In the summer of 2008, I took a week long trip down to Marathon in The Florida Keys. Normally this would be a great vacation for me but I didn't have my family or friends with me so I was more than glad to return home to them. I guess you could call it a "business trip" because I was technically working, but most of the business I had to tend to took place around a resort pool and my time was spent mostly changing diapers, cutting hot dogs into tiny pieces, and cleaning the sand out of the eyes of a cranky 2-year-old.
Even though I tried to make the best out of the situation, I had never been away from my husband for more than a few days and it sucked way more than I had anticipated. I have a ton of other complaints about the trip but I won't mention specifics on such a public forum. I will say that my patience and tolerance of egotistical assholes was tested constantly and I did have an incident that involved me calling someone, who is responsible for my income, a smart ass.
Aside from that, I was coerced into going snorkeling on a very choppy day and spewed my breakfast in the center of about 40 other snorkelers. Naturally, the fish were very attracted to my barf which would have been great if it weren't for them trying to eat my face off. Sadly, this was not the first time that I had chummed up the water on that very reef. Only this time, I hadn't eaten key lime pie for breakfast.
The trip wasn't all bad. I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Ryan, the toddler I was responsible for. We discovered new and interesting things about each other and he even started to pick up a few of my habits. He started using words that I would frequently use like, delicioso and werd! He also started using phrases such as, Gimme a break and I don't roll with that.
Ryan and I normally spend about 30 hours a week together and it surprised me that being exposed to me 24 hours a day for a week could affect him so much.
After about 3 1/2 days, I had taught him how to swim, introduce himself to strangers, and how to tell his right hand from his left. I was quite impressed with myself, even if his parents chocked it all up to "good genes." pfft.
One of my favorite parts about the trip was getting the opportunity to spend time with Ryan's grandmother, affectionately known as "Nanna". Nanna and her husband, "Pop Pop", were visiting from a small town in South Carolina. I am always drawn to small town old folks because they remind me of my own grandparents. I fell in love with Nanna almost immediately and after the first day, she had adopted me as her own grandchild. We would have wonderful conversations about life and although her political views were what you would expect from a woman of her age, her ideals about family and relationships were quite similar to my own.
Nanna would often use words that you would usually only hear on television like "darling" or "gander." My favorite instance was when she looked at me, smiled, and said to me with a heavy southern accent, "I reckon if you took a gander o'er yonder you might could see a slice of chocolate cake with your name on it."
Nanna recognized and appreciated all the little things that I would do with Ryan that his own parents neglected to prioritize, which made me feel better about the time and effort that I was spending away from my own family and made the vacation a lot more bearable.
The trip also opened my eyes to the fact that there are some lobsters that don't have claws. I had always pictured lobsters to be bright red and have massive pinchers but, much to my surprise, a Florida Lobster is a small, brown, clawless, creature. I was also made aware of the thousands of people who venture out into the Florida waters for 2 days each year, dive gear and tickle sticks in hand, to capture these adorable crustaceans before the commercial fisherman plant their many lobster pots throughout the area.
The first day, my employers returned from their 10 hour expedition with 29 lobster which was 1 less than their legal limit. Even though I love to eat lobster, it broke my heart to see their little tails ripped from the rest of their bodies while they were struggling to escape the grasp of a greedy human.
I am not a vegetarian by any means but I could never bring myself to kill another living thing. I like to leave the dirty work for the stronger stomached. I even have sympathy for insects. I don't mind bugs at all. I am especially fond of spiders and beetles and when I come across a bug scurrying around inside my house I usually scoop it up and relocate it outdoors where it is surely to be more comfortable. If I come across a gentle creature who has lost it's way, I will gladly return it to it's home outdoors. Unless I see a mosquito, cockroach, or sugar ant. If I spot those assholes anywhere near my house, I will spray the shit out of them with Windex.
My sympathy for the lobster, however, escaped me as I sampled every lobster based recipe known to man. Between the Lobster Nuggets and Lobster Reuben Sandwiches, you would think I was all lobstered out but I assure you that if I was offered a bite of that delicious tail right now, I would devour it instantly. Unless, of course, I had to kill it myself. I don't roll with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment