Crime in a Small Town.

I went to Indiana this past weekend. E had a race – his last of the year. He left Thursday with his dad and stepmom. I left Saturday after a baby shower I attended.

I arrived about 7pm on Saturday, found the hotel, dropped off my stuff and E and I went to dinner. We went back to the hotel afterwards and watched some tv and went to bed.

Sunday morning, we got up and got ready. We packed up our stuff and went to have some continental breakfast at the hotel. Then we went back to the room to get our stuff, loaded up the car and went to Starbucks. I reached in my wallet to pull out a $20 and all I got was $1s. I had just counted/sorted my money before breakfast so I knew how much was supposed to be in there. Then I realized my credit card and check card were gone.

I called the hotel in a panic and talked to one of the most unconcerned, unhelpful people ever who said she would go check the room. We got back to the hotel before she got back on the phone. She said she didn’t find my wallet in the room. I said, Yeah, because I have my wallet. It’s cash and credit cards that are missing. So E and I searched the room and didn’t find anything. I asked the unhelpful desk clerk if maybe any of the staff was around so I could ask them (if they stole my stuff!!) if they saw anyone. She said that she was the only one on duty. Then added, Well, except for the kitchen lady. Funny, though, that there was another worker standing behind her at the counter. The desk clerk claimed that cleaning staff didn’t come in until 9am.

So E and I went outside and I called to cancel my cards while he called the police. They had already used my credit card at 2 stores. The officer came and we filed a report. I told him the whole story. He liked the part about the desk clerk claiming to be the only one on duty. He said, Well, I have my first suspect. He was super nice. He commented that it was Sunday and not much was going on, so he had a lot of time to devote to our case. Works for me! He let us go and went in to question the hotel staff.

We drove to the track, and just as we pulled in the officer called and asked if I could call the credit card companies and find out exact times and amounts of the transactions. As I was talking to the credit card rep, he said, Actually, someone just tried using it a couple minutes ago at Home Depot, but it was declined. (Thank God!) I called the police station and the lady who answered the phone got the officer on the radio. I told him where they had used it (Marsh – a grocery store, and Wal-Mart) and that they had just tried to use it at Home Depot. I heard him on the radio telling someone to go over to Home Depot.

Today I got a call from the Detective at the police station who asked for my email address so he could email me a photo they got from video surveillance at Wal-mart. I don’t recognize the people.

Couple things bugging me:

The girl behind the counter, in hotel uniform, who supposedly wasn’t on duty – was standing outside talking on the phone while we were talking to the police officer. I just thought it was weird. But maybe she was just filling her friends in on the big drama at the hotel in small town Indiana.

I was thinking how bad things could have been if I was traveling alone. E rode home with me (that was the plan), so he had money and cards to pay for gas and such. But what if I had been traveling all alone and suddenly found myself with nothing. What would I do? Scary thought.

 

Pizza Sounds Good.

My honey is gone for a couple of days until I meet up with him Saturday night. Last night I slept all through the night. I never sleep all through the night. Either I am tossing and turning or he is. I am still a little tired today – damn 2-hour Grey’s Anatomy and 5am workouts, but I feel less fatigued. And I haven’t even had coffee this morning. It’s nice.

I started writing that early this morning, got distracted by all kinds of work, and now it’s lunchtime. I’m hungry, but not sure what I want. I know it’s not the soup I brought with me.

I have a baby shower to attend tomorrow. It’s for the wife of one of E’s friends. It’s one of those where I’m only going to know the mother-to-be and I hope I end up sitting at table with fun people. I really don’t like baby showers. Can’t we just send the gifts to the mom-to-be and call it good? Or maybe wait until the baby is born so at least I can see the recipient of the gifts. I guess that defeats the purpose of preparing for the baby’s arrival. Still.

E and I went to look at a house for sale the other day. The property is really nice, three bathrooms (that’s 3 toilets to clean!) and nice big bedrooms. But the living area – kitchen/dining/living room are all separate rooms. I like the main living area to be nice and open. I don’t understand why people would want it so divided. And the people selling the house had built it themselves, so this is apparently what they wanted.

Off to lunch.

 

Why I’m Still Tired When I Wake Up.

I had this weird dream last night that E and I were sitting on the edge of the bathtub talking and suddenly I noticed that there were a bunch of Darth Vaders blending in with the red/yellow/blue swirled tile and they were plotting to kill us so we had to fight them off with swords and knives and we killed most of them but ran out of weapons so we had to go to a dungeons and dragons-type place to buy more swords and knives and when we came out it was like everyone on earth was gone and there was a lot of water so we floated along in a boat til we met up with some other people and had to band together because we knew we still had to fight the remaining Darth Vaders.

Make sense? Yeah, neither do my dreams. And, no, we don’t have red/yellow/blue swirled tile. And, no, I’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons and have no idea if there is such a store.

Fudgey German Chocolate Sandwich Cookies.

I found this recipe in a Hershey’s cookbook that my mom has.  They turned out very tasty – even on my first try.  I think it’s probably best to eat them within a day or two of making them.  Or at least warm them up in the microwave for a few seconds before eating.

 

Fudgey German Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

 

1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 ½ cup sugar

¾ cup (1.5 stick) butter – softened

2/3 cup Hershey’s cocoa

¾ t. baking soda

2 eggs

2 T. milk

1 t. vanilla

½ cup finely chopped pecans

 

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Stir together flour, sugar, butter, cocoa, and baking soda in large bowl.

 

Add eggs, milk and vanilla – beat on medium speed.  Dough will be stiff.

 

Stir in pecans.

 

Shape dough into 1 ¼ inch balls (can probably make these a little smaller), place on cookie sheet, flatten slightly.

 

Bake 9-10 minutes.

 

Coconut Pecan Filling

 

½ cup (1 stick) butter

½ cup packed light brown sugar

¼ cup light corn syrup

1 cup sweetened coconut flakes, toasted

1 cup finely chopped pecans

1 t. vanilla

 

Melt butter in pan over medium heat.

 

Add brown sugar and corn syrup.  Stir constantly until thick and bubbly.

 

Remove from heat and stir in coconut, pecans and vanilla. 

 

Make cookies while filling is still warm.  Use about 1 heaping teaspoon filling for each cookie.

Moley moley mole. Yeah, baby.

Another one of the moles I had removed came back atypical.  Aka: dysplastic nevi.  Which, again, means it has more potential than normal to become melanoma.  Fun.  At least my doctor removed all of this one so I don’t have to go back for more skin excavation.  I do have to go back in 3 months for a check up.  I hate this.  I know, it’s better to catch it now, but I still hate it.