Bridal Showers, Bones and Belligerent People

I've seen people do this plenty of times, mostly to get to an exit. Well, this particular car drove on the shoulder to an exit, then cut across the exit, and returned to the shoulder to continue on the freeway. Traffic wasn't even that bad, they easily could've driven on the lane and not really had to slow down, but I guess that wasn't good enough.

The car was apparently exiting at Mission Blvd., and the backup at that particular exit is always bad. So it was no surprise that this bitch was full-on driving on the shoulder, passing everyone else that was patiently waiting in line. I did notice a van further down in the line that had pulled into the shoulder, so maybe he saw her and planned on blocking her way.

I hate to say it, but people like that are absolute garbage to me. Waste of flesh and space. Because people like that obviously have no regard for the rules or for others. There is nothing that pisses me off more than someone who has a complete lack of respect for the people around them. The "me-first" and "me-only" mentality drives me absolutely mad.

[Calming breaths now...]

We had a pretty eventful weekend. Friday was kind of pathetic though. Marc and I rented "The Holiday" and managed to only watch an hour of it before we both fell asleep on the couch. I guess we're getting old.

Saturday was the day of Cynthia's bridal shower. We went to Party City to pick up balloons, but the wait time for balloons was 4 hours! Crazy! We heard someone else in line say that they were going to try this other place that we weren't familiar with. So we got in the car and looked it up in the navigation system, and it turned out to be really close by. There was no wait there, and we got the balloons with no problem. Yay for eavesdropping!

We also picked up the cake, which was sort of a miserable ordeal, because it was pouring rain, and trying to carry a big cake in the rain is no fun.

We also had to stop by FedEx to pick up a shipment of corals I had ordered.

But despite the rain, I managed to get to Vicki's house on time. Marc ended up spending his day alone doing stuff for work.

The party was fun! We had a lot of good food, and the games were entertaining. It was also cool to see a lot of people that I hadn't seen in a long time.

I got home a little after 8pm, and Marc and I grabbed something to eat while I acclimated my corals (takes about 2 hours). It took me a little while to get them all mounted in their places in the tank, and then Marc and I went to go catch a late showing of Blades of Glory, which was hilarious. We managed to stay awake for this one.

Sunday was Fun Day at the farm. Jan and the other members of the sheep co-op were throwing a fun day to thank everyone that's helped with work on the farm in the past. It was basically a day to work your dog and to have a barbecue. There were so many dogs, particularly Border Collies, that it looked like a madhouse.

Bandit was particularly funny, because while all the other dogs were running around, he just sat by the gate to the sheep pasture, waiting for someone, anyone, to take him out again. He'd run over to me, Jan, and anyone else, and run back to the gate, to see if he could get someone to follow him. Everyone thought it was hilarious how he never gave up hope.

We did have a scary moment out there. The dogs had found a tennis ball, and a couple of us were throwing it around for them. I went to throw it this one time, and Bandit and Jan's dog, Cole, went airborne for it at the same time. Those two were probably the biggest dogs there, with Cole being even bigger and stockier than Bandit. They ended up crashing into each other chest first, and there was a horrible "CRACK" sound when they did.

Cole got up like nothing happened, but Bandit landed on the ground, and when he got up, he got up in this sitting position, with his front paws spread out in front of him, and the look on his face was simply one of, "Whoa, what happened?" He looked absolutely stunned, like he had no idea what just hit him.

The scary part was when he started walking, and we could see he was limping. Someone yelled out, "I think something's broken!" I hadn't even thought of that, because I thought the crack sound was their teeth clashing, but when they said that I started to panic, and I ran over to Bandit.

He laid down for a minute, and I started checking his leg out (no bones were protruding or anything, thank goodness, because I probably would've fainted right there), and he didn't complain of any pain. A minute later, he seemed to be walking around okay. Everyone was still worried, because it had sounded so horrible, so I called my friend Elaine (who's a vet) to ask her if she thought we needed to have him checked out. She said if he had a fracture or anything, that he wouldn't be putting any weight on it, and that x-rays weren't necessary.

Whew!

Later, Marc and I were sitting around watching Jan working with this one dog. I was sitting there holding one of Jan's dogs and Bandit, so that they wouldn't run out and try to interfere. Then I heard this car horn honk. I looked over, and there was a car that was pulled up to the gate (about 25 yards or so away from us). This lady then got out of the car, was looking in my direction, and put her hands up in this "what the fuck?" gesture. Then she started yelling stuff that I couldn't quite hear. Something about how this was her second time here, and she had dogs.

Now, normally I don't let people in the gate that I don't know, and I usually let Jan deal with people who come up, because I don't work there, so it's not my place. And with me holding the dogs and that lady being rude from the get-go, I certainly wasn't going to go running to talk to her. Nevertheless, I did immediately call over to Russ, one of the co-owners of the co-op, and let him know that there was a lady at the gate, and if he knew who she was. He didn't, but he walked over to talk to her.

She immediately started yelling at him about something, and waving her arms. After a few minutes, she gave him something out of her trunk, and Russ walked back into the sheep area. Then the lady walked down the fence, over to where Marc and I were sitting, and started yelling at me through the fence. She yelled, "HEY JAN! HEY JAN!" I'm like, I'm not Jan. I told her as much, saying that Jan was out in the front field working. She said, "WHATEVER, I DON'T CARE. THIS IS MY SECOND TIME OUT HERE AND I'VE BEEN IGNORED. I HAVE TWO TERVS [Belgian Tervurens are a type of herding dog] YOU KNOW."

And then she walked away.

I thought she was leaving, but Russ then went to talk to one of the other co-op owners (who had also been busy during this time), and they let the lady in through the gate. Apparently she was supposed to come for the fun day. She started talking to Jan, at first rather excitedly, and I thought she was yelling, but then she seemed all cordial.

Russ came over to put down the thing the lady handed him (turns out it was chili), and was muttering, "Nasty person. Nasty person. Sheesh."

Jan and Pat (the other co-owner) hadn't seen any of the stuff leading up to the whole thing, so they went about introducing the lady to the rest of us, and I could only manage a tight smile when they introduced me to her. She acted like nothing had happened (which I think is so often the case with people who have bad manners like that - they don't realize that their behavior is inappropriate).

I guess what happened was that this lady was upset because she thought we were ignoring her by not opening the gate, and that we were somehow snubbing her because we didn't think she was a dog person. She was black, and I'm guessing that's why she thought we were snubbing her (ergo, she's black, so she can't be a dog fancier). Apparently that's why she kept yelling at me that she had two Tervs. I guess she was yelling the same thing at Russ.

Now, I totally understand being sensitive about racial prejudices, because I've been through that, but that is no excuse for being rude and belligerent. And her defensiveness was totally without merit, because I didn't even realize she was there until she honked her horn and threw her hands up at me. I wasn't ignoring her because she was black, I was ignoring her because I didn't even realize she was there, and I didn't know we were expecting another person (it was already pretty late in the day).

Really, all she had to do was walk over to the fence where Marc and I were sitting, and say, "Hi, I'm here for the Fun Day, Pat invited me. Could you let me in through the gate?" Seriously, how hard is that?

I don't get people, I really don't. Shit like that is why I prefer dogs.

Anyways, aside from all that, we did manage to have a good time. Bandit got lots of work in, and he was still tired this morning.

And that was our weekend!