I Did It!

Wow! The week is over and it went so much faster than I had expected. It’s amazing how fast your days fly by when you spend 2-3 hours a day floating in the pool. Which is exactly what I did. It was a whole lot of nothing and I enjoyed every moment of it.

I brought paints and canvas just in case. I brought a couple of books, just in case. I brought various work related projects just in case. But not once did I find myself saying, “Gee, I have 4 more hours till (fill in the blank), what should I do?” Nope, not once. The answer was always obvious. “The sun is still shining, I think I’ll spend another hour floating in the pool.” Really, I’m not kidding. That is all I did. Well, that, and eat, and sleep.

And what do I have to show for it? What have I accomplished? What project have I marked off my list? What new knowledge have I squeezed into my middle aged & muddled brain? Nothing. Nadda. Zero. Squat.

Vacation.

Accomplished.

Each Night the Same, Only Different

All this week we've celebrated cocktail hour with a scotch on the rocks for me and a gin & tonic for Sam. And then we cook dinner, a fabulous, amazing sumptuous dinner, and we eat by the pool. Here is just one example:


And then night falls and we sit by the glow of the pool and drink wine and talk and listen to music (lots of Brandi Carlile) and talk some more, and finish the wine, and listen to more Brandi Carlile.

It looks kind of like this:


















And one night, after a particularly good bottle of wine, we decided to go night swimming. And it looked.... um, well, never mind.

Elliott the Cat

This is Elliott the Cat. Not to be confused with Terry’s son, Elliott the Boy, who also lives here on occasion. I’ve known Elliott the Cat for a long time, maybe 10 years now. Really? Is Elliott that old? Well, I am not sure about that, but for this post, let’s make it so.

Despite knowing Elliott all these years, I am only just this weekend really getting to know what a little character he is.

First off, Elliott is the tiniest adult cat I’ve ever met. Even Olive, Val’s cat across the street back home is bigger than Elliott. Elliott is sporting a Lion Cut this summer which makes him look even smaller, but mightier of course, what with the fluffy tail and regal cheek fur.

The thing I love about cats is that they are so easy to humanize. Not so dogs. I am crazy about Boulder, but it’s hard to describe her overall personality, other than you basic happy go lucky. But cats are a different story. They have complex personalities, just like humans. And Elliott is no exception.

If Elliott were human, he would be a gay man. A very slight, and delicate gay man, with exquisite taste in brandy and a penchant for investment grade clothing. He would right this moment be wearing a silk smoking jacket with an ascot tie. He is really just that elegant. He lifts his paws with the grace of a ballet dancer and his movements are airy and fluid. Although he is slight of build, he sports the kind of portly little belly that comes with age. And from certain angles I can see the old man in him, the old man in undershirt just getting ready to shave.

Like most cats, Elliott feigns indifference at various parts of the day. At these times I am sure he is put off by our casual dress and awkward gait. But I’ve noticed he is consistently in the same room as we are and he frequently comes by for a chin scratching. And at night when we are in bed, he snuggles in with us, keeping our feet warm throughout the night. These are slips I am sure he prefer we not make public as they would surely tarnish his finely honed image.

Elliott, your secret is safe with us.

Cool Things In the Kitchen

Terry is a wonderful and amazing cook and his kitchen is a reflection of that. Sam and I love good food, and we even love to prepare it, but we don’t have near the skills or the tools that Terry has. So, we have been looking forward to using the kitchen and have been hoping some of Terry’s talent might magically give us a boost while we are here.

Already there are a few things I plan to do as soon as I get home, including putting my olive oil in a container like this with its own little spigot. And I MUST find a little spigot like this for my balsamic vinegar. You just feel like a more sophisticated cook when these grace your stove top.


I also want a sunny yellow pot like this one. The color alone makes me happy. We used it to boil water for corn on the cob and I swear it was the best corn we have ever had. Kind of strange to get the best ever corn on the cob in Florida rather than in Kansas or Missouri or Nebraska, but I am not kidding you about this.

Other to die for foods we’ve had in the last 36 hours: heirloom tomatoes just harvested from the garden with oil & vinegar, salt & pepper, and a slice of fresh mozzarella. Creamy sweet potatoes and fresh grapefruit. We also discovered something in the pantry called Mona’s Granola, which is hands down the best granola I’ve ever had. I am topping it with whole milk which feels so decadent to me I can barely stand it.

The Trouble With Not Having Enough To Do

We’re here and it feels like home.

The first thing Sam did Friday after unpacking was to get in the pool. I sat on the side with my feet in the water and fought back anxiety. What would I do for an entire week? I realized how much I am not used to having this sort of free time. Eight long days stretched out in front of me. What would I ever do to keep myself occupied? I’d brought books and magazines, I even brought a sketch pad and paints, and of course I had my computer, but still? Valuable time was going to be slipping away, time in which I could be GETTING THINGS DONE! VERY IMPORTANT THINGS! THAT NEEDED DONE! RIGHT AWAY!

Ohhh, I needed this vacation more than I’d thought. And it wasn’t going to be easy.

After we’d explored the house and the pool and the yard and read all the notes Sandy and Terry had left, we decided to go buy groceries and wine. I love shopping in a new grocery store. Everything is different. The brands are different. The produce is different. The bakery is different. You never know what you might find.

We loaded up on fresh fruit and veggies and bread and steaks. We bought wine and mixers and then we brought it all home and cooked in the outdoor kitchen. We grilled steaks and asparagus, and had baked sweet potatoes and salad and we ate it all outdoors next to the pool, while listening to music from my I-pod.

Heaven! Heaven I tell you! And then we laid on the lounge chairs next to the pool and listened to more music and talked and watched the sky and listened to the critters in the trees until finally we were sleepy.

We crawled into bed with the ceiling fan on high and we slept. And I mean we slept. For more than 12 hours we slept. We had to get up before 11 in order to meet Mike, the regular house sitter who came by to answer questions and show us some of the “tricks” with the house. But as soon as he left, we went back to bed! Can you believe it? We slept until nearly 3 pm. And it wasn’t that heavy, headachy sleep you have when you are sleeping too much. Nope, this was cozy, restful sleep. And we woke up refreshed. Ready to start the day. Of course the day was nearly over. But we have 7 more days so who cares?!

I will admit that my sleep was not entirely blissful. I spent a few hours in the early morning worrying and dreaming about never, ever being able to find a good tenant with which to share our building. I turned the problem over and over in my sleepy but anxious brain, beating myself up for not being up and out of bed GETTING THINGS DONE that would help the situation. See what I mean about this vacation not being easy? Apparently I’ll have to drag my brain kicking and screaming towards this relaxation thing.

A Lesson in the Risks of Valet Parking

Our alarm goes off at 6:00am, just like it does every morning, but this morning is different. Instead of snoozing till 7:00, we have to get up so that Katherine can drive us to the airport.

Boulder is at the end of the bed and I reach down and pull her up against me so I can bury my face in her fur one last time. The only thing I regret about our vacation is the fact that I will be away from Boulder for so long. Who would have ever thought I would become so attached to this crazy dog!

As we are loading the Murano, my suitcase malfunctions and we can’t get the handle to slide back down inside the case. Thank goodness this happens in our driveway instead of at the airport. So much for my careful packing – I stuff everything into the new suitcase and we are off.

On the airplane, Sam and I try to remember the last time we took a week long vacation together. We realize we haven’t done it since our honeymoon in October 2000. We’ve taken lots of long weekends, even some Wednesday through Sunday trips, but nothing longer. The realization makes us giddy!

We land in Jacksonville without incident and catch the shuttle to Jax Park where Terry and Sandy have left their car valet parked for us. The lady behind the desk takes our credit card, gives us our key, and sends us on our way. But the key belongs to a Buick, and Sandy & Terry drive a Mercedes. Hmmm.



We go back in and explain to the woman behind the desk that our car is a Mercedes. She looks at the key and matches it to the small tan envelope it came from, “Nope,” she declares, “this is a Buick. This is your number, 0-696, so this is your car. It’s not a Mercedes.”

If the situation had been reversed, I like to think Sam and I might have turned to each other and said, “Well then, that clears it up! Sandy & Terry must have traded in the Buick for this Mercedes and simply forgot to mention it to us. What a nice surprise! We will be on our merry way!”

I am not sure how Jax Park would have worked that out with the true owner of the Mercedes, but the lady behind the counter seemed to exude an air of certainty that I am sure would have convinced the owner that he did indeed drive a Buick.

But since we were being asked to take this Buick instead of the Mercedes, we were not so easily convinced. We stayed firm, no easy task with this woman, until she finally took us seriously and began looking around the small office, trying to figure out what to do.

She disappeared into the back, and then would reappear at the desk again, opening and closing small envelopes.

Every so often she would ask us, “Ford?”

We: “No.”

She: “Chrysler?”

We: “No, Mercedes”

She: “Oh.”

30 second pause.

She: “Buick?”

We: “No.”

She: “Honda?”

We” “Mercedes!”

She: “Oh, right, just checking.”

Was she testing us? Or just not very bright? I think it was the latter, but it was hard to tell.

At one point, after being in the back for several minutes, she walked out, looked right at Sam and asked, “May I help you?” I am not kidding! I couldn’t help myself, I rolled my eyes and let out a frustrated sigh to which she responded, “Well, I didn’t know!”

Indeed, she did not. And then I knew it was the latter.

After some time passed, she asked us if we wanted to help. We followed her into the back room, and there we saw rows of shelves, filled with long wooden trays, each stuffed with 30 or more tiny, tan envelopes. We had to open each envelope to check for a Mercedes key inside. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I thought it would take us hours, but the 3rd tray I searched held a key to a Mercedes, and upon further inspection, I was able to see that the car had been brought in on June 11th, the day Sandy & Terry left. And, the number was 0-670, just one ticket off from the 0-696 ticket we had originally been given. It seemed like a fair match. They brought the car around and Hallelujah, it was indeed Sandy & Terry’s car!



We talked them into refunding the $19 valet charge for our trouble, and we were off. Our vacation had begun!

Anatomy of a Vacation

Sam and I are on vacation. A real vacation. The sort of vacation that is long enough, and hopefully relaxing enough, to really, or almost nearly, forget about the crazy, hectic, jam packed days that make up the rest of our life.

Not that we want to forget, we love that part of our life and are choosing to live it. But for heaven’s sake – these last 2 years have been insane!!! So when our friends Terry & Sandy mentioned back in January that they would be spending 2 weeks in Italy in June, Sam and I mentioned that we would be available to take care of heir house while they were away. Our offer was completely selfless of course.

We enjoy the heck out of Terry and Sandy – but their house – well there is just something downright spiritual about it. The first time we visited them after they moved from Kansas City to St. Augustine, Florida, we nearly cancelled the trip the day before we left. We were stressed and frazzled and had been traveling a lot the past 2 months, and the last thing we were looking forward to was another weekend of travel. But we got on the plane anyway, and something happened as soon as we walked through the front doors of their house. We relaxed. I mean we really relaxed. We slept better than we’d slept in years. We both slept the entire night without waking, something that never happens for either of us. And then we kept on sleeping. And when we finally awoke, we were rested. Rested. Sigh….

We’ve been back since and it’s the same thing. We sleep. We eat. We sleep. We talk. We sleep. We eat. We talk. And we leave deeply relaxed.

So you can see why we selflessly offered, ahem, I mean, asked, ok we practically begged, to stay at their house while they were away. Being good friends, and gracious to boot, they readily agreed.

I took home some sea shells from the beach that weekend to remind me of what I had to look forward to. I kept them in a little arrangement on the shelf in my bathroom and each morning while I was getting ready I would remind myself that I was going to get to spend a week in Florida at Terry & Sandy’s house. Ahhhh. I could almost hear the waves crashing against the beach, and behind that, the soft tinkle of the fountain outside the window of the room in which we slept.

We decided to leave on Friday, June 13th, which was also my birthday. I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate turning 42. For the next 9 days we will be “living” in Terry & Sandy’s house, enjoying this little corner of paradise and an escape from much of what constitutes our “real life”. If I am not too busy sleeping and eating, I plan to chronicle our plans to do absolutely nothing. I am sure it will be fascinating reading!

Just This Moment

Tonight was a big night. A really big night. I sit on the board of a local neighborhood association. And for the last 5 months we have been wrestling with a board member who fancies himself a revolutionary. He’s an interesting guy. For about the first 30 seconds. And then it gets old. And then I want to shove a stake through my left eye.

We have been trying for the last several months to figure out how to get him off the board. We finally came up with a plan. We sought legal counsel. We held countless meetings. Tonight we held a vote of the membership to decide our revolutionary’s fate. We were all nervous. Our secretary spoke. I spoke. Others spoke. It went well.

The votes were counted. 61 in favor of voting him off the island. 3 in favor of keeping him. The 3 votes included his own. Only 2 friends in the whole mess.

He was as stand up as anyone I’ve ever seen. He accepted his defeat graciously. He said he was taking the vote to heart. He said he appreciated seeing democracy at work.

Jeff, who hosted us in his space, said it felt so much like family to him. He was nearly breathless when he said it. “Its like a great big family. We fight. We argue. But we still love each other in the end.” Jeff set the tone for the entire evening. God love him.

When we realized we’d won, there were hugs all around. I even hugged the revolutionary. And he hugged me back. Then we all went out for drinks. And bar food. I was drunk with happiness and box wine and deep fried olives.

On the way home, I thought about the fact that despite all the trouble in my life, this entire evening had been filled with moments that were extremely perfect. They were gilt edged and dripping in honey. Just this moment. And the next one after that. Tonight, nothing else mattered.

On the Rocks

She: What do you like to drink?
Me: Scotch
She: Really?
Me: Really.
She: Why Scotch?
Me: Because at the end of the day, I need something just as hard, just as biting. I need to shutter.
She: Shutter is right. I don’t know how you can stand it.
Me: The Scotch is easy. But not the days.