I would have to crawl back under the car to make sure that the muffler was still hanging in there.  Oh yeah...my seats were faux fur covered.  It was a pretty sweet ride!

 

We sputtered over the Pyrenees and finally made it to Pamplona and parked near a park.  We were starving and neither of us spoke Spanish.  I could speak German and a little French....not great languages for that part of the world....  We had also been unable to find an available hotel room (this town was packed to the gills).  We rode on this huge ferris wheel and drank little bottles of amaretto that Stacy had brought with her.  We still needed food.  We walked around to several loud bars which served tapas and tried to buy drinks.  What usually happened was that the bar was so crowded that we were unable to get a drink but we did eat some of the tapas.  There were serving it everywhere...sort of a Spanish happy hour.  We ate and ate until people started noticing that these two homeless-looking girls were eating all of their tapas...then we left and found another place to eat.  The week before, my relatively new boyfriend (Dan) had embarked on a two-week train trip through Europe (which he had planned before we started dating) and he was planning on meeting us in Pamplona.  We went by the train station several times looking for him.  (This was before the dawn of cell phones.)  No Dan to be found.  (There were a lot of heroin addicts to be found, however....yeesh.)  Stacy and I gave up and decided to go to the street with the bulls run.  The night before the running the streets are full of people drinking.  The deal is that you drink all night (through the night) and run early in the morning.  Then you take a nap and, in the afternoon, start drinking for the next full night and morning run...and so on and so on.  There are several bars along the bulls' route.  Some had video replays of that morning's action and stills of the gorings (if any).  Stacy and I met some Kiwis (not the bird or the fruit or the shoe polish but New Zealanders) who were on their walkabout.  Now...young Aussies and Kiwis save up their money and go traveling at least once in their life.  When they do this, they like to drink A LOT.  I recommend finding any of these people when you're on vacation and hanging with them.  They're definitely where the party's at!  These guys were drinking sangria (ole) and monument diving.  This was a deal where you climbed up a monument and dived into the crowd (hoping that someone would catch you).  It's sort of like stage diving at a rock concert.  Stacy and I had both had quite a lot to drink by this time, both tried it....and survived.  We met a bunch of totally hilarious people and finally were so exhausted that we both had to get some rest.  (We couldn't rally and pull the all-nighter.)  We went back to my car (which had already had the Mercedes symbol cut off its hood) and pulled out our Army sleeping bags and slept in the adjacent park.

 

The next morning we woke up and were starving.  We went to this little diner-type restaurant and sat down on this long table with benches on either side.  Neither of us could read the menu very well so we just pointed to something that someone else had ordered and gave hand gestures indicating that we wanted two of those.  (By the way, I would never felt such a language barrier again until I went to Edinburgh.)  This very old, skinny, little man was sitting next to Stacy and his very VERY fat wife was sitting next on his other side.  When our food came, this guy reached over and started cutting Stacy's eggs for her and fixing her tea.  We both just watched and Stacy thanked him.  Weird.  The fat wife glared at us.  We quickly ate, paid and left.

 

We went back to the train station and were sitting on a bench next to some bum who had a newspaper over his head.  We started talking and the newspaper moved.  Dan had slept on the bench that night.  (Yes...Dan and I were a very classy couple.)  Yippee!  We found him.  What should we do?  Oh....hmmmm......go drinking of course!  We drank all night and slept in the park again that night.  I unfortunately got a little queasy during the night and had to get up and vomit.  I wandered over to what looked like a garbage area and threw up on a pile of newspapers only to have the newspapers move after I'd hurled.  There was someone under there!  I high-tailed it out of there.  (Ahhh....the life of a homeless drunk bum....I can't say I haven't experienced all levels of life....)  The next morning we got up and went to where they were running with the bulls.  These guys were wasted!  They were mostly wearing the traditional white shirts and pants with the red scarves around their necks but there were a bunch of westerners who were wearing shorts and t-shirts.  Corral-type fencing had been erected all along the route which led to Hemingway Stadium.  Really.  We sat on the fencing and watched these fools run at the frightened bulls and hit them with newspapers to try to get them to charge.  (And people wonder why Spain isn't a world power anymore....)  Sometimes the bulls would charge (and then the guys would run away screaming) but mostly the bulls just wanted to get the heck out of there.  We followed the route down to the stadium where people ran all over the ring while bulls were charging at the confusion.  Guys were trying to get the bull to charge so that they could flip themselves over the bull's horns.  So weird.

 

So.....in sum I feel NOTHING for any idiot would get themselves gored by a bull.  They really have to be asking for it because the bulls don't want anything to do with these nuts who keep hitting them in the head with a newspaper.