Is having a clean house really worth the effort

I have been cleaning nonstop today (well, virtually. We did go to the grocery store; no we haven't bought our turkey yet). DH and I have:

- Steam-cleaned the carpets in all but two bedrooms (the rug doctors you can rent from the grocery store, IMHO do a better job than the guy we hired three years+ ago to do it for 10x the price)

- Re-set up the blue room (this will be my grandma's room, so it had to be spit spot perfect). We rearranged the bed, added a dresser and mirror, and took out the chest of drawers and desk.

- Cleaned the kitchen. Actually, this is still in progress; I am going to clean the ovens sometime, but it takes 4 hours, so I hesitate to do it tonight.

- Rearranged the linen closet. If my grandma saw it the way it was, she'd be doing it herself.

- Cleaned the two guest bathrooms. Again, this is still in progress.

I still have a huge! to-do list. I want to sharpen my knives, chop some wood, clean the fireplace, dust the den, etc...

I hope you people appreciate this!!! :)

Guilty pleasure... revealed

I've revealed my guilty pleasures before - at least in terms of movies (Family Man, 50 First Dates, etc). Jeffro has been quite open about his guilty pleasure: the Goo Goo Dolls.

This morning, I realized that I hadn't admitted to perhaps the most shameful guilty pleasure I have.

Celine Dion.

I know, I know. But before you throw assorted rotten fruit and vegetables at me, let me explain.

Woman's got a voice. She's undeniably confident. She's pretty clearly happy with her life. She's a powerful woman, much in the model of an Oprah or a Condi Rice. She has fun and laughs and seems to be approachable.

I saw her on the Today show this morning, laughing and chatting with the gang there, and I just loved her. Sure, some of her schtick is corny, but considering where she came from (a family of like 14 kids or something ridiculous like that) and what she's become purely through her singing talent, I think it's pretty darn admirable.

There. I've said it. The truth will set you free.

The "Power of Love" is a great song.

All cats... all the time

I just realized that my last five or so blogposts have been about my cats - well, Henry specifically. This one is no different, except that it has to do with Eliza.

We let the cats outside for a brief time this afternoon - Henry on a leash, because I didn't want him getting his surgery site in dirt or anything. Eliza went about her normal routine of chomping on some grass.

Suddenly, she darted about ten feet and pounced on a bird. She didn't quite know what to do, but she kept trying to get at it with her mouth, in addition to pouncing. I yelled at DH to get the cat - because I had Henry still with the leash on the deck and didn't want him getting into trouble while I was trying to get the bird away from Eliza. DH ran over and picked Eliza up and brought her into the house.

The poor little bird sat stunned, but alive, on the ground. I got DH a pair of workgloves, so that he could move the poor little sparrow from the open yard into the bushes, where he could recover without getting picked off by a hawk. DH picked him up, and away the little bird flew over the fence and into the trees (although he almost hit the fence on his flight over it).

I was rather surprised that Eliza had any hunting skills left, considering she such a lazy, fat cat. Of course, if she really had skills and wasn't just curious, that little bird would probably have been dead.

Free: One cat to good home.

I love my little kitty, but he's driving me up the wall. Henry found a way to tear his lampshade collar (made out of a material similar to hospital gowns or something like that), shimmy it off (not over his head, but down his body like he was taking off a skirt), and then bite and break two stitches that are holding his little surgical site (there are 6 others still holding). We've brought him to the vet both yesterday and today for check-ups due to his badness, and while he's okay and doesn't need to have the stitches replaced, he can't be permitted to get to any more.

On top of that, he's lost some weight and developed a heart murmur. He's only eating half of what he should be to maintain his weight, and in general he's just being a royal chore. The stress of taking care of him is definitely affecting DH and me - we're snapping randomly at each other about the dumbest things.

I love the little stinker, though. He's sweet when he's not being a troublemaker. I'm just so anxious for this episode to be behind us.

Weekends... I've had better

Ugh. I'm so depressed. I gave myself a three-day weekend, taking a much deserved Friday off and planning to completely veg the days away.

Vegging out and destressing are not options when you have a cat recovering from surgery, I've discovered. I spent most of the day concerned about him not eating, not drinking, and not going to the bathroom. He finally managed to eat some food (after I started force feeding him with a syringe) and go to the bathroom late Friday night, after which I slept in until nearly noon on Saturday.

Saturday ended up being more of the same, trying to get him to eat, drink, and eliminate. It's turned into a near obsession, with us falling over ourselves to cater to his whims. Add on top of that my father spending the night between DC-area jobs (he didn't get to our place until nearly 130am) and it was a sleepless night. Henry thought that the best way to get our attention was to bang himself into the door repeatedly at 4am. Sadly, he was right. I probably spent an hour or so sleeping on the bed in that room (well, not really sleeping) while the nocturnal cat walked all over me, pounced on whatever part of my body I moved, and rubbed his head on my and purred loudly into my ear.

Sunday was a capstone day; DH's grandmother had called on Friday night, concerned that no one was going to host Thanksgiving and that she might not have anywhere to go. I had planned to coordinate with my grandparents this weekend, and they expressed a preference to come to visit DC for the weekend. So that's that. Despite my vow last year never to host Thanksgiving again, I'm hosting again this year. So for the next two weekends it will now be non-stop work to get the house in order for guests on the holiday.

Wanna come?

Henry is an internet star!

Normally leaving Henry home alone in his condition would make me a total nervous wreck. Is he peeing? Is he eating? Is he in pain or suffering?

DH was a genius and set up a little system with the camera in his Mac Powerbook that took a picture of Henry every minute and organized them into little photo albums for each hour. It gave both of us great peace of mind to be able to see Henry sleeping or looking out the window. There were quite a few times when I laughed out loud at whatever the camera had captured.

Anyway Henry is doing okay. He's sitting here next to me with his giant doughnut collar off, resting atop a pillow. With the collar off he can finally curl up into a tight little ball like he likes to.

I'll try and take some better quality pics of him soon and post them for posterity.

He's back!

We've got Henry back home! He has had his whole butt area shaved - which is pretty funny - and he's got some gnarly looking stitches in his delicate area, but most important is he's home.

Poor little guy has to wear one of those awful lampshade collars for two weeks until they take his stitches out. He's constantly licking the collar (which looks more like he got his head stuck in a country-quilted doughnut than a lampshade); hopefully he'll get used to it soon.

We've got his room all set up for him - except he doesn't like being secluded in there by himself, so he keeps knocking against the door. I let him sit downstairs with DH for a while watching Stephen Colbert. He seems happy.

Oh yeah - poor thing's got an opiate-based pain patch on his side. So he's probably just as high as he is happy to be home.

Spoke too soon...

Sad news folks... Henry is back in the hospital tonight with another urinary blockage. He's going to have the surgery tomorrow that will hopefully prevent this from happening again, but we're pretty upset nonetheless.

We'd noticed he was straining this morning, and DH came home at lunch to see whether he was able to make a little pee chunk in his litter. By the time DH got home from work tonight, Henry was still eating, but not peeing, so we called the vet and they had us bring him right in.

I'm sad because the poor little guy has been through so much in the last two weeks, and now he'll be healing for yet another two. I should be happy, because it's a problem that can be fixed and he'll live a normal lifespan (maybe another 7-10 years).

I'm glad we caught it before the problem did any damage to his kidneys. He's at our local vet tonight, rather than up in Urbana, so we don't have to drive all the way up there.

Quick update: the vet called at about 10pm, letting us know that Henry probably wasn't blocked, but rather suffering from urinary tract spasms that kept him from urinating. She asked if we wanted to continue with medical treatment - but we said that we were likely going to opt for the surgery anyway, so keep the surgery on schedule for tomorrow. Poor little kitty!

I've got good news and bad news...

I'm the kind of person who always wants to know the bad news first.

Bad News:

Hours logged at work on Saturday: 7.5
Hours logged at work on Sunday: 7.5

Good News:

Henry seems to have turned the corner recovering from his drama. He's acting playful again, peeing well, and is sleeping in our bed again.

So there's that to be happy about.

A big project is due at the Department of Commerce on Wednesday... so here's hoping that Wednesday marks the end of crazy working hours for me.

Henry's home!

Yeah! Henry is back at home. We picked him up last night from the animal hospital and was he ever happy to be home. He kinda smells a little different - Eliza has been sniffing him and then hissing, but once Henry gets his old smell back I am sure she'll calm down.

Henry is on three meds - one antibiotic, one anti-spasm, and Prevacid. I think the Prevacid makes his pee-pee less acidic and therefore less prone to forming crystals.

He seems pretty happy. I wish he was eating a little more (although he ate a whole bunch of ham tonight.) Also I wish we saw him drinking more - we bought distilled water to keep him from having too much magnesium. We fully intend to spoil him rotten.

Our bank account is going to need more time to heal than Henry. Total vet bill came to $1200. Plus his follow up appointment next week. Plus the surgery we're likely to have done to avoid any future $1200 surprises.

Kitty update redux!

So DH and I drove up to Urbana tonight to visit Henry in the hospital. He seems to be doing much better. The catheter was taken out this morning, and they want to keep him for another 24 hours to ensure that he is peeing without problem and to monitor his hydration and appetite. We brought him some food from home that we know he likes, and he chowed into it right away - well until he decided he wanted more love from us.

The good news is that we'll likely bring him home tomorrow after work. The bad news is that we'll have a healthy vet bill to pay then too.

Oh well.. you gotta do what you gotta do.

Kitty update!

Henry gettin' high on some Greek oregano in the Herb garden

So DH and I took a nice ride in the NBC up to the animal hospital to visit lil' Henry - who's there until at least tomorrow! He looks so small and helpless in the little cage with all these tubes running around him and whatnot (the catheter in his pee-pee and an IV in his little shaved front leg). We visited for about 30 minutes, talked with the vet on duty about his condition (who advocated for the surgery), and gave Henry some lovin'.

He's got a little "Use Caution" sticker on his lil' ID card. Apparently he's been jumping at people who get close to his lil' cage and bit a couple of them (including last night's vet twice!). He's got a lampshade on his neck to keep him from getting to his catheter.

On the way home I was pretty teary, which is not an unusual state for me. I asked DH if he was upset (he said hardly a word the whole way home, which isn't a terribly unusual state for him) and he said "yes." Thank God we were at a stoplight or I would have crashed the NBC. It killed me.

I think both of us were more upset today, seeing him stuck in the cage and not being able to take him home, then last night. I don't think either of us realized we weren't going to be able to take him home right after they unblocked the obstruction.

Oy! What a finish to the weekend.

Oh Henry what a night...

Lil Henry loving his tree

I've barely had any sleep, so if this post is less than coherent I'm sure you'll understand...

Last night DH and I had a really fun time at Mykonos Grill with Jeffro and CC (holy cow is that fish roe appetizer and spanakopita good!). We went upstairs, getting ready for bed, when we noticed that our little boy cat Henry was making lots of trips in and out of his litter box, then licking his little red rocket after not making any pee.

Sadly, this is a classic sign of a problem lots of male cats have: a blocked urethra due to crystals in his urine. And it's an emergency; if he doesn't get unblocked quickly, he dies.

So off to the emergency vet we go (these things always happen at midnight on a Saturday night!). Henry has been to the emergency vet in Rockville, but our experience there was so traumatic (lots of people in the waiting room, lots of drama and stress) that we decided to take him to the Greenbriar Hospital in Urbana. It was certainly less busy - there was only one woman in the waiting area when we got there, and she left shortly thereafter - but it was no less trying. There was only one vet and one tech on staff and they were dealing with some rough cases.

Happily they got Henry unblocked and he's resting comfortably recuperating from his ordeal. We got home at about 4:45am (I wish they had told us they would need to keep him for up to 24 hours before we waited 3 hours to make sure he was okay) and hopefully we'll be able to pick him up today.

Poor little kitty. Poor other animals in the hospital.

Finally! A little relief...

The past ten days or so I have been working ridiculous hours - I worked 9 hours on Columbus Day, and the past two nights I haven't gotten home until well after the clock struck 9pm.

Today - at least for one day - it ends. I may just be able to catch an early train home.

That doesn't mean that tomorrow won't change things, and I'll have to work late again, but today I'll get home at the very least on time.

Hooray!

The end of an era... for now

I'm so sad.

This morning was the second morning that I drove to the train station without my NBC's top down.

The first was Friday, which I thought might have been a temporary fluke. It was about 52 degrees... a little too chilly for even the heated seats to compensate for.

This morning it was 46 degrees. The afternoons are warm enough to get the top down, like when I am driving home, and the weekends too. But I have to start admitting that winter is coming, reluctantly like CC, and in the immortal words of Dwight Schrute: "[a] convertible is a ridiculous choice in this climate."

At least it's German with decent gas mileage.

Lazy weekends are the best weekends of all...

The last three weekends (at least) have been nonstop action for DH and me, so this weekend we decided that all we wanted to do was veg out... which we have more or less successfully done.

We went to a happy hour birthday celebration for two coworkers of mine Friday night, which was a little drama. I had my first (and probably last) Appletini (I totally got it just because of Zach Braff's character on Scrubs). It tasted way too sweet... like a Sour Apple Blow Pop. Meh. I like my G&Ts better.

I washed the NBC yesterday. It was a little chilly, but I had a lot of dead bugs on my hood that I just had to wash off. I told my dad that I wanted some high-end car wash stuff for Christmas, and he laughed. Considering that I've washed the NBC more times in 4 months than I have the Saturn in 9 years, I don't see what's so funny.

DH is finally finishing up the last section of the deck! That's pretty exciting!

Finally, I've been playing "Viva Caligula" on the Adult Swim website. It's sick - but it's pretty funny. Those darn commercials worked on me!

Nuts and networks

Here's a post about two completely unrelated topics...

This afternoon while driving home from the train station I almost had an incident. It was about 6:00pm and the wind had just started to kick up out of the west. The top of the NBC was down, and the trees started to blow violently above me, with leaves fluttering everywhere. Suddenly, I heard a loud 'bang' as if something small and hard had hit my car - MY CAR, MY BELOVED CAR. I looked up, and no sooner had I directed my gaze skyward when I felt a sharp hit on my exposed arm.

An acorn had fallen or been blown out of the tree and onto me. With the top down, I was unprotected from these falling projectiles.

I was snapped out of a momentary trance by the sound of another acorn hit - this time it hit the windshield. I panicked! What if these little things were like hailstones? Could they possibly dent my beloved car? Thankfully the light changed and I quickly drove away from those horrible trees. I inspected the car carefully when I got home to ensure that there were no visible dents.

On a completely unrelated topic, I was asked to start up a Facebook profile by a girl I had met in Italy several years ago, which I did and promptly paid no further attention to. But then, DH started a Facebook profile to keep in touch with some guys who had left his work and gone elsewhere. Now I find myself with 6 "friends" and part of 4 networks and 1 group. Tonight I reconnected with a girl I met in college who I had been fairly good friends with.

It's interesting, because I'm not usually an early adopter of these new-fangled intertube things... the Myspaces and the Friendsters and whatnots. I kinda like the Facebook thing, though. I might actually try and use it for its intended purpose.

The challenge with it, of course, is that not many people who are my age know or use Facebook, so I don't know how far I'll be able to take it as compared to, say, a 24 year old who grew up with this kind of stuff. It's interesting... but I realize I am turning into the kind of person I made fun of as a kid... you know, the one who couldn't set the VCR clock.

Young people these days wouldn't even understand that comment.

This is what I raced home for?

Today - Columbus Day - is supposed to be a Federal Holiday! Not for me it wasn't! I drove - DROVE - my little Bug down to Silver Spring in the hope that it would be a short day and I wouldn't have to worry about catching the train.

It certainly wasn't an auspicious beginning; I walked into the lobby of our building only to discover that the power was out, only one elevator was working, and when I got to our floor, there was no air conditioning, no computers, not even any lights. Ridiculous. This was at 9am. The power did come on about an hour later, and instead of leaving around 2 as I had hoped, I didn't end up getting out of the office until 7pm! Not cool.

The way things were going, I was worried I wouldn't make it home in time for "How I met your Mother" and "Heroes." HIMYM was pretty funny - Danica McKellar is so cute. Heroes was less than I expected, very boring and lots of unnecessary repetition and filler. I'm not over it yet, but I'm close... so very close!

What an educational weekend!

DH and I visited the Annapolis Sailboat Show Saturday and learned some very valuable lessons:

1. A LOT of people go to these boat shows, and most of them are rude and inconsiderate.
2. I really like small sailboats.
3. There is a HUGE difference between a 27 and a 31 foot sailboat. HUGE!
4. Boats are not ridiculously expensive to buy, they are ridiculously expensive to equip, operate, maintain, and house.
5. It's great to be short when you are interested in sailing.
6. I am very intimidated by anything longer than 33 feet.

Also, Happy Birthday DH!

My feet are resilient!

Destination: Catoctin Mountain
Circuit: Falls Nature Trail to Hog Mountain Trail to Hog Rock to Blue Ridge Overlook trail to Thurmont Vista Train to Wolf Rock to Chimney Rock and back to the Visitor Center.
Start time: 12:00pm
End time: 5:30pm
Distance walked: ~8 miles
Highest elevation: 1610 feet
Starting elevation: 930 feet
Shoes: Brand new Vasque Hiking Boot
Socks: Inner layer: silk liner socks, Outer layer: Smartwool medium cushion

Day after condition: Well, I'm wearing three-inch heels today without any discomfort, my blister is nothing but a little pink spot on the back of my heel, and I haven't felt any muscle soreness despite the fact that I'm terribly out of shape and haven't hiked that far I think ever.

Nice. And I wasn't even wearing Himalayan Walking shoes.

The great hiking boot search of 2007

After the pain and agony of the blister on my heel from last week's hike, it was time to replace my 12+ year old hiking boots. So DH and I set out on our search this morning with a goal and budget in mind.

Our first stop was to Hudson Trail Outfitters in Gaithersburg. They didn't really have much of a selection, although what they did have was quality stuff. I tried on three pair of boots from the same brand (Vasque) - a high top, mid top, and low top. I was pleased with the fit and feel of the mid top - but really wanted to compare a couple of brands to see which offered the best fit.

Next stop was Dicks Sporting Goods, also in Gaithersburg. I really expected that they would have a nice range of brands at less-than-boutique prices. Boy was I wrong; I might as well have gone to Sports Authority or Modells. They had maybe 2 brands in the type of shoe I was looking for, including the shoe I had just tried on at HTO. Nevermind that the same show was priced 20% higher at Dicks either. Now... if you looked at the men's selection, it was pretty extensive. DH asked one of the shoe jockeys whether they had any better selection for women, and the guy let us know that what we saw was what they had. Total bust!

I really, really, didn't want to go all the way down to REI in Rockville, but frankly, I had no choice. The traffic on Rockville Pike was as bad as expected, same goes for Montrose Road. I hate it down there. Anyway, we went in and while their selection was still pretty limited (man... if I was male I would have been so much better off!). I tried on three brands - a Merrell, a Keen, and the same Vasque I had tried on before. At least this time, I could compare the fit. The Keen (mid-top, light duty) fit terribly; the arch was in the wrong place for my foot, it was too square, too much heel movement, so it was right out. The Merrell was a real light duty mid-top... more sneaker than boot with lots of movement. It was super light and really comfortable, but lacked the structure and support of the Vasque. I literally walked around the store for 30 minutes wearing both pairs of shoes, and spent another 30 minutes with two salespeople talking about the pros and cons of both. Vasque: a little heavier, about 30% more expensive, not a topline sole but sturdier, waterproof and Gore-Tex'd, and likely to transition if we got into heavier duty hiking. The Merrell was lighter, very comfortable in a sneaker kind of way, cheaper, but not waterproof and really only good for light trail hiking.

I finally ended up buying:


Vasque Ion Mid Women's multisport.

If we end up doing all the hiking we anticipate doing (this fall we're hoping for Harper's Ferry, Shenandoah, and other, local hiks) plus with trips we're hoping to make to Costa Rica, New Zealand, and back to St John, I'll be glad that I bought the more solid boot. In particular, I expect to be glad that I have the waterproofing - because I just know as soon as I bought a boot without it, I would have stepped into a great big puddle or something.

I did also buy a pair of Smartwool medium weight wool socks (so did DH) and silk liner socks. Those things really work; I wore the liner, socks, and boots to go grocery shopping at TJs, and my normally very sweaty feet were dry as a bone.

So we're set for tomorrow. I also bought a small first aid kit, some moleskin, and granola bars at TJs! Bring it on Catoctin!

He gets new toys... I get bubkus!

So I came home today and was going about my normal routine, which included running upstairs to the bedroom to change out of my work clothes. I noticed DH acting a little suspiciously; all this week he's been home early because of "network outages" at work, and now he's trying to block me with his lil' body.

Lo and behold I get the bedroom and there, on the desk, is what he's trying to sort of hide from me.



A brand new 22 inch rectangle shaped monitor! We he admits was ordered and delivered from New Egg that day.

Now, to be fair, he had told me he was interested in buying a new monitor over the weekend. We went to Best Buy to simply look at it (he had no intentions of actually buying anything there) and I told him he had my "permission" to go ahead.

Typically, it takes him weeks, even months, to go ahead with a purchase. So seeing the monitor sitting on the desk was quite a surprise. He wasn't in trouble or anything, but clearly he knew that I was going to be a little shocked.

Then! I spied with my little eye something else new on the desk.



Now I don't remember being told about an external hard drive! Hmmmm... isn't it easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

Of course, we probably won't be able to get away for a little Thanksgiving trip - but DH will enjoy his nifty new monitor and external hard drive! ;)

Owie... and lame!

DH and I drove up to Catoctin Mountain National Park to go hiking today. Happily the weather was considerably less humid than yesterday, and we had planned to hike to Cunningham Falls, then up to Hog Rock, Thurmont Overlook, Wolf Rock, and Chimney Rock.

Well, we got as far as Cunningham Falls before we realized that the pain in my heel wasn't simply my shoe being too big without thicker socks (at that point I had three layers of socks on) but rather the padding on the heel of my left hiking boot had worn away and all that was left was the support structure. I had a blister the size of a half-dollar forming, and by the time we got back to the car (about a 1.5 hour hike round trip) changing into my sneakers wasn't going to help.

So, we aborted our hiking plans and instead resolved to buy me a new pair of hiking shoes.

To add insult to injury (literally!) the "falls" were a trickle of water over some fairly big rocks. If I had poured my water bottle over the side, it would have practically doubled the water flow. I guess the lack of rain has diminished the amount of water flowing. Pretty lame.

Weak!

I love my car!

Yesterday, DH and I drove to the Leesburg Outlets to do a little shopping, and of course we drove the NBC. It was a little hot driving there... but we took back roads through the country that were so pretty, then took White's Ferry across the Potomac over to VA.

The ride home, however, was spectacular. DH drove home; I was feeling a little hot and tired. We drove the back roads home, and the sun was setting over these very pretty horse farms. The air had cooled and it was just so wonderful. We drove through the mini-town of Poolesville, and there was a restaurant by the side of the road with an outdoor patio; everyone sitting at those outdoor tables was watching my car drive by! And watching the sun set over the farms and rolling hills, I felt like I was living a car commercial.

It was awesome. I love my car.

I am a weak woman

Today, I saw a post on TWOP that YahooTV has the newest episode (first of the season) for my beloved TV show, Friday Night Lights. I wasn't going to watch, because it's a streaming feed that gets a little jerky at times, but I simply couldn't resist.

The episode does a fantastic job of getting us reacquainted with our favorite characters and yes, I cried. There's one storyline that I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of, but we'll see how it plays out before I make a final judgment. I mean, FNL is the greatest show on TV right now, but even the near perfect 1st season had some missteps (El Accidente - the Bobby Reyes storyline, and the racial tension storyline in Black Eyes, Black Hearts had a less-than-satisfying conclusion).

Anyway, just try not to check it out. WWRD?

On being in love...

DH and I will have been together for a whopping 10 years this November, and tonight, like most nights, there's something little that happens that makes me laugh, realize how well our lives have been integrated into one anothers.

Tonight, it was DH telling me that he was going upstairs to get the kitty food bowls to bring down and throw in the dishwasher. I had just loaded it up with tonight's dinner dishes, and it should have been a 3 minute dash up the stairs, grab all the bowls, and then back down the stairs. Ten minutes later, still no DH.

I spring upstairs to see what's up, and as I get to the top of the stairs I hear the sounds of ceramic bowls clinking together. I peek in the room and see his desk chair literally spinning. A-ha! I had caught him! He came upstairs to play on the computer, not to get the kitty bowls. I laughed and told him I caught him, and we laughed a little together, tossed some loving insults back and forth, and he ran downstairs with the kitty bowls and I jumped on the computer.

There's really nothing in this world - for me - so reassuring as spending your life with someone with whom you're completely enmeshed. We finish each others sentences, know what the other is thinking before we even say a word, make fun of something that happens with nothing more than a look. We have built our own history, our own vocabulary, our own set of cliches and silly references and inside jokes.

He knows my insecurities, my neuroses, my hang-ups, my obsessions. And he still loves me (that's a big one). My successes make him happy, rather than making him insecure.

So, because I saw the spinning chair and we both laughed, because he's outside right now taking out the garbage and watching the TV that I left on - which annoys him to no end - and because he'll yell and scream at the TV tonight and I'll yell at him to stop getting so mad about a game (and then he'll laugh at me when I cry during Friday Night Lights), I'm inspired to right this little post about how happy I am to have him, how the past ten years have flown by, and I can't wait for the next ten!

Tragedy of epic proportions

My NBC! It's been....


rained on!

Look at those raindrops, carrying their paint-oxidizing poisons!



And the top! My god, not the soft-top!


I've been a very, very bad Bug-mommy.

Shows that wreck me: Friday Night Lights

So Ray and I just finished watching the Pilot episode of Friday Night Lights (many thanks to CC and Jeffro) and I am a total emotional wreck. Knowing the storylines that follow this episode, where the characters go and what develops... and the innocence of the Pilot.... man, what can I say. I'm just wrecked.

Do yourself a favor - go out and buy the DVD of the first season of Friday Night Lights, pour yourself a glass of wine, and keep the tissue box nearby. This show takes the utterly ordinary and draws an extraordinary portrait of small town Texas life and football that will leave you breathless.

Or, tearless, since you will certainly have cried for at least 15 minutes an episode. It's so cathartic!

Darnitall!

I have been studiously avoiding driving the NBC when it was raining or forecast to rain; I want to keep the car as nice as possible for as long as possible. On top of that, I just washed the car for the first time this weekend.

This morning, the forecast called for rain this evening, with a slight (30%) chance of rain this afternoon.

It's 4:00, and this is what the local radar looks like.


I just wanted the rain to hold off until 6:15-6:30, so I could get the NBC in the garage before the heavens emptied. I don't think I am going to get my wish.

Curses! I knew I should have just driven my Saturn!

RIP LP

I was so sad to hear that Pavarotti died this morning in Italy. He's simply one of the most moving, emotional singers I've ever heard... and he's particularly good at enunciating while singing Italian, so I can understand what words he's singing.

I cry when I hear his Nessun dorma (on my iPod), I weep when I hear his Ave Maria, I laugh when I hear his La donna e mobile (on my iPod).

I remember watching him sing at the Opening Ceremony of the Torino Olympics - and even though it wasn't as strong as he was in his prime, the beauty of the tone of his voice still rang through.

Ciao Luciano. Maybe now I'll remember to pronounce your name like Bruno taught me.

Home, home from the range...

Ugh. I've just gotten home from the NOAA Leadership Seminar at the Airlie House in Warrenton, VA. The conference was pretty good; I staffed the coordinator and thought that logistically speaking, it went better than anyone should reasonably expect a conference to go. People seemed incredibly pleased with the organization and the content of the program, and the environment in general (which was lovely).

I drove the NBC to and from, picking up a co-worker along the way. I finally think that I am starting to get it. I'm still stalling, but now I'm stalling when I forget to hit the clutch when I make a quick stop and not when I am in a stop/go situation. The Beltway was JAMMED this afternoon and I managed not to stall for the entire trip.
The car isn't very fun with the top down in 90 degree weather with heavy traffic, but tons and tons of fun with the top down in 70 degree weather with little to no traffic and an empty highway.

I've got lots of stories - if I remember to tell them all! Right now I am thrilled to be home!

The kitchen saga... the light at the end of the tunnel

So today I finished painting 99.9% of the kitchen (there are a couple of spots I need to touch-up). We decided to paint it the same yellow as the living room, which is admittedly a lot of yellow. We need to add a colorful backsplash behind the stovetop and some nice red curtains for the windows, and also we want to paint the door to the garage, but I'm fairly happy with the result.

In any case, I'm happy for now... there's a deck out back that needs to be finished!

Here's a meh pic...

Good news... better news... best news...

Yeah! What a happy weekend!

The good news is that I am finally painting the kitchen. As of this morning, I'm about 1/2 way done! All I have left is actually painting 1.5 walls and second coat on the other 2! Yesterday I primed all the other walls and I painted the area behind the hood/stove a bright tangerine. I'm not sure that it's going to be the final look... but it's final for now. I should be done painting the kitchen by the end of the day!

Better news.. last night I officially replaced the flower in my NBC! It was a big step in allowing myself to accept this car into my heart. We've driven a rough road together, and there are still some rocky patches ahead (I've got to get better at this stick thing) but when we're good, we're great!

Cool discovery - when I unlock the car in the dark, with the top down, the only light that shines spotlights the flower vase. Isn't that cool? Here are some not so great pics (this is my summer flower - I plan to get flowers for every season)




Best news... I got the title to my NBC in the mail from the Maryland MVA yesterday! It's mine (and the credit union's), all mine (and the credit unions)!

My first car mod!

I'm so happy, even though I haven't had the chance to drive my NBC for almost a week because it's been raining. Tonight I finished my first car "mod" - I added a license plate frame. It's cute and looks really good on the car. Here's a not so great pic (hey - it was dark outside!):



Aren't the ladybugs cute?

I hate being sick!

So today I am home sick.... suffering from some kind of godawful sinus infection or something. I lost an entire weekend day worth of work (I was painting the kitchen! Finally!) and couldn't help DH with the deck (although he seemed to be doing quite well on his own).

I hate being sick, and I've said it often enough - that I am the worst sick person in the world. Whiny, sniffley, cranky, tired.

I hope this doesn't last too much longer. It's just wrong to be sick in the summertime.

Shameless manipulative schlock

I have to admit it... I am addicted to shameless, manipulative schlock - at least when it comes to movies. I've already admitted to my three guilty pleasure movies: Family Man, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Dates, and 50 First Dates. Tonight I caught another one of those terrible, guilty pleasures: City of Angels.

There's something about a movie whose sole purpose is to dissolve me into an inconsolable pile of sobs and tears that I just can't turn away from. It's terrible.

And what's the deal with Nick Cage? Two of my guilty pleasure movies involve him in a doomed romance with cute, tousled-haired blonds. And I hate Nick Cage... he's so weird, and odd looking.

What's wrong with me? And the freakin' Goo Goo Dolls, and Sarah McLaughlin. God! It's just so wrong.

It's official!

Today, I spent way more time than anyone should have to spend at the DMv (1.5 hours) to register, tag and apply for a Maryland title for my lil' Bug. I've been driving her lately rather than George, trying to get more practice with the stick. It seems to be working, although on my way from the DMV to the dentist and back I stalled 3 times, but I'm feeling more comfortable with the stick every day - if a little nervous at times when I don't know what to do exactly.

In any case, we'll put her new Maryland tags on her tonight, and if I think of it I'll try and find a Michaels so I can get her her new flower.

I think she's mine once the PA tags are gone... I'll introduce her properly with some spiffy new pics in a later post.

Quick post!

Yeah! Another NBC first... I drove my car to the train station this morning! This was the first time I drove by myself on open roads (neighborhood roads don't count). Man was I crazy nervous/scared. I kept repeating out loud to myself "You are in control of this car. You can drive this car. I am driving this car." to keep myself psyched up rather than out. I even made a left turn across fast oncoming traffic (my worst fear - that I would stall out in the middle of the turn). I parked it far away from all the other cars, and didn't stall out pulling into my parking spot. As a matter of fact - I didn't stall out at all!

It took about an hour for the adrenaline in my system to work itself out. But I did it! Now, for the ride home... which will likely be much more challenging.

Update: I drove home without a hitch! Stop and go traffic the whole way - including a stop-and-go, uphill, two-lane-into-one merge! Again, shaking the whole way, near tears when I got home, but I did it. And, I even enjoyed racing up my little windy road!

The humbling of lil' miss NBC-lover

While DH and I were on our sailing vacation, our Alabaman companion who was also learning to sail remarked how jealous/envious/impressed he was that I seemed to pick up the basics and mechanics of sailing so quickly (I got only one question wrong on our keelboat test, and it was because I filled in the wrong circle - I knew the answer). Anyway, I told him that I am an instinctive learner... if something makes sense to me I pick it up really, really quickly. On the other hand, if I don't pick something up quickly, it takes a really really long time for me to learn.

That is the case with driving a stick shift. DH and I ran up to Lowes and Whole Foods to pick up some thing we forgot this weekend, and I stalled pulling into the parking spot and twice on the way home. I was near tears, I was so frustrated. It's not that I haven't learned how to drive, because I can drive the car. It's that I'm not picking up the technique to drive perfectly after only a couple of times out on the open road, with the stress of traffic upon me.

I think that DH enjoys this immensely - seeing me humbled like this. It's tough, but I am trying to stay determined to stick it out! (No pun intended).

How many grocery bags fit into the trunk...

... of my NBC?

Answer: 4 - if I left the boot cover and boot cover cover and weird solar panel thing in the trunk. Probably 6 if I had taken those out before we went to the store.

Yes, I broke my first commandment today by taking the NBC to Trader Joes. I freaked out halfway there because I was wearing inappropriate shoes and my foot was slipping off the pedals (no traction left on my old sneaks), so DH had to drive the rest of the way to the store - but I did drive home. I stalled abot 4 times - but remember I haven't driven the car for two weeks! At the end of the drive home I was doing okay, but whenever I get nervous I have a tendency to rush and try and get into first gear... but rushing = stalling.

I guess I'll just have to get more practice. I love driving the car though, when I'm not nervous about stalling, or when I'm not noticing that I'm driving 20 miles over the limit (oops!)

It's a miracle!

Or at least that's how it feels to me. Today, about 4 days late, the signed, notarized title to my new VW NBC arrived in the mail. I don't have the spirit to detail the drama of the week in getting this title back from box o' rocks, but allow me to say that I was completely mentally prepared to not have this resolved for weeks.

Thank the good Lord Almighty! I almost have my new car! I am not committing to it until I get through with the Maryland MVA (aka DMV).

Housecleaning

It's been a while since I updated the little info bits on the side menu. Over the summer, I'm not really watching any TV regularly. I watched some Top Chef over the weekend, which I have a passing interest in based on the TWOP recaps that it's not the normal reality competition show, that these people are being nice and supportive of one another. And I've found it to be interesting in that respect.

I finished my semester-long lecture on Oceanography 101 long ago. I haven't been listening to very much lately. Meh.

I just bought three books at Borders the other day. Right now I am reading The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. Well-reviewed, I'm less than 50 pages into the story - which starts from the end of the story with the round up of the mutineers in the Pacific island, but so far I am definitely inspired to sail around those islands sometime in my life, based on the vivid descriptions of Tahiti and the surrounding islands.

I probably should remove the "Presidential Management Fellows" link since I have technically fulfilled most of my obligations and have converted to a full-time employee at NOAA, but I have a couple more events to do associated with them, so I'll leave it there for now.

Not that this was supposed to be an interesting post, but whatever.

Hello Mr. Postman... uh....Postal Inspector, sir

So this afternoon DH calls me at work and says "Erika, there's a call for you from Mr. So-and-so who is a postal inspector from PA and he wants to talk with you about the VW."

"Oh boy," I think, "I guess I'd better call him back."

I called, left a message, and a couple of minutes later he calls me back at work. Thankfully, it isn't really a big deal, for me anyway. The NBC isn't going to be repo'd by the government or anything, he just wanted to ask me a few questions about the deal:

- Was I related to the guy I bought it from? Ha! Very funny, but no. Turns out the guy I bought it from (box o' rocks) told them he was going to transfer the lease to his sister. Whoops.

- Did I get a good deal? This was a tough question; the PI was concerned that the "victim" would question why the car didn't generate any profit to cover his/her losses. I answered honestly; I would have paid several thousand dollars more at a dealership, maybe a little bit more in a proper private party sale, but I thought that the price I paid was about what a dealer would offer if the car was traded in, which is why I bought it.

- Follow-up question: "Would you have paid $1k more for the car?" Probably not.

- "Did I offer him any cash/money when getting the car or did he ask for any money when I went to pick up the car?" No... money went straight to VW; I didn't give him a dime.

After those questions were answered (as well as some others: did I know him before O bought the car, how did I find out that there was a situation with the car, yada yada yada) the nice Mr. PI and I chatted a bit about box o'rocks and what was going on. Turns out that the big charges are wire and mail fraud (the money-laundering thing equals small potatoes in comparison to mail/wire fraud) for which he'll likely be convicted in about 6 months (apparently he confessed some of his wrongdoing to stave off being caught, so I am not sure whether they are investigating to make sure that he confessed all of it or what). His wife apparently doesn't know half of what was going on; the PI told me that none of that part is technically criminal, but if she knew she would likely have divorced him in a heartbeat (after I shared that she was mighty P.O.'d when we were there). Also, interestingly enough, the guy is more or less a pathological liar, combined with being a complete idiot. Very interesting.

All in all it was a very congenial conversation that didn't make me nervous at all. I told Mr. PI that I was happy to supply any emails or anything about the car. I also asked if the Federal marshalls were going to be calling, and he said "Nah, I'll share this info with them and likely they won't care"

Honestly, I wasn't nervous at any point. I'm kind of glad that he called, actually, because otherwise I might have always wondered about that dangling loose thread of "The Feds!" and now, I have nothing more to worry about. Cool.

Thank you... whoever you are

Someone asked me recently if I was watching Discovery Channel's "Shark Week," knowing that I was a keen fan of the beasties. I let them know that no, I was not, because they persisted in portraying sharks as viscious human predators rather than the unfortunate victims of man's quest to dominate and rape the oceans of their riches.

I have no idea who Gilbert Arenas is (I think he plays for the Washington DC NBA team, whose mascot/team symbol I don't know since they changed it from the Bullets - hehehe) but he apparently has a blog, which I learned about on the Washington Post's Celebritology Chat with Liz Kelly, and on this blog he posted the following missive about sharks, with which I happen to agree:

"There Are No Such Thing as Shark Attacks
I know this is random, but I just want to clear this up for people out there.
There are these things called shark attacks, but there is no such thing as a shark attack. I have never seen a real shark attack.

I know you’re making a weird face as you’re reading this. OK people, a shark attack is not what we see on TV and what people portray it as.

We’re humans. We live on land.

Sharks live in water.

So if you’re swimming in the water and a shark bites you, that’s called trespassing. That is called trespassing. That is not a shark attack.

A shark attack is if you’re chilling at home, sitting on your couch, and a shark comes in and bites you; now that’s a shark attack. Now, if you’re chilling in the water, that is called invasion of space. So I have never heard of a shark attack.

When I see on the news where it’s like, “There have been 10 shark attacks,” I’m like, “Hey, for real?! They’re just running around? Sharks are walking now, huh! We live on the land, we don’t live underwater.”

He gets it right... so why does the Discovery Channel have to continue to garner ratings (which I've heard haven't been so hot lately) by using the pseudo-Jaws music and focusing on the rare cases when a man-shark interaction results in injury or death to the man? The opposite result - and Asian hunger for shark-fin soup - is emptying our oceans of these majestic creatures that have been in existence in some form since the time of the dinosaurs. I'd like to see them show the documentary that came out recently on the impact that the longline and shark-finning fisheries are having on shark populations (name I can't remember right now)

Man, if they just made soapboxes a little taller, I might not be able to get up on them so easily. Cheers to you Mr. Arenas, whoever you are, for your keen insight into shark attacks.

How sweet it is..

So DH and I are home from the crazy family reunion, and I have to say that I am glad that we went, but more glad that we opted to come home tonight rather than stay overnight with at my grandparents.

Most importantly - I DROVE - the entire 3 hour (normally 2 hour) drive to my grandparents! This included getting to the gas station, driving 270 and the Beltway, the EZ pass toll at the Bay Bridge, and, most intimidatingly, stop and go traffic for MILES on Rt 50 and 404 in MD and DE. I did stall 3-4 times, but recovered quickly and it wasn't a big deal. The car is SO much fun to drive, but a little dangerous, because all it takes is the slightest tap of the gas and WHAM! You're driving 80-85 miles an hour. I drove about 1/2 way home; my contacts dried out and my eyes were strained, so we had to pull over and let DH drive.

It started raining as soon as we exited 270 on the way home - and the top was naturally down with the cover on, so the interior got rained on a weee bit. But I had a towel so I dried it all off quickly.

Randomicity

This weekend DH and I are going to a family reunion in Easton, MD. It ought to be, well, interesting. It's my grandfather's family and they're getting on in years. I'm thinking that these events aren't going to happen for too much longer, so might as well do it while we can.

I found out today that VW is going to declare the title for my NBC "lost," which means that they are going to have to apply for a duplicate title, which is going to have to be sent to the guy from whom I bought the car, who then has to sign off on it and send to me, so I can apply for a MD state title. You know, this great deal isn't looking so peaches and cream anymore. I don't think that I am going to have the title for another 2 weeks at this point, which is rather ridiculous.

We're in desperate need of rain; for some reason all of the rain that has been in the area has passed south of us. I'd really like for my garden to get a good soaking, and I think that I need to fertilize or something because my Roma tomato bush is suffering from blossom end rot. The tomatoes aren't coming on as strong as I would like them to, either. I don't know whether its the weather or the two weeks of neglect while we were on vacation, but the garden is in a sorry state.

My feets are still aching from yesterday's activities. Poor things - and I wanted to wear cute shoes tomorrow, Doesn't look like that's going to happen now.

Oh what a circus!

Today I spent my entire day in Alexandria where the NOAA ship Thomas Jefferson is docked for three days, hosting public tours for VIPs and summer-camp kids and the general public. Needless to say I am beyond exhausted. I made a poor choice of footwear (heeled sandles) for navigating downtown Alexandria's hilly brick sidewalks. I walked from King St Metro down to the waterfront in those poor sandles and destroyed my poor feet (15-20 blocks...I was nuts, but this morning's weather wasn't bad). And this afternoon was hot and humid and I was not a happy camper. And the trip from Alexandria to Silver Spring (via Metro) was really, really long.

Ugh.

I did get a choco-vanilla twist frozen custard at the Scoop Grille on King St, and I do really like the area (when can we go guys?). I will, however, make a much more educated and intelligent choice in footwear.

Here are some pics I took:


Stern shot


Bow shot


Flag shot


Poor-little-kid-whose-parents-dressed-him-like-a-Nancy-boy shot

It's the pen-penultimate countown

If you're a fan of the CBS show "How I Met your Mother" (and if you aren't - catch up on this smart funny show PDQ!) then you know that Marshall has 3 slaps left in his slap bet against Barney! Thankfully, CBS has offered us this handy-dandy countdown clock to Slap #3 - the pen-penultimate slap.

Congrats too to Doogie Howser - a.k.a. Swarley - on the Emmy nod!

First SOLO drive!

So tonight I had an inkling to take the NBC out for a spin... solo. And I did it. My first solo drive - exactly three miles down to the lake, turn around in a parking lot, practice parking once, and then back home. I even did it with the radio on!

I stalled once at a stop sign at a fairly busy little intersection, but I didn't panic! I just turned the car back on and was on my way (although I think that I screwed up traffic a little bit), and one time I left my foot on the gas pedal a little when I put in the clutch, which caused the engine to rev momentarily before I lifted my foot off the gas. But that was okay too!

I'm so proud of me. And many thanks to the many people who have tried to teach me to drive stick over the years! It's finally working!

Yeah! Now if only the title would get here already!

First post-vacation weekend

Ahhh, the weekend. Everyone's weekly vacation - except when you've been on vacation. DH and I actually got quite a bit accomplished:

- Friday night, to raise our spirits, we got the ultimate happy-food - Indian. Yummy. Life just never can be bad with some yummy Tikka Masala (oh so yummy)

- Saturday morning we picked another 6 lbs of blueberries at Butler's Orchard. We were hoping to snag a few blackberries as well, but it looks like it's going to be another 2 weeks before they really come on

- Saturday afternoon we took the NBC (New Beetle Convertible) for a drive at Black Hills Regional Park. I drove a little, stalled out trying to avoid hitting some woman pushing someone in a wheelchair in the middle of the road (and avoiding oncoming traffic), and we tried to ascertain whether there would be enough breeze to sail a little Sunfish sailboat (maybe!!)

- Sunday afternoon we finished the structural part of the little raised section of the deck! Yeah! Now we have to order all the floorboards and start re-laying the deck. We also brought a whole ton of stuff to the dump!

On top of all that, DH got his much needed haircut, I watched Evita on On-Demand, and the assorted normal weekend chores.

NBC's title should arrive tomorrow! Crossing my fingers that it's all good!

St John vs. Grand Cayman - no contest

To be fair and in the interest of complete and honest disclosure, DH and I have spent 3 wonderful vacation on St John, USVI, and one vacation on Grand Cayman. Being so enamored with St John has clearly colored the lens through which I viewed Grand Cayman. They are two completely different islands, with different histories, cultures, perspectives on tourism, etc. Nonetheless, I'll go ahead and compare them with my thoughts since it is a question commonly raised on travel boards.

Topography/geography - Winner: St John.
Grand Cayman is generally flat, with few distinguishing geographic features. It's like a tropical version of Delaware, and if you have ever driven a distance through Delaware, you'll understand how boring it is. Sadly, Grand Cayman was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and has not fully recovered in terms of foliage or in infrastructure, which leaves bits of ugliness in full view.

St John, in contrast, has been lucky not to have been struck by any hurricanes since I believe Marilyn in 1995. It is a lush and green island, and more importantly, mountainous, which makes driving both challenging but also interesting. It also offers superior choices for non-water based activities like hiking. It's a common statement that the mountainousness of St John makes the water less clear than Cayman because of the runoff - but we've never seen that to be the case. St Johns many coves are actually much better protected from wave action (gosh, I don't think we saw any wave action on any beach with the exception of Drunk Bay on St John) whereas Caymans beaches are mostly exposed, protected only by the barrier reef ringing the entire island, which dampens but doesn't quell most wave action. This silts up the nearshore areas on Grand Cayman more than any runoff silting we ever saw on St John.

Beaches: Winner - St John (with a caveat)
My ideal beach is secluded, ringed with tropical green foliage, and private. Size is not an issue - the beach could be just a couple of yards wide across and to the waterline. This describes St John's beaches perfectly. There are several places where you could potentially be the only person at the beach at any given time. Because most of the beaches are inside of the National Park, there are not towers of condos and hotels lining beaches - eradicating all traces of palms and sea grapes from view.

In contrast, Cayman's signature beach is 7 mile beach, which is beautiful in its own right - powder white sand, gin colored water, etc. But it's so darn crowded - whether it be by beach toys, people, buildings, stuff in the water to mark swimming areas seperate from boating/motorized areas. Just not my style. Now some people love the idea of a perfect sand beach with all these amenities there to entertain you, but that's not me. I'm entertained by quiet, and good snorkeling.

The East End of Cayman is the closest one gets to a comparable St John experience. The big "but" here is that it is really challenging to find those great spots. There are no signs marking anything but public beaches, and there is so much water front development either there or in progress you're never really sure whether you might be intruding on someone's private property. Not fun. The closest we got was on the beach near the Queen's Monument, where there was fantastic snorkeling, a secluded little beach (somewhat) and very few other people to be seen.

Tourist Services: Winner - St John (hands down, no doubt about it!)
While I think that accomodations on St John might be more expensive than those on Cayman (much more competition on Cayman, only two real resorts on St John) the restaurants on St John are much more reasonable in price, value, and quality (in my opinion). I just felt like we had a lot more choices for reasonably priced meals on St John, and they were far more accessible regardless of where you were staying. Now, I'm not being fair in that Grand Cayman is 22 miles end to end vs. St John's 8 - but it's not my fault that Grand Cayman hasn't done a better job of locating some of it's tourist infrastructure on the East End to compensate.

One huge disparity was the ease of finding beaches and neat places to explore. On St John everything is marked with a sign - from trailheads to beaches. This is mostly because these places are within a National Park, which provides the basis for marking all these places with the ubiquitous brown and white signs. It really made it so much easier and less stressful for us on our first trips to have all those signs, so we could match our research with our location.

I can't think of a lot of other things to compare the two on. Driving on St John might be a lot more challenging because of the hairpin turns, hilly roads, and unexpected beasties wandering around (donkeys and goats and cows, oh my!) There isn't a lot of "entertainment" infrastructure on St John, like clubs and jet ski rentals and parasailing and whatnot. Of course, that's why we prefer it. Cayman can't do anything about it's topography and it certainly caters to a different kind of tourist - but they could appeal to the St John crowd by making those secret spots a little less difficult to find, limiting the amount of waterfront development to keep secret beaches and pretty little coves from feeling like someone's private property, and spreading out some of the basic tourist infrastructure (like places to eat) to the East End to help people who want to stay out there.

Different strokes for different folks. Thank goodness for that. Now I'm just wondering how I can get back to St John!

Grand Cayman vacation review - Part 2

Days 9-12: Sunshine Suites Resort, Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman

Friday we packed up all our things and moved across the island to meet up with the dive club we were diving with at Sunshine Suites. The first thing that you notice when you get closer to the west side of Grand Cayman is the ridiculous traffic. Truly unbearable for people who are trying to get away from it on vacation. We found the "resort" easily enough. It is actually down a block and across a very, very busy streen from Seven Mile Beach. I was completely unimpressed by Seven Mile Beach itself - it looked like Miami Beach, replete with water bikes, jet skis, and all other sorts of watersports junk. Not my cup of tea at all, frankly, but I know that it suits other much more. Different strokes for different folks.

Our room was a first floor unit with a queen bed, regular-sized fridge, microwave, and stovetop (two burners). There was no balcony or private patio, which became a huge issue. This place caters to divers, I believe, and without a patio or balcony you don't have anywhere to hang/leave your stuff to dry. Everything we had was more or less constantly wet, which was really annoying and after a couple of days, really stinky. On our last full day we found the rinse tanks and storage room where divers could leave their gear to dry, but even that was pretty inadequate. Not pleased with that at all.

This part of our vacation was nothing but dive, dive, dive. Similar to the beginning of our vacation, there was never enough time to wind down from the activities of the day. In hindsight, we are not really "crazy divers" and a two-tank morning dive for two or three days over a vacation would probably be plenty for us in the future. The best past of being with the dive club was absolutely the social aspect. I really had an awful lot of fun with the people we met, and after being together 24/7 for the past 9 days, I am sure that DH and I appreciated having someone else to talk to besides each other.

We dove with Divers Down, and sadly it really wasn't optimal. They advertise that they don't usually dive with more than 8 divers at a time, but we always had at least 11 divers aboard (likely because we were on this organized trip that things were done differently). It was pretty crowded and overwhelming at times for the divemasters I think. Our first dive was a complete mess (unexpectedly strong current, divemaster who didn't read the crowd well, etc) but subsequent dives were better. There were just a lot of them. The most disappointing thing for me, I think, is that we rarely saw anything different than what we saw snorkeling, in terms of sealife. Oh well.

Our flights down and back were fairly uneventful - with Miami Airport causing the most stress with their out of control construction and confusing signage and whatnot. We spent way more than we anticipated spending, and never felt like we got a good value for our money. Food was ridiculously expensive at restaurants on both Grand Cayman and Captiva, and not good enough to command those prices. We almost always come back from vacation feeling like we need another vacation, but this time, for me at least, that feeling is especially strong. Unfortunately, it looks like mini-weekend retreats are all that we'll be able to afford for a while! C'est la vie. We have a deck to finish, a new car to pay for, and credit card bills that will haunt us until September!

I don't want to end this on a down note, so I will say that when we were having time to relax, it was nice. I read "To Kill a Mockingbirg" for the first time in one afternoon sitting on a comfortable beach chair at The Reef Resort's beach. We did meet some very funny, interesting, and friendly folks diving that made the time diving very fun. We did learn some skills and get credentials that will allow us to take vacations in the future that interest us. Most important of all, DH and I left work behind for 12 days and spent time together doing stuff we love, and all our memories - good and bad - will make great anecdotes to tell over and over again!

Florida and Grand Cayman vacation review - Part 1

I think that it's time to post a little review of all we did on vacation. I think that I'll post a follow-up comparing Cayman to St John, since it's a frequent question on travel message boards.

Days 1-5: Captiva Island, Fl. South Seas Resort. Offshore Sailing School's Learn to Sail class

The resort: We had a 3rd floor harborview room with a garden tub, balcony overlooking the harbor, two queen beds, and in-room fridge. The resort itself is actually quite large, and it took 10 minutes to get from Captiva's main road to where we were staying. The room was clean, nice view, stayed cool. There were an awful lot of kids there (understandable since we were there the weekend after the 4th of July, so probably lots of vacationing families). Not my favorite place in the world but the beaches were nice, there was an amazing variety of birdlife around the resort (lots of Ospreys, pelicans, assorted herons, ibises, etc). If we hadn't been doing the sailing class I would never have stayed there on my own. That being said, there was probably the opportunity to do some nice kayaking along the wildlife sanctuary and stuff.

The sailing class: From 8-5 for three days straight, the instructor was wonderful and patient (his name was Biete!) and I really feel like we learned a lot. The boats (Colgate 26) were purpose-perfect; lots of room in the cockpit, sheets clearly labeled, etc). It didn't give us an awful lot of time to unwind from the hard day's work, but that was the nature of the class (there was an extended course that would allow you afternoons to do the vacation thing). Would definitely take another class with the school. Learning to sail was pretty expensive, though, like all of our hobbies it seems.

Days 5-9: The Reef Resort, Grand Cayman.

This was supposed to be the relaxing part of our vacation. The Reef Resort is located on the northeast corner of Grand Cayman, easily a 50 minute drive from the airport along a very boring road. Frankly, I was unimpressed with Grand Cayman overall, but more on that later. The resort itself was pretty nice. We had a second floor Deluxe Studio which was an end unit, balcony overlooking the pool and beach. King size bed, jacuzzi tub, small fridge and microwave and toaster, and some basic kitchen supplies. The walls were paper thin such that you could hear everything in the neighboring room, and the tiled walkways meant that you could hear every sound elsewhere (like people dropping brooms or mops or whatever with a loud clatter). I didn't really like how two rooms were entered through a single door with a little entryway. (We were in room 206B, there was a room 206A, you entered both through a door marked 206 and walked through a little tiled entryway to get to your own door). That entryway just echoed all the noise from other people entering their room, which was annoying. Not a fan.

DH and I normally love being remote and secluded from the tourist meccas at our various vacation destinations, but Grand Cayman doesn't support this very well - or at least the resort made it a little challenging. There was a restaurant on site, but almost every night we were there there was some "special" resort thing going on that made eating there impossible. Monday nights the restaurant is closed, fair enough to give the staff a day off (common in Europe). Tuesday and Thursday nights are "Barefoot Man" performances, where you have the privelege of paying too much to order off an extremely limited menu and listen to this guys music (hopefully you like it, if not you're SOL!) Wednesday night they did some kind of outdoor Mexican night thing; I have to admit that was a night when we went out for dinner, so I am not sure whether you could eat a normal dinner at the restaurant or not.

None of this would have been an issue, had there been more restaurants on the East End of the island. We went out twice - driving 30+ minutes both times - to virtually the only options available to us. This was a big turn-off for us. I'll tell the little story about our last East end restaurant drive another time, but suffice it to say that there just isn't enough infrastructure on the East End to keep a tourist who wants to stay away from the madness of 7 mile beach happy for an extended period of time.

Finally, it was near impossible to identify good beaches with snorkeling on the East End as there are few to no signs indicating destinations. We had read about a couple of spots online and were able to figure out one (Queen's Monument). Overall, it just felt like to much work to stay away from the crowds on Grand Cayman.

There was good snorkeling and a nice beach at The Reef Resort, but so many people who were inexperienced or poor snorkelers kicked up so much silt that it made it difficult to see as the afternoon wore on.

This post is getting too long - I'll continue it in the next post.

More pictures from vacation...

So the pictures that we took were pretty crappy, sadly. Maybe I'll load some of them onto the blog (the ones that weren't as bad). However, I do have some pics that were taken by one of the dive instructors on our trip.


Me diving, unfortunately with my alternate and SPG hanging off me. Bad diver!



Me 'n' DH, cute as can be


STINGRAY ATTACK!


Hey! A picture of Brian rather than a picture by Brian!

Introducing... Brian Vallelunga photography

So, on our dive trip we met one very funny Brian Vallelunga, from Adams Morgan. He's a great photographer, and was brave enough to bring some very expensive equipment onto a very wet dive boat. He took these pictures:





This is my favorite picture



His Flickr gallery with all his pictures from our dive trip is here.

I'm back!

We got home about 11pm last night after traveling for what seemed like forever. Miami airport is a total clusterf*&k, everything else went fairly smoothly. It was nice to be home and have kitties piled on me while I slept. I went out to the garden this morning to check on how out of control it was, and there were about 7 baseball bat sized zucchinis taking over the place. Hopefully picking them will allow some little ones to come to life. The tomato plants are a little thin - but maybe some training of the vines will help. Things did seem well watered, though.

Tonight I'll try and download the pics and videos we took on vacation - and also upload some pics taken by those we met down on Cayman. It was a fun trip - perhaps slightly overscheduled - and we met some really fun people!

We're comin' home!

After 12 days of being on vacation - it's time to come home! We've done SO much - except really relax. Well, that's not really true, there were one or two days where we totally vegged, but they were the minority. Actually, it's kind of time to come home - we miss the kitties and I know my garden is out of control. And then there is the new Beetle stuff I have to do (like learn how to drive it!)

As we always say, we need a vacation from our vacation! Miami Customs and Immigration here we come! Yea!

Cool stuff that we've seen/done so far

It's been two long, hot days learning to sail. I think that before we left, I thought that DH was going to enjoy sailing far more than I; the reality is that I think that I have a much more instinctual feel for it, while he's trying to engineer/techie it and deconstruct what happening and understand what's going on and what to do in a very sequential, orderly fashion. In any case, it's been great fun and I love sailing.

We've seen tons of dolphins both days, but today we had a dolphin come up right alongside the boat. Then he swam off, leaping into the air and doing bellyflops three times... that was pretty cool. We saw a couple of turtles surface for air. We also saw two manatees as we were pulling into the harbor. They were so sweet, but it breaks my heart to see the boat prop scars across their backs.

We also saw a Beetle that looks exactly like mine driving around the islands! So exciting.

Blogging on Vacation - that's unpossible

Well, it's a wired society and we're all wedded to our technology... so here I am blogging on vacation. We're on a 1/2 hour break from our first day of our sailing class (all classroom thus far - haven't been on the water yet). The weather is okay - intermittently cloudy and threatening to rain mixed with bright, hot sunshine. The resort we're at (South Seas Resort on Captiva) is a little family-friendly for my personal taste (there are loud kids everywhere... I can't wait to get out on the water where there won't be any). I'm looking forward to doing this class and then going on to Cayman to our decidedly more private, more remote, and likely less family-centric resort.

The flight was uneventful, the pick-up of our rental car painless, and driving to the resort was okay. The scenery is nice - since most of the area is a wildlife refuge.

Ah! Time for sailing!

Weather Update; Follow Up

So we're under a tornado watch here in G-town, which is so weird. There was actually a documented tornado here (maybe about 5 miles from where I live) a couple of years ago; I'm just worried that a storm will knock over my tomato supports again. There's some pretty significant thunder rumbling in the area, though. Hmmm, this could get interesting.

I've spent nearly the entire day cleaning the house - like really cleaning it. I don't know why, but every time we leave for vacation I spend the day before cleaning the whole house - cleaning the kitchens and bathrooms, vacuuming, changing bedsheets and whatnot. It's got some logic to it - there's nothing more stressful than coming home to a messy house, but at the same time it is a bit odd. At least I won't come home to a sinkful of dishes, dirty bedsheets, and an icky bathroom. The cat hair will cover the couch again, I'm sure.

I also put the car cover that came with my New Bug on him today. It's custom made for the car, so it fits like a glove. The cutest thing was that it had these two little pouches for the side-view mirrors that looked like little ears! So the Bug has been put to bed until we return.

Weather Update

So I added two little weather tracker things for the two places we'll be on vacation; Captiva, FL and Grand Cayman. Somehow I don't think that the differences between the weather here and the weather there will be as dramatic as it would have been had I gone on vacation in, say, February.

As long as the little weather tracker thing doesn't say 'hurricane conditions' I'll be happy.

Crossing my fingers that we have a good flight tomorrow with all the Great Britain drama.

More Bug pics

So the Beetle is still in the garage. I messed up the loan check I wrote out for the car and have to send a replacement, so in the garage the Beetle stays until its paperwork is all clear. But no need to not have a few more pics:


Pic of DH driving the Bug, as viewed in my rearview mirror. I'm surprised this came out so well without me causing an accident.


A girl and her Bug.... feel the love.

No more blueberries :(

Last Sunday DH and I picked 9 lbs of bluberries at Butler's Orchard in Germantown with Jeffro and CC. Tonight, I put the last 1/4 cup of blueberries in the freezer for future muffins, pancakes, or waffles. And thus ended our haul of berries. It actually took us less than a week to go through 9 lbs of blueberries - that last 1/4 cup has been in the fridge for 3-4 days.

I'm sure that there's someone out there who can do the math of how many antioxidants or whatever DH and I each got from eating about 4.5 lbs of berries in a week.

I guess we'll have to get more once we get back from vacation!

Things I have found cleaning out "George": Part 1

As I prep my 1995 Saturn "George" for sale, I'm sure I'm going to find a lot of interesting artifacts. Today, I started vacuuming the backseat area and I found:

- An old test prep tape for taking the NASD Series 6 licensing exam; this was for variable contracts.

- An old Russian conversation tape (from my Russian class a hundred years ago)

I'm sure there's lots more treasure hidden in my trunk, under my seats, and elsewhere. Stay tuned for next exciting installment of "What's in Erika's car?"