What a Wonderful World

Last week was the anniversary of my husband's father's death. It has been 8 years since he passed, and his death has affected my husband and sister-in-law deeply. I didn't have the honor of meeting the man, but I hear we would have gotten along famously. As a tribute, my sister-in-law and I decided to carry on the tradition of getting tattooed. This event was something that we started last year - she got a Celtic tree on the inside of her wrist and I got a Scottish lion with my grandmother's maiden name on my shoulder.

Still fresh, peeling and bubbly. HAWT. 

While my grandmother would vehemently disagree if she were still alive, I believe it to be a way to immortalize her and her heritage. Well, then I went to Scotland myself and fell in love with the damn place and needed my own way to remember it. So Jeff and I drew up a composite of two different Scottish thistle images and made it our own. Here is my newest piece of art. And I love love love it.

Jeff's sister has a couple pumpkins she's planning on getting on either her neck or her feet. But the girl sprained her ankle the day before and wasn't feeling up to hobbling in, so I'll gladly share her tattoo with my small group of readers later.

ANYWAYS, the anniversary of the day that Jeff's father died begins with a wild story. My husband's best friend is a state patrolman. That morning, Jeff's sister called in a panic, telling us that the best friend had been shot at work and she was watching one of his kids because his wife was picked up in an unmarked car and she didn't know how he was doing or what had happened SO PLEASE come over because she really didn't feel like being alone. All the way across the river (she lives in Vancouver) we listened for breaking news of an officer being shot, and heard nothing. We got to SIL's house and she had two different news stations on. Nothing.  Poor Jeff started to think the worst had happened.

And then we got the phone call.

Apparently the friend was in a weapons training exercise, and had shot himself in the leg. His safety was off and he was pulling the gun out of the holster when it went off. The guy shot one more round of targets, limped back and was rushed to the hospital. After an hour of surgery, he was back to joking around and being himself. SERIOUSLY. This guys has been a cop for what, 5 years now? Isn't putting the safety on the number one rule?

After all that stress and hilarity, we all needed a drink. So the three of us dropped the kids off and headed over to Eastburn, a bar on Burnside, ran up a $60 tab (but only paid $20 thanks to a bad ass Groupon deal!), met with the head chef and drew on the tables.