Terry got lucky.

Terry got home from Jamestown, NY, tonight just ahead of the rain. Well, she would have been ahead of the rain if she hadn't stopped at Wally World for some items for dinner.

She had been in Jamestown for the regional conference for the Embroiderers' Guild of America (EGA). As they usually do at these affairs, there were baskets of goodies to be raffled off. Each chapter usually puts one together and it might include just about anything. Terry bought a couple of tickets and put them in for two baskets she really liked. And, as usually happens, she managed to win one of them. (Actually, it's a surprise when she DOESN'T win one--or more.) Between the bottle of wine, maple syrup, mug and hot chocolate, books on embroidery, pattern books, kits, and everything else in that basket, she estimates it's value as in the neighborhood of $100-$125. Not bad for a $7 investment. If I thought she'd be as lucky with the lottery, I'd be handing her the money every week. Unfortunately(?), her luck only seems to hold for items related to stitching.

Terry's basket of goodies.

While there, she took a class on beading and made a lovely pendant.

Beaded pendant by Terry.

It's about 2-1/2 inches long and is made from some of the smallest beads--size 11 and 15--around a cabochon. Heh. Good thing we just got our eyes checked! As I've told lots of folks: She has got some mad skillz!

One lucky dog!

It's a bird, it's a plane ... it's a dog?

Of all the incredulous tales that turn up in the Quad-Cities, none that I know of can match this … A dog falling from the night skies.
...
Sadie, a petite-sized Pomeranian, landed next to a Davenport street last weekend after surviving a flight of about two miles, clutched in the talons of a great horned owl.

As the owl flies, Sadie’s flight covered between 24 to 30 city blocks. She was scruffed up, but suffered nothing worse than bruises and a broken tail.
….
“I had stopped for the sign at East 29th and College when this dog came flying out of the sky right in front of my Jeep — right out of the sky,” says Jamie Padden, Davenport. “It dropped out of nowhere.”

The owl followed, ready to snatch back its lost snack.

Padden was horror-struck to see the little dog scrambling to get away.

“I opened my car door and ran screaming at that owl,” she says. “It was after the dog.

“That owl was so big I swear that its wings spread halfway across the street. That sounds overdramatic, but it’s true.”

Sadie has been returned to her home and is recovering from her near lunch experience.

Great Horned Owls are HUGE! Two feet tall from the perch to top of the head, they regularly snatch up rabbits and skunks in the wild. A cat or small dog in suburbia would pose no problem.

One hell of a party!

I’m going to guess that a sizable dosage of vodka was involved in this one.

Woman survives 100ft fall

A Russian woman walked away unhurt after falling from the ninth floor of a block of flats after clothes lines broke her fall.

Doctors said Ludmilla Adamova, 27, survived the 100ft plunge at the tower block in Kemerovo, in western Siberia, after she hit lines hung from the balconies of flats below.

The lines slowed her fall and wrapped her in a selection of blankets, warm coats and underwear that cushioned her fall as she hit the ground.

Ambulance man Yevgeny Nevzorov, who arrived with paramedics, said: "It seems that she was at a party in a flat and went on the balcony for a cigarette but slipped and fell.

"There wasn't a scratch on her. Witnesses said she just got up, dusted her self down and went back up to the party."

Via Ananova