Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Abbie Experience Part 2

Saturday, Oct 18th, 2008. The day Alex gets’s the full treatment of, “The Abbie Experience”. Ladies and Gentleman I cannot begin to tell you what a joy it was to meet this wonderful woman. We clicked immediately online and in person. I have read her blogs, and we truly have the most absolute hysterical moments online as well as her blogs. This certainly didn’t fail for me at all today. Sure enough in due time we immediately launched into what I call “Operation Alex and Abbie Field Day”.

It started when we went to get coffee. Coffee of course should be like any normal time and day right? Walk in, order your drink and food and off we go! No biggie! Wrong-o! Not with Abbie and Alex in tow! We left the restaurant and settled in the car. As we pulled out, immediately I panicked thinking I lost my sunglasses. Where are they?! OMG I can’t find them! I looked and looked and suddenly saw it in my coat pocket as abbie cleverly suggested to look. Ok great time to go! “Wait now where MY sunglasses” came from Abbie. By this time I just laughed and goes of course, now see what its like to lose glasses! She found hers in due time and NOW we were ready to set off to go walk 3 miles!

We drove out to the area after getting gas, which by the way did you know in New Jersey you cannot pump your own gas?! I kid you not! I was fairly stumped, and it launched into a story and conversation about pumping gas on your own or having someone else do it for you! Naturally funny stories came out of this conversation as well. Abbie was quick to notice my cute, non-southern accent of what seemed to tip of as British Accent. I don’t know why, how or where, but it never fails. Everywhere I go it is always “oh you speak British are you from London?” Me “uh No…” Anyhow, we arrived at the park and set out to sign up and such and get our wristbands that Abbie had posted a picture of.

We met some people that Abbie mentioned on her blog as well so I was happily meeting some new people as well. All these folks were so nice and welcoming and it is always a great time to meet new people too. However out of the corner of my eye I saw something yellow fly by at quick speed. It was around my head, and Wayne one of the guys around me gently brushed it away. No big deal. However the yellow jacket came flying back and decided Abbie would be the next target.

It buzzed around and around and dived for abbie. She ran away and brushed it off. I of course laugh my ass off once again. However this yellow jacket meant some serious business. In no time it went after Abbie and dived into her shirt, which I saw but abbie didn’t notice, as she was so busy flailing her arms. She calmed down and we thought the yellow jacket was gone! Problem solved we got back into conversation when- “Ow, shit something bit me!” And like the dreams of every straight guy on planet earth, a beautiful gorgeous woman starts stripping.

Actually, it was more like gasping, then flailing of arms once more again. A bit of slap here and there, some legs danced up and down, no, nothing sexual at all. Just good ol abbie trying to avoid another admirer however in the shape of a yellow jacket. Within seconds abbie gave all of us an amazing strip show, she flung her jacket down. Peeled her left shirt down over the shoulder trying to find this darned yellow jacket. I am by now of course laughing hysterically, smiling having a great time at Abbie’s expense. Plus a wonderful strip show to boot! As abbie kindly mentioned on the walk, it went from being a deaf walk to more of a catwalk on the runway! I give abbie a ten for the amazing show!

Anyhow, we finally could get the walk started. A woman gave us a speech, and she started the speech of with “Ok, I don’t know if anyone can hear me but.” to which I did an unexpected snort laughing at the irony of what she just said to us. However I calmed down and continued to listen to the speech. All this while Abbie is madly typing away on her blackberry to ensure she was not going to die from being stung by a yellow jacket and she could continue the “cat” walk as planned!

Once she was convinced she was not going to die, she was not allergic to the yellow jacket; we set off with our walk, abbie, myself and Wayne in tow. This made for a great walk and conversation as Wayne and I were both into planes and aviation, leaving abbie clueless on how to talk “plane-ese” and chimed in when she could relate something to her Reno trip and her misfortunes of flying incidents. Hehehehe.

We continued the walk, talking, getting to know each other, sharing stories. It truly was a wonderful time! However we had to figure out how to set up our walk positions. Wayne had a CI on his right side, while Abbie had a CI on her left side. I am bilateral with hearing aids so I was stuck in the middle between them, with Wayne being on my left and abbie on my right! Why, I ask do I wind up in the middle? :-P

We then soon ran into Debbie another blogger whom Abbie spoke with online. She is true to her word as abbie said and an amazing woman to speak with. I truly enjoyed listening to her talk and her beautiful New York accent! We walked back and finished our walk. We grabbed some food and chatted some more. Within seconds, another yellow jacket appeared! My Lord, them yellow jacket must gossip or something and told them jackets about Miss Abbie ha-ha They went after Abbie again, but this time went by Debbie. Debbie RAN like hell and the jacket went after her, I am screaming it’s the apple DROP the apple! It seemed the yellow jacket liked apples! Debbie comes running back and Abbie who must be visually impaired now too screamed it’s on the apple, drop it, it’s on the apple! However closer inspection once Debbie returned saw abbie was actually seeing the stem of the apple.

Yellow jacket was gone and we were all settled once and all. We took a picture of our wristbands, which again abbie posted. It was time to go home and grab some lunch before hitting Six Flags! Lunch was pretty normal as normal can be in the household of Abbie! She was in the hallway fixing the window and I came up to her to show her something on the blackberry. You know how us blackberry users always have our nose in it trying and checking things out. Just as I walked up to her and commented something about the blackberry, she slammed a lever down on the window with such a loud CRACK as she pulled it down and as quickly as she did that and made such a loud noise she turned and looked at me with the most sincere “Ya?!”. I immediately burst out laughing as did she and I just started crying, Usual, typical Abbie reaction!

We made our way to six flags, discussing the difference between a Quad and a 4-Wheeler. Also farm machines, which is known in my area, however not so with her. We arrive to six flags and I am ready to start the day of riding coasters! Yee Haw! We set our for rides only to find…broken. Not working. Broken…3-5 rides were all broken or being tested or something. This was not turning out to be a good day ha-ha. We wanted to go on Kingda Ka, as we both had never been on it. It was and I quote…” Experience the thrill of a lifetime as you shoot 45 stories high at 128 mph on our world-record-breaking Kingda Ka — the tallest, fastest roller coaster on Earth.” However this was gonna be a three hour wait, NO THANKS!

We moved on to other rides, riding some virtual ride, as well as the dark knight. All fun rides but we still wanted Kingda Ka. We set on to go on Batman. It was said to be a 120 min wait however this really didn’t turn out to be that long. Abbie is texting her buddies as I text mine when out of the corner of my eye I see a raccoon, a four legged furry animal raccoon hopping across the lawn into some tree area. A big commotion was made with some other people and Abbie fearing the worst after her yellow jacket rightfully clutched her blackberry as if holding it was gonna ward off anything, and leaped up onto the banister and pushing me towards the raccoon as if I was gonna defend her from it. I looked her with a “you want me to do what now?!” to her responding with a “I ain’t getting no rabies, getting stung was good enough for me!” I half started wondering if she was gonna introduce us to another strip show with the raccoon but this was not the case!

The raccoon scurried around up the tree and then back down and leaped into the garbage. People were hanging around trying to get a picture of this raccoon. It was the first time n my life I ever ran across a raccoon at a theme park, but then again, I had to remind myself, I was with Abbie. We went on batman freezing our Asses off as usual. We made good time to go ride Medusa, which was another fun, and awesome ride as well! We walked around; almost closing time for the park when we saw Kingda Ka was wide open to ride! We dashed our way there for a ride of a lifetime!

We get in line and watching the ride in apprehension thinking are we making a mistake now or what?! We line up to go on the ride; we are the last group of people before they shut the ride down. We sit down and buckle up. The guys come around to check our seats and we are ready to go. He gives thumbs up and we are ready to gooooo-WAIT! STOP THE RIDE. The Hell?!?! We sit for 5 minutes with no word. We are now stuck on the track, “trapped” inside the car if you will, with no freaking clue what is going on. Abbie has her CI out and I am deaf as deaf can be so we are heavily relying on our lip reading to really not much success. We figure something is wrong “no shit?!” and we sit and wait; I mean what else can we do?! We waited a good 20 minutes or so sitting on the track, texting making fun of this situation. We think it is like an Omen now, and others thought so too. About 4 others had gotten off the ride as well.

We just stayed on in the cart, I found a way to blame Abbie for this LOL. Finally we are ready to go, I think…Nope we waited again. Now we are good to go! This ride is a fast ride, and goes straight up near 45 degrees into the sky, you climb over a brief hill, and then you shoot straight down into the ground but last minute curve has you shooting straight across. It is fast, exhilarating and not something I was willing to repeat. I had my eyes closed for a few then it remained open the whole time. Fun ride, so glad it was over and I had to piss like a mother F---. I had to go so bad I was almost crying. As we were pulling up, I started to hear chanting…”ONE MORE TIME, ONE MORE TIME, ONE MORE TIME” I said to abbie what they were chanting and immediately an “ok, no Christmas cards for them from me anymore!” I was like “omg I have to pee and I don’t know if my bladder can tolerate another ride like that!” Didn’t have a choice… with another cry of “ONE MORE TIME” he waved his hand, stuck his thumb and we were clear to go. We blasted off once again and I swore I had pissed my pants. I was convinced I was pissing my pants.

Just as the ride got over we were slowing down, abbie somehow managed to pick her arm and swing it across my face proudly announcing “I found my car there it is in the parking lot, it’s there!” I truly wasn’t very concerned at the moment. I wanted to ensure any of my urine remained in my body until I could pass it in a normal bathroom setting, and that my heart was still beating and blood would come rushing back into my body. Yep, I was cleared and good to go. I couldn’t believe we went on it twice AFTER being stuck on it for almost 30 minutes!

We got off the car and headed to Abbie’s car to head home. This thus ends another day of, “The Abbie Experience”

Alex

Saturday, October 18, 2008

The Abbie Experience-Part 1

Hello All! It has been awhile since I blogged last time but this weekend I got to meet the wonderful Bionic Woman-Abbie Cranmer. Stsrting with Oct 17th, the day of my arrival! Of course to visit her means to be prepared of a lifetime of goof ups and hilarious moments! It all started the minute I landed right into the Philly Airport! We had it planned literally to the minute, I was due to land at 7:20pm into Philly, but I knew Chicago-O’Hare airport and Philly airport were absolutely prone to delays. So I told Abbie to arrive around 7:30-7:45pm or so. Considering delays and how long it takes to taxi, get off the plane and get to baggage claim etc etc.

With this in mind we were all set. I am in the plane enjoying my snack that American so kindly NOT charges us to eat. We then passed the Cleveland Airport at exactly around 5pm, which makes it 6pm Eastern Time. I started getting worried because I knew about within 20 minutes we would start descending and it was nowhere near this so called 7:20pm arrival time. Sure enough at 6:15pm eastern time (one hour and 5 min before I am scheduled to land) I hear announcement we will be descending for Philly now. Me “whoa shit!” We soon landed at 6:50pm. Exactly 40 minutes early, for once I was not happy to be arriving so early! I texted Abbie to announce we had arrived and she texts back “your kidding me?” I replied “nope!”

The good news though however was we were due to have a lengthy taxi annnnd our gate had broken down! So we were waiting for another gate to open up so we could pull up to it and deboard the plane. Finally after 10 min of waiting we pulled up to the gate. This was now around 7:00 or 7:05pm or so. Abbie said she was still about 40 minutes away. Already the plan to meet up exactly seemed to be falling apart LOL. So I took the time to wander around the Philly Airport, although I had flown through this airport before, always fun to check out airports. The time really did pass though.

In no time Abbie announced she was pulling up and I was standing under the American Airlines and British Airways sign under Terminal A-East and she pulled up with her cute little dog too! Said our Hello’s and threw the bag in the car and off we went back to her place! We arrived back, and planned what to eat. We settled on Asian food and went to go pick it up. We talked all the way to and from and grabbed the food. Came back and chowed down on Asian food. I will never, ever be tired of Asian food!

So then we shot the bull talking and such before heading to bed. I had to be well rested for the next day, a 3 mile walk, six flags and an entire day of what I like to call.” The Abbie Experience” :)

Alex Trude