Leo Stalks Innocent Prey

We're home! Gosh it was so much fun. Here's a brief rundown of what happened in Atlantic City so we can get to the Leo story:

Wednesday: We (me, Ronnie, Mike and Kathy) leave Virginia Beach at 8:30am, spend 5 hours driving and 3 hours sitting in traffic before arriving in Atlantic City. We check into Bally's (comp'd room) and promptly get lost. We finally locate our hotel room and promptly get lost again. Fortunately we are able to find a doorway out to the boardwalk and find ourselves playing poker at Caesars. We drink. We get hit up by bums. No one remembers anything else.

Thursday: Apparently we found our way back to our hotel room because we all wake up the next morning in the correct beds. I find a Starbucks, we meet up, we get lost, we find poker, play more poker, get lost trying to find food, drink more. There are a lot of bums here! We eat Thanksgiving dinner at a burger joint at 2am. We all agree it's the best Thanksgiving dinner we've ever eaten. No one remembers anything else.

Friday: We find ourselves back in our beds in our hotel room, and make arrangements to check out and go check into our new cat-friendly hotel room where we are to meet up later. We nap. We leave and go to The Borgata. Ahhh The Borgata is beautiful. Then Carolyn finds the Keno game on the video poker machine. Jackpot! We "play" more poker at Borgata (players have more money than brains), drink more, lose more, drink more and back to video Keno to make up what we lost. We notice we never get lost in the Borgata and there are no bums here.

Leo-day: We get up, shower, and Andrea calls. She's on her way! Yay! No one is sure where Jenn is, but we know she's coming too. We pick Andrea up and head for the Borgata. We teach her how to play Keno, we eat, drink, play a poker tournament badly, and wait for Jenn. YAY! Jenn makes it to the Borgata and we all head back to the hotel room and meet Ken, who has driven at the speed of sound to get to AC with Leo. Andrea has a Lantus emergency and has to head home early, so she doesn't get to meet Ken and Leo. Leo makes himself right at home in the hotel room. He discovers Ronnie and decides that Ronnie would make a nice human. Ronnie pretends to be horrified, but secretly he is probably flattered. We leave Leo to relax for a few hours and head back to Harrah's to meet up with Kathy and Mike. Ahhhhhhh finally we find people who know how to play good poker! Ronnie and I make up what we've lost and teach Jenn how to play poker and order drinks. She shows definite talent in that department! We leave poker and go to see a band at a bar. We close that bar out and leave for the hotel room where we proceed to stay up til 6am with a bottle of Jack Daniels and Leo, who's perfectly happy with that decision.

Sunday: Uh-oh. 3 hours sleep and a long drive home facing us. Jenn takes me to a diner. New Jersey has a redeeming quality! If you have never been to a diner in NJ, you must go. I had the best french toast I have ever had and I'm from Connecticut, a state that has perfected french toast. Jenn leaves to go home, Ronnie and I nap and at 5:30pm we hit the road for Virginia Beach in the rain. Leo takes up residence on the well covered backseat, with a litter pan on the floor for a portable restroom.

About 2 hours later, Leo is hungry. We stop, feed Leo and clean his box. This becomes a pattern, where every two hours we have to stop and feed Leo and clean his box. It's raining and traffic is barely moving. Leo's a very hungry boy, eating about 18oz of canned food a day. We seem to be making almost no progress due to the rain several hours later, when a smell begins to permeate the Rodeo. O. M. G. Eye bleedingly bad.

Naturally, by now it's 10pm, I'm on the Eastern shore and nothing is open on my side of the road. It's raining and I don't feel like I really want to stand in the rain to clean out his box, but I'm game since the smell is horrendous. An HOUR later I find a Royal station open. I am so overcome by the fumes at this point that I may never sleep again and I am sure my nostrils have burn marks inside them. I open the back door, and in the litter box is the biggest cat poop I have ever seen. I am immediately reminded of the Newfoundland poops I saw growing up. Those are large black dogs, the size of Saint Bernards. This is a 7lb cat. I have never cleaned a cat box so fast in my life. Ronnie wakes up and says, "what's that smell?" I glare at him and we hit the road again.

Next post: And then there were three. Again.