A Hectic Holiday Week

We celebrated our Christmas on the Knotty Cat the day before Christmas Eve. 

On Christmas Eve itself we flew north to Pennsylvania in order to visit family and friends. We literally hotel hopped the whole time we were there in order to take advantage of points, miles, etc... and we scored free hotel rooms for three of the nights we were there.

But, we were very lucky.  All of our flights were on time, and we only had one day of really crappy weather we had to drive through in our Mustang Convertible.

Yes, I said Mustang Convertible.  I thought the lady at the car rental place was joking when she told us what they were giving us but I found out very quickly that she had no sense of humor whatsoever.  And after telling her that we had no desire to drive through blizzard like conditions in a rear wheel drive sports vehicle she nastily informed us that, for a price, we could up-grade. 

We (Hans) didn't.  But apparently the convertible caught wind of our dissatisfaction and after we deposited all our belongings into its trunk it decided to treat us to its little bag of tricks.

While trying to familiarize ourselves with the working systems of the car we turned on the dome light. When we tried to turn out the light we inadvertently activated the 'convertible' feature.  While it hummed and whined, our windows started going up and down, up and down...

...and up and down (although the top remained firmly in place).

An attendant tried to help us but the Mustang just laughed in his face. 

I'm sorry to say that even after I got out and refused to go any further in this beast and Hans stated that we had already voiced our dissatisfaction with this particular make of vehicle, we ended up exiting the airport in a stinking white Mustang Convertible!

It didn't make me feel any better a day later when we were filling it up at a gas station and a local asked us why the hell we didn't have our car 'garaged' for the winter.  

But we soldiered on and were quite relieved to finally drop off our convertible (unscathed) at the air port, and last night we finally arrived back to our Knotty Cat.

In a driving rain storm.

The week must have caught up with us and we didn't wake up until 10:40 this morning!  I made a mad dash to Doggy Day Care where Wilbur was to be picked up by 11:00. He's been comatose in our salon ever since he got back and has yet to go potty.

Wilbur helps us unwrap our presents.  He's a peach.

One of Hans' co-workers thinks we're disgusting so Hans couldn't resist  writing this on my gift tag.

I got Hans a 'head lamp' for when he checks out our engines.  He uses it here to open his other presents.

Wilbur:  "Oh, Crap, it's just a picture book of their wedding and they made me be the ring bearer when I wanted to be the flower girl."

First Mate and Captain glasses from Tervis.  So where's the Salty Dog glass?

But, best of all (and I do mean best of all!!!!) I managed to put one over on Hans.

Wilbur helps Hans open his 'mystery present'.

The week before Christmas, Hans told one of our live-a-board friends about a keyboard he'd had back in the 80's and how much he'd loved it. It was a Casio CZ-101 and even though it was small it did all kinds of fun things.  Unfortunately, it mysteriously disappeared a few years ago and if he only had it now he just knew he'd be able to have all kinds of fun with it.

That's all I needed to hear and I jumped onto EBay, bought one, and prayed it would get to us before Christmas Eve.

It arrived on Saturday while Hans was home and I felt like an agent from Mission Impossible. I ended up hiding it under a palm tree before moving it to the back of our vehicle (where I wrapped it and Hans never had a clue!), and then when Hans took a trip to the bath house I threw it into our guest berth (the garage) where he never goes but of course that day he did.  Thank God I'd thrown a blanket over it and he never saw it.

After all our presents had been opened I brought this one out and proceeded to bluff him as best I could. I said I hoped our refrigeration wouldn't fail while we were away. Hans looked puzzled and said his present didn't feel cold.  I mentioned this thing called dry ice.  He wondered if I'd bought him Omaha Steaks.  I rolled my eyes and said after all we live on the coast and there's this stuff called seafood, and I could tell he wasn't too thrilled, and then he finally got the box open and saw his keyboard.

Hans was truly surprised and I doubt I'll ever be able to pull off something like this again.

Ta-Da!!!  A Casio CZ-101 keyboard from the 1980's.  And it works!

Wilbur performed his famous squeakerectomy within seconds of opening his present from Sandy Paws.

This morning after I picked up Wilbur I heard a car crunch through the gravel behind our boat so of course I looked out.  I nearly had a heart attack when I saw a white Mustang Convertible slink past us and I swear its headlights were shifting back and forth while it took in its surroundings .  "Oh My God!!"  I hissed to Hans, "It's our convertible and it knows where we live!!!"  It turned around and left and I'm going to try not to worry about it as we intend to head out into the Gulf tomorrow in order to spend New Year's Eve on the hook.