2001-12-31 - 8:52 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Jingle Bells"

Hello, I'm back.

We've been back since Thursday, actually, and I have been trying to wean myself off the 'net a bit, so I stayed off until late last night, when I had to share my exciting "urban explorer" links. Said links (particularly the Ohio one) kept me far too preoccupied at work today when I was supposed to be working ... sigh. Well, I can start my "less surfing at work" resolution tomorrow, on the proper day. Ordinarily I don't make New Year's Resolutions (I make 'em in September when the "school year" starts) but the timing is right and I'm motivated, so.

My school-year resolution this year, btw, was to keep the living/dining area in good enough shape at all times that I am not embarrassed to receive drop-in visitors. While I wouldn't say I've exactly succeeded, there's been a definite improvement, and my resolve hasn't wavered. I neglected to tell Poindexter about this resolution; I suppose if I did, he'd help me out.

So, anyway. It is FUCKING COLD HERE! OH MY GOD! I think I had deluded myself into believing that winter would never come, since half my flowers were still alive when I left on December 20th. Now here it's 34 degrees during the day with snow possible on Thursday. It's been rough. My extremities are only warm for the first 10 minutes after I get out of bed or a shower, and then they return to their habitual winter subzero temperatures.

The most horrible part is that my hair is growing back after my waxing, and it itches, and when I get goosebumps from the cold, which is often (even indoors) it itches like ALL HELL and I scratch my legs ferociously, screeching, until Poindexter comes over and yells at me to stop. It helps somewhat if I loofah, then scrub with the washcloth, then scrub dry with the towel, at which point my legs hurt instead of itching, which is a blessed relief.

All right. My vacation.

Poindexter and I are awful at the airport. We sit around gossiping about the people all around, mostly. "Don't look now, but behind you..."

While in the check-in line, we laughed at a man with a glaringly obvious toupee. It was so awful. Either be bald, or get a good toupee, for godsakes. He was short and was wearing huge aviator sunglasses, making him look like a fly, which didn't help. I saw him later and couldn't help smiling at him. Does the guy have any idea what the real reason is that girls smile at him all the time? It's sad.

Also, I saw a 14-year-old girl reading Cosmopolitan magazine. I was shocked. The front of the magazine was all "How to Give Your Man the Best Blow Job He's Ever Had", and this CHILD was reading it. Her MOTHER was sitting right next to her, drinking Amstel Light right out of the bottle, and didn't appear to care. My god. Now, I got my hands on "The Valley of Horses" when I was 12 and it was QUITE an eye-opener, but I didn't read it in the airport in front of my mother, for godsakes. Actually my mother would have died if she'd known what was in it. Jondalar and his manhood, baby.

I forgot to mention the girl to Poindexter, since they were only 3 feet away from us, but sometime later in the day he said to me, "Did you see that 12-year-old girl reading Cosmo?!" So he thinks she was even younger than I did.

On the plane, there was a woman with two children trying to get three seats together. All those stubborn old people going to Palm Beach were refusing to give up their aisle seats -- finally some 40ish guy was kind enough to do it and we were able to take off. Trying to find seats for these people took 15 minutes.

While she was waiting, the mom chatted with another woman seated with two girls in the row directly in front of us. The seated woman mentioned once or twice, in a mild New Yawk accent, that "This is the first time I've flown." Finally one of her daughters piped up and said, in that wonderful scathing way kids have, "You've flown before!" and the mom had to qualify it with, "I mean the first time since September Eleven." Can't put anything past these kids.

During the flight, I observed an Asian-looking woman fast asleep in the middle seat behind me. When the flight pulled in and everybody stood up, the girls looked back and saw her and their faces lit up like, well, Christmas. They were extremely excited to see her -- she appeared to be their nanny and they'd forgotten she was on the plane, or something. It was just weird to me. I can't imagine having had a nanny, much less having her go on vacation with us.

During the flight, Poindexter complained to me that the woman in the aisle seat next to him had "that old lady smell", in a big way. I didn't catch a whiff, myself. He said it's something like mothballs.

Speaking of gossiping, my two moms and I went to an orange grove and my MIL said, "Don't look now, but check out the woman in the Rolls Royce behind you." After a suitable interval, I turned around and saw one of the more frightening women I'd ever seen. Seventies, hugely fat (and you know that I think the women in Mode magazine are sometimes too thin), wearing linebacker-worthy shoulder pads, leathery tanned skin, jowly, too much makeup, fingernails around an inch long, sipping a mochalatte something-or-other from a clear plastic cup with a straw, stuffed behind the steering wheel of this gorgeous two-hundred-thousand-dollar car. It's just wrong. I hope she earned the money for it herself because I cannot imagine why a rich man would stay married to a woman like that.

Airport security was amusing. I liked having the National Guardsfolks around with their big guns, although they looked awfully green to me and not really prepared to use those guns.

The most amusing part was that I triggered the alarm and got pulled over for the wand.

Some overly made up woman pulled me over and made me stand there with my arms out while she moved the wand very slowly over every part of my body. My arms started to get tired. She was extremely thorough, making me lift my hair and everything.

Then she runs the wand over my lower abdomen, holds her hand just under my belly button where my fly is, and says to me, "May I pat this area?"

I looked at her, tried not to burst out laughing, and said, "Sure, go ahead." I was wearing tight stretch pants and a tight stretchy turtle neck, that basically molded to my body, leaving very little to the imagination. If there was anything there, you'd be able to see the outline. She patted me very lightly, as though squeamish about it, and went back to the wand.

The culprit turned out to be the zipper on my boots, if you can believe that. The incident took on a whole new light a few days later when that *&^%$#@ (is there a curse word strong enough for these people?!) tried to light his shoes on that Paris to Miami flight. Jesus Christ. On the way back I just put the boots through the machine and the lady said "Nice boots."

Immediately after arrival, Poindexter's parents took us to dinner at Echo, in Palm Beach. It's a pan-Asian restaurant, with excellent food and service, but the really cool thing about the place is the decor and -- if you can believe it -- the glasses and dishes.

I fell madly in love with the water glasses, so much that MIL told our (cute!) waiter to count them after we left to make sure I didn't make off with any. I can't find a photo online; they were very thin, blue-tinted glass -- almost like a good wine glass rather than a water glass -- in a cylinder about two inches in diameter and six inches in height. But the cylinder had natural variations since it was hand-blown, I think.

Since the place was empty (Thursday early evening is clearly the time to go), the waiter brought over the sake glasses just to show us. I can't describe them; just go look. The glass lifts out of the metal holder.

All the items are designed by one Izabel Lam in New York. Man, they must hire careful people to wash the dishes at this restaurant.

previous index next