Be careful, I am contagious

Hey folks so apparently I have been tagged with a virus. A blogger virus. Not only that but I have been tagged with it twice! Once from my friend Jillian and also from my husband Sean. This particular virus was engineered by Splotchy, whom until this moment I did not even know existed. Way to go internet interconnectedness!

Here's the story:

***
I had been shuffling around the house for a few hours and already felt tired. The doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw a figure striding away from the house, quickly and purposefully. I looked down and saw a bulky envelope. I picked it up. The handwriting was smudged and cramped, and I could only make out a few words.
***
"Interesting", I thought to myself, "I don't know anybody named Ted Kaczynski." Unless it's going to clear this damn sinus infection in my head, I'll have to open it later.I set it on the kitchen table, and prepared my tincture of herbal tea remedies.
***
As I watched the lengthy glossop of honey slather into my tea I heard a rustling noise behind me. Having spent my childhood in a rotating house (due to some awkward foundations) I am quite adept at craning my neck and utilized this skill in the current situation, looking behind myself like a six-foot-tall owl.
***
The envelope - so stationary seconds before - had started to move, an event that I found somewhat odd, given that I was four days away from celebrating a year of sobriety. I picked up the nearest implement of swatting size without thinking, and slowly approached the bubble-wrapped delivery.The envelope continued to shuffle and shake as I stood poised with the potato masher held in readiness over my head. A small bead of sweat edged down my temple, hitting the floor at the same time as a lump of congealed potato from my weapon. There was a tearing sound, and I froze, unable to move, as a disembodied hand broke through my mysterious delivery. I blinked, and the thumb and forefinger of the hand formed a mouth.
***
"Hey, dude, what's up?" The Hand/Mouth said. I just stared, perplexed and terrified. "You got any grub? I'm starving!"
At this point, my fear got the better of me and I swung the potato masher down fiercely, knocking the hand/mouth (still partially in the packaging) off the counter and onto the floor. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I ran to the kitchen stool and stood on top of it, still grasping the potato masher with white-knuckled terror.
"Not cool, man," said the thing.
***
I stood transfixed in horror. The hand now started to inch across the floor towards my stool.
Ring, ring! On the wall across the kitchen the telephone began to ring, breaking me free from the icy grip of fear.

I had been in the middle of moving into a new home, in a fairly clean neighborhood. Kids on bikes, 2 cars in every garage. This hand was not something I had expected to be dealing with.

Ring! The phone rang again.
Cautiously, I climbed onto the counter, stepping over boxes and the empty sink to answer. "Hello?" I shouted into the receiver, intently aware of the scrabbling fingers below me.

"Mr. Newman, I have a proposition to make."
***
"Wha- what do you want?" I babbled into the phone as I sat on the counter, knees to my chin, feet in the sink, phone tucked between my ear and shoulder, my potato masher still firmly clutched in my hand keeping the creature at bay as it attempted to climb the drawer handles to the counter.

"Nothing much Mr. Newman. Just the hand back."

I was just about to answer the man when I saw it. Inside the envelope, still wrapped around the hand things wrist, was a piece of paper. It was halfway out of the envelope, if I could only grab it.
***

Ok virus I know very few bloggers and unfortunately the two I know best got me first. So this virus goes onto Wil Wheaton because he is the one who got me started blogging and I read his stuff everyday. I know you are uber famous Wil, but I am hoping your blogger instincts will make this imperative to continue passing this deadly virus around.

We are back

Hey everyone we are back in the States, but since we are exhausted, working, and constantly catching up with friends and family I haven't' had a chance to do much consolidations of Paris pictures. I will attempt to do so by the weekend so stay tuned!

Last Night In Paris

So tonight is our last. We just got home from a jaunt in the rain for ice cream on the Champs Elysees (the Worlds Best, Berthillion brand no less!) and a glass of wine, at one of the restaurants on the block where we live (Cote Vignes). We had a full day of exploring, shopping, eating, drinking and walking in the blistering sun. Much like the rest of our visit here :) Only difference today was we knew we couldn't go back later to places we fell in love with, (which may account for the rash spending) and the lovely bit of rain that occurred towards evening (the one I have been wishing for since i got my sunburn last week). All in all it was a lovely day and a good note to end the trip on.

I will be posting Paris in retropect all next week as I rummage through photos and my wayword journal, and scan in some sketches Sean and I drew while here. So don't think Paris talk is through! For those of you awaiting our return in Spokane, we will be home tomorrow night! (though don't expect much from us, we will be traveling for 18+ hours tomorrow and arrive at 6am Paris time). Au revoir Paris!

Just Another Day in Paris....

Today started out like any other the sun was shining the grass was growing and the buildings were wobbling...wait that's not right. Something was definitely wrong about the wobbly building...



Not to mention the strange trip into infinity on the british flag... and we weren't even in London!










Sean tells me that at some point I completely disappeared from view when I was right in front of him!










I do seem to remember some mushrooms somewhere... maybe they had something to do with it...


Of course that foxglove we passed could have been the culprit as well...











Oh I know what it was... it was our last day in Paris...

Lessons Learned in Paris

So I learned a few things while I have been here such as: don't stop and let someone make a bracelet on your arm or expect to lose 5 euros, always watch which stop occurs next on the subway so you don't end up riding the wrong way for too long, always be polite, don't ask too many questions in english to waiters and waitresses (learned vicariously through Sean), and never order a medium drink...




























....or expect to be sitting at the restaurant a long time.