They Call the Wind Mariah

July 18, 2005 : 10:13 a.m.
The Vacation Report, and How I Sympathize with Janet Leigh

Gah. Lots to catch up on! That will teach me not to update for a while, because when I do I don't feel like I can skip anything important, so I have to write this looong entry. Anyway...first things first!

Vacation! It was awesome, and I wish I was still on it. We stayed in an absolutely beautiful condo, it's balcony overlooked Boca Ciega Bay, John's Pass, the hardest working drawbridge in the world, AND the gulf. Ah, the gulf. When we first got there, red tide had beat us by about a month. Red tide is basically (from what I gather) a huge bloom of algae that is poisonous to marine life. Fish, crabs, etc eat this algae and die, to wash up on the shore. Icky, stinky, yuk. It also caused us (and many others) to cough as though we had a tickle in our throat, so that is what you heard on the beach when you did go down. So the first days of our vacation were spent, for the most part, at the pool with only short trips to the ocean to gaze at it's majestic beauty. Jeff did venture out a few times, trying to master the skill of boogie-boarding. He got quite scraped up his first time out. He thought he knew the 'technique'. And maybe he did. If the 'technique' was to jump on the back of the board, sending it shooting into the air while lifting you off of the ground, and then unceremoniously dumping you, back-first, back onto the ground and making you bleed - he mastered it. None of us, of course had our video cameras with us...we are all quite sure it would have given us a fair shot at 10 grand. Plus then all of America would have heard me yelling at him to "Grab the board! Grab the board!" as he was still lying on his back trying to figure out what happened. Hey, in defense, it wasn't our board! I really didn't want to buy a new one. :)

We went on a boat (er...more of a pontoon) trip and saw tons of wild dolphins. Wild. Not captured and made to do shows at Seaworld or the Zoo. They weren't playing in front of us and jumping out of the water because someone made them, they were doing it because that is what they do. We saw babies with their mamas, we saw little ones just playing, we even saw one swim right in front of our pontoon, close enough to touch had anyone been quick enough to realize he was there. We also saw manatees, although only their humungous noses came out of the water to greet us. It was awesome. In the next few days, we could also sit on our balcony and watch the dolphins swim in and out of the Bay.

We saw fireworks up and down the coast from Tampa on down to Pass-a-grille, professional and non-professional alike - there were fireworks going off for hours. Amazing; Beautiful. I tell you what, the people on our beach must have spent a mint on fireworks, because they rivaled the professional ones. At one point my mom and I floated on our backs in the pool just looking up at a sky full of fireworks. There will never be another way for me to watch fireworks on July 4th. That is the only way.

Finally towards the end of the week, the beach cleared up. We were able to go into the water without the fear that dead fish would scrape up against our leg. Or maybe that was just my fear. But anyway. At least I didn't have to worry about Jellyfish! And! We had dolphins swimming right by us while we were in the warm gulf water. My husband had them swim by him twice...the first time only about 20 yards from him. I think that counts as swimming with wild Dolphins. Yes, it does. Shut up.

Then, it was time to go. All too quickly. The morning we were to leave, my mom and I were up at about 5:00 a.m. watching the sky churn and the wind whip the palm trees, while listening to weather reports about Hurricane Dennis in the background. I got online to check our flights because...well you know, a hurricane was blowing in (even though not heading straight for the gulf coast, we got the bands, people, the bands). Cancelled. What to do? We called Delta, to be told that the next flight they could book us on would be at 8:00 p.m. that night (our original flight left at around noon). Right. I listened to the lady on the news once again state that the gulf coast would be hit hardest between 8 and 10 that night. I explained this to the woman on the phone, who was not in Florida, who told me that wasn't the information that they had. Oh, really? Finally, my mom got the idea to see if we could get a flight out from Orlando, because it was more inland and thought there would be a better chance. There was. So we made arrangements with the rental car company to return the car in Orlando instead of Tampa, and off we went. We tried to get breakfast on the way, and succeeded after a few run-ins with heavy traffic and power outages. We made our Orlando flight, and then got delayed for hours in Atlanta, finally making it home sometime around 8 or 9 p.m. It was really like a fun adventure. I never had to run away from a hurricane before! I can now cross that off my list of things to do before I die :) Well, I'll have to write it on there first, but still...

All in all...a wonderful vacation. And a vacation spent with family, so it was even better :) It was perfect, I can't think of a thing that could have made it better, save a few blooms of algae!

Now I am home. Back to reality...you know. Before you read any further, be forewarned...women's issues and "that time of the month" mentioned. In detail. Blood and gore, mom. Just a warning ;)

I don't think I've mentioned it on here, but we have decided to once again try for another baby. It's a long story, due to insurances changing and such - I'll talk more about that later. But because of this decision, in preparation for the months ahead when we will be undergoing assisted fertility methods my period was induced (because I hadn't had one since April). If you have never had your period brought on by medication, count your lucky stars...it ain't pretty. 3 months of uterine lining buildup and medication that makes it leave your body in 5 days makes for a helluva week!

So Saturday I started. No big deal, it started out pretty normal, even yesterday was normal. Not bad! Not nearly as bad as the LAST time I took Provera. Then... this morning. I woke up in what looked like a homicide scene. Thank God that I don't cover up with my lovely soft duvet in the summer! Sheets and bed soaked with blood, me covered in it. Gross, I know! It's a good thing we don't have nosey neighbors, because had anybody looked in our bedroom window, cops would have been called. So I high-tail it into the bathroom, although let me tell you - standing up is a trick, because that's when it's at it's worse. Standing in the shower, I felt like I was in a scene straight out of Psycho. Except this scene wasn't in black and white, it was technicolor. Blood. Blood. Blood. Nonstop. And wooziness. Because, c'mon. Quarts (I'm not exaggerating!)of blood come out of you in a 10-minute time frame, and you're going to get woozy (or maybe that was the Killer Cramps from Hell that was making me feel so ill, I'm not sure). After cleaning up myself and the bathroom, which now looked like a continuation of the crime scene, I tackled the bed. Thank goodness for Spray-n-Wash. That stuff got blood out of my mattress! Hopefully it will work as well on my pretty pink sheets. Right now I am pushing around my computer chair, with a towel, to sit on because I don't really feel like ruining my furniture. I can't even be up long enough go to the store, which is the only place I can buy depends (or diapers, whatever, I'm not picky), which right now is about the only thing that will work for me. I have changed clothing 3 times today. 3 times! So I am stuck changing clothing all day until my loving husband gets off of work and can stop by the store for me. By then, I will probably have passed out from the blood loss. Hopefully I pass out on linoleum, I really can't afford new carpet right now.

Yeah. The vacation is definitely over!