Dog gone

A few years back, and as usual my family gathered together to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.  It seemed to be our typical holiday gathering.  My Mother and my Sister made a wonderfully delicious dinner, my Aunt Debbie made her family favorite and highly demanded pound cake, other family members came over, also bringing their signature dishes.  Dinner was over, and the assortment of deserts began making their appearances.  My cousin Rakell mentioned getting a new puppy, I looked around and said, "Hey, where is Tisha?" My Mother looked at me and said, "We gave her away."  Surprised I said, "WHAT!?!  Why did you do that?  We had that dog longer than any other dog we've ever had.  I loved that dog!" My Mother calmly looked at me and said, "Tisha has been gone for 4 days."  My response was simply, "Oh."  My Aunts, Uncles, and cousins began laughing hysterically.  I guess it's safe to say I am not quite the dog lover I proclaim to be.   

Heaven and Hell

Last winter a few of my closest friends, Stacey, Phoebe, Paula, Lani and I went on a much needed weekend getaway.  We thought it would be fun to take the train from Chicago to Connecticut to see one of our all time favorite bands Echo and Drake (Connecticut's pride and joy).  These guys are very nice, amazingly talented, and their music is impossible to resist. The train ride to Connecticut was fun, plus no matter what we are doing as long as we are in each others company, we are guaranteed a great time.  We checked into the hotel, and excitedly made our way to see our beloved Echo and Drake.  The show was absolutely amazing!  We danced and sang along to every single song.  Seriously, if you ever get an opportunity to see these guys - jump on it! I guarantee you will become an instant fan.  The next day we checked out and boarded the train taking us back to our Sweet Home Chicago.  Little did we know, this train ride would be like no other we had ever taken.  It snowed pretty heavily the night before, so much that it caused major delays in our travel.  When I say major delay, I mean numerous times the train stopped and just sat on the tracks.  When the train was moving it only traveled at about 30 miles per hour.  The doors were partially frozen, which wouldn't have been that big of a deal but they were frozen and half way open.  The closer we got to Chicago the snowfall grew pretty intensely.  As a result massive amounts of snow began blowing into and around the cabin of the train.  The snow very quickly accumulated, gathering all around the steps over a foot deep, at the same time ice began forming around the doors, and on mostly everything metal within a few feet of any entrance.  It was literally freezing cold.  Since ice was forming on all the doors and entrances, the train workers were unable to bring any type of refreshments between the cars to the passengers.  No water, no hot coffee, no tea, absolutely nothing.  We huddled together the best we could to keep warm.  Luckily, no amount of snow or extreme cold can ruin our sense of humor and determination to have fun.  The weather caused our train ride to take double the amount of time it was scheduled.  Now when we reminisce about our trip to see the amazing Echo and Drake we ironically refer to the trip as our 'Heaven and Hell' trip.  Obviously we were in heaven during the Echo and Drake show, but we had no idea hell was so very cold.  We will definitely go see our boys again, but I'd say a spring show seems more in order.