New Design

Did you know my favorite color is pink? You probably wouldn't have guessed it from looking at this site, huh?

What do you think? I needed to make some changes - I was tired of that dark color! And doesn't this re-designed site look so much friendlier? It's the all new Speedy Canizales!

I promise to post something soon - I have been busy with the site changes this week. This blog thing is pretty technical, and I am definitely learning something new everyday.

Re-designing this site makes me feel so accomplished, almost... geeky. Maybe this time next year I might be wearing pocket protectors and using tape to hold my glasses together, Steve Urkel-style! Or maybe even playing a little Dungeons & Dragons... hmmm...

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

This past weekend my hair was bothering me. It wasn't because my hair was doing something weird like forming a hideous cowlick with my bangs or getting in my face, or even because the split ends were starting to look ragged. My hair was bothering me because my highlights were growing out, and I was too cheap to go back to my stylist to change it back to my natural color.

To recap, last week my hair color looked like this:

See how happy I look, how much I like my hair color? Unfortunately it was meant only for the summer, as keeping it this color costs me an arm and a leg. So this past Sunday I decided to take matters into my own hands by purchasing a box of midnight black Clairol Nice N' Easy (with no ammonia) and enlisting the help of my mom to go back to my roots. The result is this:

At first I thought, huh, it's a little too black ; I look like a goth girl but it will fade out. I was feeling good with about my decision until a co-worker said on Monday, "you changed your hair color - and it's...DARK." This comment made me feel like it was a very bad decision, and that perhaps I was correct in thinking that I did look goth. Yes, ME - a goth girl. Were Amy Lee of Evanescence and I separated at birth? You decide.

On second thought maybe I should've posed with a ripped tank top so you could see the similarities.

Half Dome, or How I discovered that Yosemite should really be named "Park with a Million Stairs"

Despite being a little bit sore from our hike the day before and not getting very much sleep on account of the noisiest neighbors in the world, Rene and I got up bright and early Sunday morning, 6 am to be exact, to begin our adventure! We are going to the top of Half Dome, damn it, and nothing is going to stop us! That trail is toast! 17 miles is nothing! Lack of sleep will make you feel giddy for no reason at all!

So when you get up that early a few things happen: (a) you are gung-ho and giddy for no reason at all, (b) you only do the absolutely necessary things, like put on your contacts and brush your teeth (screw the makeup bit! I look awesome!), (c) your hair sucks and you won’t care, (d) even though food is an important part of your day you will agree to only have two power bars to eat because you don’t want to carry any more extra crap in your backpack, and (e) shyness and decorum in a public toilet disappears. We got ready in 30 minutes and were walking the trail to Happy Isles to start our hike by 6:30 am.

So it turns out that the trailhead for Half Dome does not start until about a mile from Happy Isle, and due to the lack of signage Rene and I ended up taking the stock trail (horse trail) to the trail head. After about 20 minutes we felt like we were a lost because no one else was around except for a group of Japanese people up front, and why was there horse manure all over the place? Since we knew we had to go up, and the starting point was Happy Isle, we soldiered on and hoped for the best. After 20 more minutes we were at the trailhead to Half Dome, yay! The hike officially begins!

There are actually two ways to get to Half Dome: one way is to go through the Mist Trail and Vernal Falls, which is the shorter of the two but steeper (read: granite stairway for about a mile uphill), and the other way (the route we took) was to go through the Nevada Falls trail. The Nevada Falls trail was approximately one mile longer but not as steep, and although the terrain is still uphill the ground is packed dirt, which is easier on the knees. Rene and I had agreed to take a break once per hour, lasting from 10-15 minutes, so that we could make it to the top by the middle of the day. Our first break would last 15-30 minutes though because we were going to have breakfast and admire Nevada Falls.

After hiking two plus miles uphill we were rewarded with a great view of Nevada Falls, and we took our longest break of the day. We ate our power bars while looking at the waterfall then made our way to the lookout point about half a mile away. We stopped for a few minutes to take pictures and admire the view. Yosemite is breathtaking. It’s still a little cold up in the mountains but the sun is up and warm on your back, and you can see the rays spreading throughout the valley full of cedar and pine trees. It was nice to take a moment and marvel at the beauty of Yosemite. I hope that many more generations after me will enjoy the same view.

I wished I could marvel at the view all day, but as it was we needed to get back on the trail to make it to our destination. We spotted a mama dear and her baby crossing the trail soon after Nevada Falls and snapped a picture with them in the background. What’s unfortunate about that picture is that I looked crazy with my hat turned up and a stupid smile on my face. Rene had to take the picture quickly and I didn’t have time to react – that’s my excuse! But isn’t the little baby cute? Awww! You can barely make them out but they're on the right side of the picture, near the boulder in the back.

The next three hours I will gloss over – it was all about hiking hiking hiking. Sometimes we were hiking a nice flat shaded area, and other times I thought I was going to need an ambulance. Actually, I only bonked once during a steep switchback because my backpack was beginning to get heavy and I need a break. I think it had to do with the altitude and being tired, because you ascend almost 5,000 feet on your way up to Half Dome. Before we took a break I was taking deep breaths (but still breathing hard like a crazy stalker) and was moving so SLOW. And I was really hungry. Rene relented and gave me a ten minute break, took my backpack (which really didn’t have a lot in there, just some water, a sweater, sunblock, and a power bar but it seemed to weigh a ton), and we were jamming from there. We didn’t stop until we reached the beginning of the last two stages: the really steep stairs and the cables.

Before we ascended the really steep stairs we took a 20-minute break and ate our lunch, another power bar. We sat on this gigantic log and kept having to shoo away these crazy squirrels. No matter how much we yelled or stamped our feet or threw pebbles at them they kept coming back. They are probably accustomed to tourists feeding them, thus taking away their fear of humans. I normally don’t mind squirrels but I am used to having them keep their distance. I used to have a dog called Squirrel Master (Princess). Princess, er Squirrel Master, really, really hated squirrels, and back when we used to have a yard she would spend the whole day plotting a way to get those damned rats with cool outfits. She would literally sit under a tree and watch them, then pounce and go after them if they ever set foot in our yard. Those squirrels were marked for death! I miss my girl Princess and hope she was watching us from above, probably freaking out about those damn squirrels bothering Rene and I.

After our break, we took a deep breath and ascended the stairs. Now these stairs are made from a white granite-y material and are carved into the mountain. They are steep, and there are no railings to hold on to. Oh, and you have to share the stairs with other people going up and down, thus making it a wee bit dangerous for those who are inattentive or are afraid of heights. When you climb these stairs, make sure you are paying attention to not only what you are stepping on but also who is in front of you and behind you. The stairs are not very wide and sometimes you have to give way to others, especially if they are old Japanese people with ski poles practically breathing down your neck. Show-offs! Rene and I took a break going up the stairs even though our hour wasn’t up because I was getting tired and there was only one lick of shade on the way up to the cables, which is where we decide to stop. At some point the stairs end but you are not yet at the top of the hill – you have to climb up the hill itself to get to the cables.

Side note: If you are planning to go on this hike, make sure your shoes have adequate grip. I’m not saying to go out there and buy yourself a new pair of hiking shoes (I used a pair of trail running shoes myself), but make sure you can comfortably climb on rocks with the shoes you will be wearing. This means no basketball shoes, tennis shoes, Doc Martens, deck shoes, etc. Wearing these shoes will make you slip and put the fear of falling in you. When you are scaling the stairs and cables and don’t have enough grip in your shoe, you will force people to wait behind you and that will suck. Especially when climbing down the cables.

About the cables – man it looked bad. It looked scary, and not very secure, and tiring. Cables all the way up there! FOR REAL?! Climb up that thing! Do I look like I have a death wish?! Deep breaths, deep breaths, keep it together… After looking at the cables for a few minutes and thinking about how far I’d already gone I took the plunge and did it. JUST DO IT – if the old lady can do it so can you! Once I got on the cable I realized that it looked scarier than it was (but make sure to bring gloves for grip). Once you are on the cables it is not so bad – put all your focus on climbing up and the person in front of you. The steel poles that connect the cables are surprisingly sturdy. When stopping during your ascent try to stop by the poles and use the wooden planks placed between them as a ledge; it will help you rest your legs and arms. Most importantly, use only one side of the cables! Do not try to climb up using both cables – one is meant for people going up and one is meant for people doing down. Using both cables means screwing up both directions (and people will hate you and possibly push you down the mountain – just kidding! But really they will hate you so don’t do that) and in my opinion is not very safe. Also, when you are climbing up observe the people climbing down so you can start thinking about the best way to descend. And it is NOT by using both cables, ever, I will pretend not to know you and curse you along with the others if you do this. You will be dead to me.

See how easy it is? Just one step at a time...

After all that, we made it to the top! Yay! Happy happy joy joy happy happy joy! And you know what? The view was AWESOME! I think the pictures speak for themselves:

Rene and I stayed at the summit for an hour and took a little nap under a rock. We woke up feeling refreshed and ready for our descent.

So only one word sums up our descent – LONG. It took us an hour and a half to get down from the summit because some idiot decided to use both sides for the cable to descend. It caused a huge backlog and made everyone really, really mad. I understand that people have physical limitations and have to do things their way, I do, but making a line of people wait for an hour and a half while holding on to a steel cable is really not the right time to have this handicap. After we got down from the cables we were seriously tempted to tell him off or give him a hard shove but figured he already got some choice words from the people behind him. Whoever he is, I hope he learned his lesson! And the lesson is (everyone say it): DON’T USE BOTH SIDES OF THE CABLE! And face the mountain when descending!

Rene and I jammed on the way down – it was all downhill from there and we only stopped to chillax (chill + relax = chillax) by a creek and dip our toes in the water. Ah, it was a very refreshing 30 minute rest.

The part where we went wrong was when faced with the decision of going down through Vernal Falls or Nevada Falls – since we ascended through Nevada Falls, why not descend down Vernal and see another waterfall on the way down? Big mistake! So you know how going down stairs is hard on your knees? These stairs down to Vernal Falls killed ours. By the time we got to Vernal Falls we must have climbed down a million stairs (that’s what my knees told me and I’m sticking to it) and were really tired. Plus, it was beginning to get dark. We didn’t spend much time admiring the falls on account of darkness heading our way, not to mention those damn stairs. By the time we made it to the bus stop at Happy Isle it was full-on night fall. It was 8:30 pm folks, and we hiked for 14 hours.

Just to spice up our evening a black bear crossed the street and started checking out the trash cans by the bus stop. At first we thought it was a cute little bear but after shining a light on that thing we realized it was an adult bear trying to get some food. The people at the bus stop all banded together and were trying to make a lot of noise when the bus came. Oh the bus – I have never been happier to see the bus! Bus to the rescue!

What happened next was a blur. I think we ate pizza then crashed until morning. Actually I take that back – we slept when our neighbors would pipe down and let us, which didn’t make for many hours of sleep.

The next day we had breakfast with Erin and Jeff at the world famous Awahnee hotel, where they prepared individual omelets for us. We had delicious food, albeit not the Sunday brunch (apparently that only happens on, ahem, Sunday). Afterwards, when we were all stuffed we headed back home. On the road again, and back to life.

It’s Pronounced Yo-SEM-it-ee

We got up at the crack of dawn – 5:30 a.m. to be exact – on Saturday morning to make our way to Yosemite. Yep, we made plans to have breakfast by 6:30 a.m. at the hotel, followed by an hour trek to our destination for the weekend. We are such adventurers! So gung-ho and up ‘n’ at-em and fired up! I think we were just sleep deprived and didn’t know any better at this point.

We obviously did not get the memo to wear red Hawaiian shirts for breakfast that morning. The “Locusts” as Erin called them – a bunch of adolescent boys wearing (yep, you guessed it) red Hawaiian shirts had totally taken over the hotel’s breakfast area. They ate everything that came out within five minutes and they took up every table. I was annoyed at having to go around them for everything: to get to the serving area, to get a bagel, to get a napkin, to get a fork… you get the idea. What made it worse was that every other word that came out of their mouth was “dude” and that they smelled musty (shower much, anyone?). Thankfully they were gone by the time we sat down to eat. Apparently the Fresno Hampton Inn was THE place to stay that weekend – if you happened to be a teenage boy. Er, or like us, on your way to Yosemite, yeah.

So it turns out it takes two hours (not one) to get to the Yosemite park entrance, then almost another hour after that getting to Yosemite Valley. Once in the park, there’s a two-lane highway with lots of turns that bring you to the valley and it ends when you go through this awesome tunnel dug out of a granite on a hill, with a view of El Capitan and Half Dome on the other side. I can’t imagine a better way to enter Yosemite Valley. Gorgeous, isn't it?

After getting to the valley, we managed to find our digs at Curry Village. Fortunately we got there early enough so that we found great parking but couldn’t check in until 5 pm because the tent cabins were still being cleaned (I found this so funny after we saw the cabin later that night. That cabin did not look all that clean; perhaps a more accurate description is “dump worn out linens on the bed and shut the door.”) so we (Rene, Erin, her fiancé Jeff and I) decided to take a little hike to get the blood flowing and see a little bit of Yosemite. I think we were so excited just to be in the park itself that when Jeff said 3.5 miles one way we thought no problem! We can do anything! Lemme at them hiking trails! Right… so this “little hike” actually turned out to be a big hike. I honestly don’t know why we thought a 7-mile hike would be a good “warm up” for Half Dome. We started the hike around 11:30 am and came back by 4:30 pm. We climbed the uphill trail about ¾ of the way until we decided not to continue because there was no Upper Yosemite Falls at that point – there wasn’t enough rainfall/snowfall during the winter to last through the summer. That, and we were tired and had just about run out of water, and if we continued climbing there was a chance we could be heading down in the dark. We decided on our last break to call it a day and go get ice cream, a BRILLIANT idea after hiking for 2+ miles uphill in the middle of the day (it was HOT). Plus we wanted to save some energy for our trip to Half Dome the next day. I think that maybe we would’ve been better off doing something simpler, but you know what they say about hindsight and 20/20 and all that crap.

View of Yosemite Valley with Half Dome behind me

Half Dome Overlook

This altitude is awesome! I grew almost a foot on the way up this mountain!

No idea what we are pointing at... or why we are pointing at all

After our hike, we got ice cream (I was soooo good I tell you!) and headed over to Curry Village to check in. While Erin checked us all in, we watched footage in the lobby black bears tearing down car windows to get to food and garbage in the car. It was like watching an episode of Cops: Yosemite – bad bears, bad bears, what’cha gonna do? What’cha gonna do when they come for you (or wreck your car)? The worst part about leaving food in your car, aside from being trashed by bears, is that you get fined by the park service for inciting the bears to come into the campground. Ouch! On our last day at Yosemite the car parked next to us had a box of pizza on their dashboard. C’mon people, get with the program! The warning is posted everywhere – in the lobby (video), at check-in you sign an affidavit saying you won’t leave any food in the cabin or in your car, and at the tent cabin itself. Sheesh, some people just don’t get it.

Our tent cabin was ultra-modern, luxurious, and spacious – NOT! In fact it is quite the opposite – rustic, small, and smells a little. In truth I do not know how long these cabins have been around, quite possibly at the turn of the 20th century (we are now in the 21st century folks); I guess what I am trying to say is that the tent cabins are old. And if you should happen to pass gas in the comfort of your own tent your neighbor will hear you. Yes, occupant at cabin #577 I heard you. Given the closeness of these cabins and the flimsiness of the tent material you would think that people would be courteous enough to keep the noise to a minimum, especially when other people are sleeping. Apparently our dear neighbors to the right have NEVER heard of courtesy, and came home at 2 am that night, SLAMMED their bear lockers open and shut, talked in a volume reserved for clubs and bars, and pretended to be deaf to requests from other campers such as “shut the hell up!” or “we’re trying to sleep over here you morons!” My neighbors were classy, I know. I always wondered where the hell they were coming from at 2 am – this was a national park, not a club or rave. Do bears attack raves?

We ate dinner with Erin and Jeff that night – Jeff made something called “hobo food,” which was ground beef, seasoning, bell peppers, potatoes and onions wrapped in foil and cooked inside charcoal. It was simple and good. We washed our food down with beer and red wine, got giddy, and walked to the bus stop in the dark. The night sky at Yosemite was awesome; you could see all the stars and the Milky Way. I was trying to find the North Star and was totally clueless, because the only constellation I know by heart is Orion. That was in the night sky during the semester I look Astronomy in college.

After dinner Erin, Jeff and I took a shower (not together! Boys and girls had separate showers, and there were stalls in each one; it wasn’t bad at all) and after walking back we found Rene laying in bed and staring at the ceiling. Rene told us to quiet down and pointed at the beam holding up the tent cabin. It was a bat! It was an honest-to-goodness bat, brown in color, hanging upside down and staring right back at Rene. Erin and I recoiled and got away from the door as much as possible while Jeff poked the bat with a broom; the bat flew out of our cabin. Rene and I then checked under the bed, under the covers, and the rest of the ceiling to make sure we didn’t have any other roommates crashing our cabin. We fell asleep almost immediately only to be woken at 2 am by our lovely neighbors (see above), and again at 5:30 pm by overzealous hikers DYING to get out there. At 6 am we thought it was as good time as any to start our hike to Half Dome.

Say hello to my little friend

On the next post – Half Dome! Or, how I hiked Half Dome and still managed to walk the next day.

Taking it SLO

Does Friday count as part of the weekend or the work week? I think it could go either way: officially the weekend starts after you leave work on Friday, but you still go to work for at least 8 hours on Friday. I guess since more time is spent getting ready for work and actually going to work it really should be part of the work week. What do you think?

Anyway, I got the day before Labor Day weekend, Friday (see where I was going with my discussion in the first paragraph? I was torn between saying “Labor Day weekend” and “the day before Labor Day weekend” – the latter won out ) off from work, so Rene and I decided to visit California Mission #5, San Luis Obispo (S.L.O. or SLO for short). We had plans to visit Yosemite during Labor Day weekend and decided to visit SLO on the way up and make a day out of it. This is the fourth mission we have visited so far; our goal is to visit all 21 California Missions within the next year.

On Friday morning we headed out at 9 a.m. (that is pretty early on a non-work day) to North Hills to drop off Chuy. Chuy-man was sad to see us go as always. He always finds a way to escape my mother-in-law’s backyard after we drop him off, so Rene and I made sure to check all gates and doors before we left. During his last visit he escaped and went for a walk around the block, then came home and waited for someone to let him back into the house. We think he comes back because he’s so used to having food and water at his disposal and he’d rather have that around than have to find food and water by himself. Besides, he’s living the dream, why leave the dream behind?

After saying goodbye to Chuy, we hopped on the freeway and took 101 N to get to SLO. On the way over, we stopped by Gaviota State Beach for an hour. Gaviota State Beach is known for a railroad bridge (no longer in use I think) perched above its beach. There is also a pier next to the beach where people were casting fishing lines. When Rene and I got to the beach we took our shoes off and dipped our feet in the water (it was freezing cold! Brrr!), then walked over to the rocks to sit and eat our lunch. On the way over to the rocks, I saw black sand and got excited, only to realize that the black sand was not a natural occurrence like in Hawaii. The black sand is from washed-up crude oil and it dirtied my feet. There are several oil rigs you can see from the beach; sometimes the oil pumped from the ocean floor leaks into the water and ends up at the surf. Which made me wonder if the fish caught from the water had one head or three? And did it taste… greasy?

After eating our lunch we walked over to the pier and peered into the water. Interestingly enough the water was clear and you could see maybe 10 feet into the water, which made me feel a little better about the fish… although, why can’t you see them in the water? Perhaps they are in “invisible” mode? Or perhaps the light reflects off their scales in a way that makes them seem invisible? There is really no way to tell unless you get in the water and suddenly you see schools of silver fish swimming around. That’s what happened to us when we went diving in Channel Islands – at first it seems like there is nothing in the water, then bam! There were little silver fish all over the place.

We took some pictures at the pier and looked in the water some more before making our way back to the car. On the way back to the car, I felt packed sand stuck under my foot, so I decided to check it out after I got in the car. It was not just packed sand, my friends: it was grease, yup GREASE from the beach mixed with packed sand. Five more minutes and that stuff would’ve turned into concrete – it took me a good 20 minutes, plus half a box of tissues, to get the entire mass out. The stain was another story – I didn’t get that sucker out until later that night at our hotel in Fresno. Please wear flip-flops when you visit Gaviota State Beach, even in the sand!

An hour later we were cruising into the little town of SLO. It is such a cute little town, exactly like the ones you see in older TV shows and movies. There are stores and restaurants around the city center, along with the municipal buildings and the mission. The sidewalks were clean and the local folks were friendly. There were a lot of people walking around town that day, and they were setting up for a concert in front of the mission. It was only 2 pm and people were already lining up their chairs, jockeying for the best positions.

The mission itself was a little bigger than San Gabriel and San Juan Capistrano, and was arranged in an L-shape. The altar was the mid-point of the church, where two sides of the L meet. It must be strange attending mass there because the altar looks out into a corner, not into the sides where the congregation sits. Somehow they make it work, but I imagine attending mass must be a bit strange since you can’t see who else is attending mass on the other side of the church. Half the fun of mass is watching the people in front of you, and you are missing out on an entire side! Also, I wonder which side the priest enters and if he alternates sides. Usually everyone sees the priest come in, and if he only comes from one side of the church, how does that make the other side of the church feel? All these logistical questions! I wish they just stuck with convention and just built the church in the shape of a cross instead; that way you can watch both the people and the procession. I don’t know why these questions even matter since I don’t attend mass here – but STILL!

Church altar

The mission garden, on the other hand, was a less complicated affair. It’s small, about the size of a large back yard, and very well-maintained. It had a nice wooden trellis in the middle, with grapes growing on the top and side of the trellis. We explored the garden in 10 minutes, which was stretching it because there wasn’t a lot to see. The only other things worth nothing were the three church bells displayed in the back. I don’t know if these are the bells rang for mass or if they are the original church bells but they looked pretty lined up in a row. I love symmetry, and having things lined up in a row always makes me happy.

Rene in front of the bells

Rene sitting in front of the fountain

My size doors

After our visit to the mission, Rene and I checked out one of our favorite stores in the world: Ross. Until recently, I have not been a fan of stores like Ross because there is too much stuff to dig through, too much stuff to process. I’ve only started liking Ross because of their random household items, and this is the only section that I like to visit. I don’t even make an attempt to scope out the clothes or shoes because it pisses me off when I find something I like and it’s not in my size – then I have to sort though 8 million other racks to see if what I’m looking for is even in the store. Anyway, their household stuff was so-so and we came out empty handed.

We ate a late lunch/early dinner (Linner?) at this local barbeque place with good tri-tip, then went over to Barnes & Noble for to browse the magazine section and check our e-mail (what, you don’t carry your laptop with you at all times?). Afterwards it was on to Fresno for the night and Yosemite the next day. Fresno, as you can imagine, was pretty uneventful. The highlight of our stay there was when Rene and I went to Ross (again!) and bought this really cool pot for one of his plants and really cool Daisy Fuentes sunglasses for me for $6.99. I call those shades my Daisy Funtesssss sunglasses for added pizzazz, but they are really just oversized brown sunglasses (from Daisy Fuentesssss).

Conversations During Cab Rides

Hi! How are you? It’s been so long since I’ve posted, I know, but with everything that’s been going on in my life right now there is just simply no time. However, I do get free moments here at work from time to time so I thought I’d post something quick today. I have three posts that I have been composing in my head; I will try to get that out next week. Next week I will tell you about San Luis Obispo, Yosemite, and the hike to Half Dome.

So earlier today I was looking for an old e-mail I sent out when I came across a real gem of a message from May 2007. I wrote it to my friend Erin while I was in Germany about a funny conversation on the cab ride home from work. It involved dogs and balls (ahem, not the kind you bounce up and down) and was hilarious at the time. I was working in Germany with three other girls, one of which was totally clueless about everything but not afraid to be really loud about it (we’ve all worked with people like that before, right?).

Anyway, I was sitting in the back of the cab with two other girls, Lisa* and Patty*, when we saw his dog with HUGE balls. Naturally, we were all shocked and intrigued: why was it so swollen, and more importantly, why was it so big? It was the size of a baseball on a dog no bigger than a Jack Russell. Lisa, Patty and I were wondering what the dog owner was doing to take care of this problem when the fourth girl named Debbie* piped up from the front seat. That was when the conversation got interesting and went like this:

Abby: Do you think that hurts?

Lisa: I would imagine, that thing is bigger than him.

Abby: I wonder what you do to get rid of it, surgery?

Debbie: I think you can just pop it, no? I know someone who popped it; you can get a doctor to do that.

Abby: I don't know if I'd use that doctor...

Cab Driver: I had a friend with that condition and he took medication.

Debbie: Why not just pop it? (Silence all around, mixed with disgust)

Debbie (to Cab Driver): Where was it on your friend? What body part?

(Uncomfortable silence in the back)

Cab Driver (to Debbie): His balls!

(At this point Lisa, Patty and I are laughing hysterically)

Debbie: Oh. What happened to him?

Cab Driver: Nothing. He took medication and he was fine. He's got two kids.

Debbie: Before or after?!

Cab Driver: He had kids before his condition.

Debbie: How did he fit into his pants then?

Cab Driver: I don't know, somehow he managed...

Abby: Debbie, what body part did you think it was on the dog?

Debbie: I thought it was on his leg!

Lisa: Debbie I think you need glasses, that was not his leg...

Cab Driver: Unless he has a fifth leg! (More laughs)

I swear I could not make this up. At one point I felt like Lisa and I had to be separated because we couldn't stop laughing the rest of the ride home. It definitely made for the most interesting cab ride EVER.

Just writing it down was really hard for me because it made me giggle. I had to leave the room twice just to finish the e-mail.

I hope that gave you a laugh! Now get back to work!!

* Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also so they won't find out that I published our conversation online and that I refer to one of them as "Patty."