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Friday, January 25, 2013

Lucy Stoner

I'm a member of The Lucy Stone League (Lucy Stone was the woman who kept her name when she was married in the early 1900s). Most of the women are genuine, thoughtful, and sane, but then you get the occasional weirdo like this one:

"I threw out the whole tradition and went to the JP court. Gave my mom 24 hrs notice to be there, surprised my kids by having someone else bring them to the ceremony, surprised 2 of his by not getting a message to them until afterwards. Told him I wasn't changing my name when the clerk was issuing us the license. Oh, and I asked him and 4 days later we were married. Surprisingly, the clerk that married us skipped the obey part without having to be told. I guess she could just tell..."

HOW ROMANTIC. I hesitate to ask her why she bothered to get married in the first place - it sounds more like a harried business transaction.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Red Tide

So my husband and I went to the Venice Beach area with two others to look for sharks' teeth fossils on the beach. No one told us they had Red Tide.

It was very windy, gray, the waves were frothy and choppy - it looked just like Maine looks in the dead of winter during a storm. Thankfully it wasn't as cold.

We passed the sign that said "Red Tide: Proceed at Your Own Risk." We figured it couldn't be all that bad. I've had mild reactions to Red Tide before, and the other three have almost no allergies at all that I'm aware of.

After using my inhaler four times, my eyes began to sting. As I stumbled back to the car, they grew worse. By the time I made it to the car, my eyes were on fire, tears streaming down my cheeks. It was a deserted area, so I realized I was on my own. I ended up driving to the nearest Circle K, squinting through my burning eyes, grabbed Benadryl and eye drops, and popped 2 Benadryls while the girl rang me up.

When I got back, our guests stumbled up to the car and they looked like the survivors of a chemical attack! My husband soon joined them and everyone popped Benadryl as we kept passing the eye drops among ourselves.

The only way we could've left that area faster is if we were in The General Lee.