Stealing is the new black- Updated!

GB corrections are noted in red. They really add a level of flair that the post alone was missing. Thanks for the additions..

So apparently there has been a rash of stolen cars recently. My friend GB lives a horrifying similiar cell phone life to my friend DB (no relation). While DB once lost three phones in three seperate but contigious trips to chicago all in taxi cabs, GB once lost three phones in puddles and also drove over a cell phone in what I swear was a weeks worth of time .

Most recently, however, GB lost his cellphone, along with all other worldly possessions in a car in a yacht club parking lot. Like most people, the words yacht and yacht club enspire visions of granduer and exclusivity, or at least of security cameras. However, there are apparently a myriad of empty yacht club parking lots around, since my google search turned up photos like this. But he was in Anapolis, home of the Naval Academy and fancy houses so you would think at least someone would be looking out for Yacht Crime. Keep in mind being so close to Baltimore, Annapolis does have a burgeoning crime scene.

But still the car was taken in the thirty minutes it took to walk back into the clubhouse get a drink and head back out. And so was a bookbag (actually an advanced trans alpine biking backpack allowing for air circulation during quick descents from extreme altitudes - epitome of German engineering. this pack does not compare to a bookbag which will dump your lunch while riding sending apples rolling down the street) and keys and mp3 players and wallets. Unfortunate you might say, but unlucky? It's just a little car theft.

Only his roommate had just left for a week in Florida. So no back-up keys were to be found. Only a locksmith and two week's worth of new card acquistions and mp3 mourning was to be had.

The car was found, top down, windows open after our most recent bout with six weeks straight of rain with nothing inside. I think you might need a carfax before you buy this one.

To prove all is not lost and to end on a positive note, good fortune did shine on GB during a recent and related lapse of his intelligence. A bundle of important stuff including all new credit cards, id cards, new mailbox keys, and passport (only form of id he had at the time), was placed on the roof rack of his vehicle to free up his hands to load in his bike which had a flat tire due to Obama's motorcade - but thats a different story. He was lucky because there was traffic and he was not driving very fast. He was lucky to have realized in a tunnel under Washington Circle that the important stuff was left on the roof. Shouting obscenities, he stopped, got out of the car in a sea of road-rage induced honking and exhaust fumes, and safely retrieved my important stuff... he could only imagine driving over the bridge, looking out the rear view mirror, seeing everything flying out into the river...

The Really Robbed Co-worker

So I have learned thru our unseen co-blogger MK that there is a co-worker of ours who deserves an unlucky and upsetting shout out...

Turns out, LF, might have worse break-in luck than I. In the last six months, LF has had:
1. Her apartment broken into and only her camera and laptop stolen. Nothing was taken that belonged to her roommate. Can anyone spell "Inside Job?"

2. Her boyfriend who lives in NYC was down for the weekend and managed to get his car stolen from right outside her apartment.

and if that's not enough,

3. Apparently, when her family was out at her own father's FUNERAL(!!), their house was broken into!!

That, my friends, is truly unlucky and upsetting.

LF, my heart and any good karma I have built up goes out to you.

Manny on a leash

So this post is mostly upsetting for Manny and mostly funny for me, but KM recently wrote about Manny's most recent harness experience.

Guinea pig on a leash!


Please note this is a pig on a leash, not a guinea pig. I just thought the picture was funny.

My guinea pig bit my hair off

On Sunday, after running in the Komen Race for the Cure with my friend SM, I decided to shower and hang out with Manny. I recently changed shampoo and apparently it must smell like strawberries, Manny's favorite food.


Manny is sitting on my shoulder while my hair is down and chirping away when all of a sudden I see a chunk of hair fall onto my t-shirt. Turns out, Manny was chirping while nibbling through my hair.

(Me with my new "face framing layer")

Spilled plants

Today, each time I type in my number keypad, my phone keypad or move my mouse, something goes crunch. When I lift my radio to call someone in the field, tiny rocks fall out. I just took a sip of water out of my mug and got a gritty feeling in my mouth. I guess that is the price you pay when you try to save a little green space by keeping a plant in your office and trying to open your window one handed. It makes the plant take a nosedive onto your desk and cover everything with a fine layer of green roof dirt.

Free Hampster Coupon

Two weeks ago, I bought a guinea pig. I have been a hampster owner since I was 3 so the switch to a slightly larger fuzzy creature isn't a huge leap. He was so cute and reminded me of Manny the Mammoth from Ice Age so I bought him.

( I know you see the resemblance)



However, in contemplating my new edition to our family, I was reminded of all the hampsters gone past.

Hampsters live short little lives, in comparison to other pets, so I have had opportunities to have more of them than, let's say, dogs.
It all started with Peaches, a pinkish orange and creme hampster who ate onions when I was 6 but managed to survive and lived at least 3 years despite having her(?) paws put in paint and being forced to run on my mom's casio keyboard to write music.

**I don't think there was anyone between Peaches and Cinnamon. Please note that I have always had cute little dwarf hampsters not those big long rat looking hampsters. Fat hampsters are always acceptable. Long hampsters are wierd looking.**

Cinnamon was the mousiest of the bunch and had less tolerance for being caged. Cinnamon escaped several times, along with two hermit crabs who were never recovered. Cinnamon also lived for a solid three years at a minimum. Cinnamon also ate plastic like nobody's business. He(?) chewed the crap out of his ball lid connection and it was often a source of his escapes.

I went hampsterless for a solid period of time, having school and dogs to take up my time, but in college, my mom decided to bring me a surprise.

It was a warm day, in late fall and she had come to watch me play rugby. I was still the proud owner of a 1973 SuperBeetle which was parked at the field and she had brought along a little gift for me. Leaving it in the car as she left after the first half, the little gift in a cage with some water, proceeded to die.
As SG, my aussie friend put it, "Oh, Mag! You have a hampster puddle!" (read that in an aussie accent and you will laugh for days!)

In tears over my new but dead pet, SG and I drove, in a dramatic fashion, back to the pet store where my mom had purchased said hampster.

When we walked in, the owner clearly had never encountered a sobbing American and a peeved Australian with a puddle of hampster before and in minutes found himself handing over, written on a cash receipt slip, a coupon for a free hampster as this one had been one of the last ones in the store and he was officially out.

Two weeks later, I received a call that hampsters had arrived and purchased Dirk Digger*, a legend in the architecture school and a true pocket hampster. The best hampster coupon story EVER!

*Dirk would one year later be killed by a few children responsible for keeping him while I was away in the summer. He was survived by a hampster whose name shall remain unsaid who bit, a lot, like I had canvas gloves for people to pick him up. I think my roommates fed him vodka before I moved to Rome.

** Author's note: Mom, if this is the first time you have ever heard of this story, don't worry. Dirk ended up being the best hampster a college architecture class could ever ask for.

I got stuck in an elevator- at Christmas time

So I found this started blog post that I apparently got distracted and never finished (surprised anyone?)... and thought, "Why not share this doozy with the world?" Merry Christmas in April, folks.




This is not a big deal. I kind of like the thought of wasting a day or two in an elevator. But the elevator at our downtown office has never broken on me before. I am not personally claustrophobic so when the woman approached myself and MC, my co-worker, our reaction to her seemingly crazy question of "Does this elevator get stuck often?" was one of almost incredulous, "No... never happened to either of us and we ride it all the time."


**Please note that this was our company's Operation Santa Claus day and that MC was dressed as Santa and I as a too-tall elf (If I can find the picture, I will attach it..)

No sooner did we pack Santa, myself and our new claustrophobic friend into our elevator, than four more ladies joined us. Now, this elevator is rather large and while I run the risk of sounding prejuidiced against the jolly, I have seen many large men pack into this elevator at closing time having apparently eaten their desks before entering. Note that I had not been stuck during these trips with the un-famished. So the 7 of us, ladies chattering away about the luncheon they were heading to, MC and I trying to not sweat to death and our claustrophobic friend headed upward. But between P1 (parking level one) and L (lobby for office), we skipped S (Store level). Dramatically panicking because it had skipped her level, our new friend pounded the buttons as the elevator came to a stop and the doors did not open.

MC has recently been in charge of an elevator contract and tried to begin to explain that it was not a big deal, that we deal with elevators all the time (althought I can see after our first incorrect statement that the elevator never gets stuck, why she might not believe us) and BAM! Claustrophia starts slamming buttons and pounding the door and shouting.

In true time elapse, we might have been stopped for three and a half whole minutes. The ladies all tried to calm her down while MC stood watch over the buttons so she couldn't do anymore damage and I spoke into the speaker. Thirty-five percieved minutes later, we were returning to the parking level where we explained to everyone to follow us and wandered out and around and up the stairs from P1 to S and then where they could find (insert place they were planning to go here).

Lesson learned: Don't allow the claustrophobic lady in the elevator with the bad-luck elf.