It's finals week and you know what that means.....

Study Study Study

And then Beer.

We decided to celebrate finishing our first semester with a series of events. The first was sliding down the water slide at Margaritaville with Kip's guests Rick and Stacy. This slide is so small as compared to....well, anything in the US....but its ours and its fun. And we can drink beer on it. Even Robin jumped in, despite not having her bathing suit on!

Me

Robin - her speed was hampered by the clothes

Kip

Rick

Paul

Kip taking on the slide

That evening we went to Rackhams Bar & Grill, where you can watch the staff feed the tarpon and later in the evening (after a few shots maybe?) jump off the same railing into the water.

Nice sunset

Our first shot of the night (big hint: everyone still wearing their clothes)

The first jumpers of the evening

Kip evaluating his odds of living through a front flip (he did)

Stacy and I having a Jager infusion before our jump. She was terrified of the tarpon. I wasn't too worried until she swam off with the others and Kip left me to climb out a different way and I found myself in ink-black water hearing the Jaws theme in my head. You betcha I was terrified then.

Post jump shot (notice the lack of clothing - Stacy and I went in our dresses)

At Rackhams we met Eric, a friend of our classmate who owns a boat here and does parasailing tours. He invited us out the next day for a aerial tour of the GC. We met him and Chad (our classmate's husband who works with Eric) at Calico Jacks, and they took us up two at a time for a bird's-eye view. It was ridiculously high (about 400 feet) and honestly I almost lost my mind when they started bringing us back down because it seemed we were falling a lot faster than we should have been. Kip brought his beer up with him, its like his security blanket. We saw the diving wall, and Kip saw a few turtles. The view was simply spectacular.

Kip and I waiting for our turn

Kip getting hooked up

Letting out our sail

Our view as we took off

Off we gooooooo

Kip with a nervous smile and his "blanket"

View from above

The water is so blue!

400 feet in the air!

You can see the water depth change at the sea wall

The boat seems so far away...

SuperVet off to save the day!

It is such a weird feeling sitting in that harness. It feels like if you slip forward or backward to much and you'll fall right out!

Coming in for our landing

After we paid Eric and Chad in beer (a couple of buckets and a nice tip), we stayed at Calicos for some drinks and snorkeling. Kip found a turtle and tried to make friends, but it wasn't too keen on hanging out with him.

We topped out the evening with a nice sushi dinner, a perfect end to a great semester.

Kip's friend Rick took these amazing pictures with his fancy-schmancy camera:

The pier at Kip's place

Widescreen view of Seven Mile Beach

Us at Sunset House having cocktails. Rick used some slow timer thing and it came out awesome!

Seven Mile Beach

Sigh...it's a New Moon.

......so it only took about 15 seconds into that trailor to remind me how much I really dislike that limp noodle chick playing Bella. I mean for serious. If I were playing across from RPattz you best believe you would hear fire and passion and ohmygodi'mstandingnexttoedward/cederic in my voice. But she sounds like she just came from a lecture on molecular genetics and has nothing else to do pass the time between classes so she thought she would just step onto this movie set and pretend to fucking act.

(sorry mom, I know I'm supposed to lay off the F word but it just gets my goat.)

It's like she only deigned to show up. Freaking amateur.

PS - Oh, and Jacob? Um, YUM. Might want to lay off the roids a bit, but holyshit he's delicious.

PPS - and that whole werewolf thing was pretty damn cool, too. Seems they finally found the bags of money someone buried under the set as a practical joke during filming of the first movie.

People and Trauma and all of the Beauty in between.

So I finally unpacked today.

Yeah, you heard me right. Don't judge.

I have good days and I have bad days. When they are good, there's love and happiness and puppies and smiles and laughs. When they are bad....there's anger and frustration and tears and confusion.

Confusion. A lot.

The worst is when I am alone. Particularly when I am lying in bed at night trying to fall asleep. For the first month or two after I got home, I had some serious insomnia that was more than likely a subconcious attempt to not be in that position to lie awake and think.

As time went on, I began to forgive myself a little bit more each day. I got myself some melatonin and Bach's sleep remedy and peppermint tea to help with the over-thinking in the night. I am by no means complete yet, but I am working on it. Baby Steps.

Some of you out there may have no idea why I am so 'hung up' on these friends from Ross. I can understand, I really only knew them for less than a year when I left. Logic says the bond can't possibly be that strong. I have friends that I have known since high school; we rarely see each other, speak sporadically, and that's just how it works. I'm not sure why this time it is different, why these people are different. It could be the struggles we shared, the support they gave me (and continue to give), the intimacy in which we played out our lives. When we moved down to that island, we all left everything we knew and loved and held dear.

All we had was each other.

And when I came home, I had nothing. Or so it felt.

I realize quoting a show like Grey's Anatomy at a time like this may lead to a perception that my previous words are not as serious as they seem. Please do not allow that thought to enter your mind. Because as the little old lady tried to die to satisfy the schedules of her terribly distracted relatives, she said to the frustrated doctor:

They are my people.

People keep you going.

People are better are than no people.

And I had to work very hard to hold back tears gushing from my eyes This is why I still mourn the loss of my people. And yet every day these same people continue to reinforce the belief that it was not in any way a loss by their continued communication and support and love. And that is why I love them.

Last night I had a very serious and completely wonderful conversation with my friend Karen about our fears and depression and Basket Full O Crazy (that last part might have been more me). In the end, we made the promise to try and see something beautiful in each day. Totally cheesy awesome goal to have, and I decided that today my beautiful would be my room. Or more importantly, the potential of my room once all three bags were unpacked and stored properly.

So yes. Today I unpacked my bags.

It was cathartic and necessary and revealing and slightly torturous. There were moments when I had to stop; a sweet note from Jen, a shirt I bought in The Circus with Kristin, the little doctor bear JoAnne gave me before I left, my stethoscope. All reasons I didn't unpack earlier. And all things that had to be dealt with.

So like I said. I have good days, and I have bad days. Today was an interesting blend of both.

My life right now can be summed up with Alex's parting words on Grey's. Perhaps I should get one of their writers on retainer, this shit is pretty good. They're probably the same people who work for the Quoteable Cards company.

Trauma is what pushes us forwards.

Maybe we have to get a little messed up.

Before we can step up.

And by the way, I am completely and utterly ruined for any future man due to Derek Shepherd in the elevator with the CT scans. For serious. Fuckers. Screw giving them a retainer after all.

Terror Alert: Code YELLOW.

Seriously folks. Our gov'ner should be calling out the National Guard, declaring a State of Emergency. The pollen count has reached a critical high.

And my poor poor car is just sooooo sad. Normally she shines bright and green and happy. Now she's a dull chartreuse and no matter how many times I wash her she is just COVERED 5 minutes later. Unfortunately I have not been able to convince my parents that it's about time we cut down the Centenarian+ Oak Tree that canopies our drive. Thus, each year, I live with this:

You can see the dust from HERE!

Ack! My nose runs just looking at this!

My leaf collection. I'm pretty sure I could make a whole new tree.

My windshield. Boo.

What is the point of having a sunroof?

The left side of the shot is the part of the window that doesn't get washed by the wipers. The right side shows one day's worth of junk since driving yesterday. You also have a nice reflection of the hateful tree that causes this nightmare.

I have to clean my wipers before I can use them to clean my window.

Sadface Car.

"View" from the sunroof.

Course I don't want to imply my car is the only victim of the Pervasiveness of Pollen. Here are some pics from around the house:

Patio table. So clean you want to eat off of it, right?

Grapefruit tree via a sea of haze. On the plus side, the buds will bloom soon and that is a scent I want to bottle and sniff all year.

Even the dog's water bowl falls victim to those wretched pollen thingies.

Sadface patio.

Sadface Front Porch.

Sadface Railing.

This is just a small image of the amazing powers of Pollen. It's EVERYWHERE. I'm seriously concerned that if enough of it gets together it will learn to combine into some massive Blob-like form and chase me.



The Bane of My Existence.

Oh, and have you ever smelled pollen hanging in the air? It's like the lovely scent of honeysuckle, except that this honeysuckle hails from the 7th Circle of Hell.

On a lighter note, here are some shots of the cutest Ball of Fluff ever. Well, top ten anyhow.

I am not amused by your camera flash.



Bask in my glory, mere mortal.

You can't handle this amount of cuteness. I'm so cute that to photograph me in color would melt your eyes.

I am weary of your attentions. Leave me now. I must rest.

Oh, Hai. Don't mind me. Just checkin out your butt.