I do really well at Guitar Hero. As long as all the notes are green.
Home from vacation! And still on my first load of laundry. Every time I open the washing machine my bathing suit strap reaches up out of the tangle and yanks the lid shut. This trip was unbelievable, as trips this lacking in personal hygiene always are. I laughed nineteen hours a day, slept four, and cried every morning from six until Cocktail Hour (seven). The house in and of itself (and this is credited entirely to the vast preparatory efforts of
Scott and his lovely wife,
Michelle, who I'm not-very-secretly in love with) was staggeringly enormous and beautiful; I didn't take any pictures because that would have meant potentially setting my drink down, but luckily
someone else was on it. Late at night Jesus Christ himself would float the few feet over from next door and ask us to keep it down because they were having trouble sleeping IN HEAVEN. And then inevitably Jesus would sneak through a wall and steal a chicken enchilada. We ate so, so much better than Heaven. Just ask the son of god. It seemed like every night that
Julia created another mindblowing dish out of nothing but thin air, ephemeral beauty, and Colby Jack. I think that's how she did it, I don't know; surprisingly enough I seemed to nap through The Magic. Not
that surprising if you'd seen the bar, really;
CW and his gorgeous better half packed a cargo plane with alcohol and then did a rogue commando drop over the entire Florida Panhandle. For reasons I am either unable or unwilling to explain, my drink of choice seemed to be a bloody mary. But only between the hours of eleven and two, only when the sun was at its zenith, because nothing spells cool refreshment like a tall, greasy glass of lukewarm marinara sauce and vodka. At one point Caitlin and
Mark's amazing wife, Leslie, and I spent an entire sweltering afternoon sitting with our feet in the sand, kicking back the waves and solving the world's problems, and I did it all while sucking back a warm plastic tumbler of liquid lasagna. Bad plan. That's all I'm saying. Jesus rested his sandals on his balcony and laughed.
But it wasn't all sunshine carnivals and gourmet meals and the savior of man taking notes. Michelle's sweetheart sister, Julie, developed some kind of mystery illness that morphed from stage "sniffle" to stage "bubonic" in little less than eighteen hours. She was in such obvious pain and yet still so pleasant and low key; if I had been in her position I would have stretched out on the kitchen floor and screeched until someone commissioned a helicopter. At one point, late at night, I snuck into Julie's bedroom equipped with my Old Lady medicinal arsenal purse. Poor thing propped herself up like a miserable baby bird while I force fed her Benadryl quick dissolve strips and made her sip some grapefruit flavored Airborne. I was relieved to see her on the couch the next morning-- partly because she was feeling a little better, sure, but mostly because I hadn't killed her. I don't think that whole, "Just thought she could use some rest, Your Honor," thing could stand another vigorous cross defense. Especially when combined with my unfortunate blood alcohol level. Just ask Michelle, who at one point asked to have a sip of my plain Sprite? Upon which her eyes slowly melted into her lap. Apparently after three days my taste buds become immune to the prodigy that is cherry vodka. Either that or someone laced my Sprite with lighter fluid. And I find that unlikely-- we used all the lighter fluid when we did shots earlier.
But come on, having seen my way successfully into and out of various weekends of gluttonous indulgence, I had of course done the requisite damage control calculations and surmised that a trip this phenomenal would require a slower than normal reacclimation period. Apparently I merely miscalculated my level of corporeal mismanagement. Which is a fancy way of saying "I could really use a hand gun. Or a
nail gun. Or a nail
file. Or a file
folder with a sharp edge." Caitlin-- quickly succumbing to the disease that almost made me involuntarily manslaughter Julie-- got up early Sunday and started throwing our shit in the rental car. I don't want to say I was unorganized (because who would believe that?) but I
will say that Scott and Michelle's charming and completely adorable daughter Mia-- four years old and far, far more cognizant and well-behaved than ninety percent of the adults present-- approached me in the hallway and asked if she could help me pack my shit because, and I'm quoting here, "You're seriously off the organizational mark, Honey. Here. Have a Benadryl Quick Strip." Which I of course accepted. Thanks for packing all my stuff, Mia. Remind me to send you something swank for your kindergarten graduation.
The seven-and-a-half hour trip back to the Atlanta airport was fairly horrifying. Caitlin tried to ignore the strep blisters bursting on her vocal cords while I slumped in the passenger seat clutching a cracked Bud Light bottle and chanting the Lord's Prayer. The part I remembered, anyway. Pretty much just the title. We agreed via moaning that the fact we were in a P T Cruiser somehow made the whole thing worse. Waiting for my plane I deduced that I either needed a drink or a complete blood transfusion, and sadly there's no blood bank in Terminal T.
I think I'm on the right path, though. Given I didn't go to work yesterday and I took a nap around 11:00 and then another around 2:00 and there was a "rest my eyes" thing happening about 5:30, and alright, I didn't go to work today either but I
called, okay. Not to mention that Jesus hasn't made a single appearance, either to smuggle out delicious food stuffs or turn down the stereo or otherwise, and I'm reading this as a positive sign. Which... is really just a completely different set of problems.
What an amazing time. (Hey, sidenote to the Entire Group: sorry I suck at every single game ever. I should have admitted I'm still striving to win Connect Four. For eight years I've met three days a week to try and learn Clue. I'm almost there. Last week I stopped trying to pantomime Colonel Mustard.) It could only have been better if the house had been closer to the beach, bigger, and more elaborate, if we'd had better and more food and alcohol, and if I LOVED you guys more.
