I sit writing this from my new office. At 8:18pm. By choice. Who am I and what have I done with myself? I'm sure this will all wear off soon and I will be as eager to get out of here at I always was with any job I've ever had. For now though, I will bask in the magic. After my billable work is done, I am actually excited to think about marketing and websites and quick books. I really feel like a part of things here. I get the sense that all the work I am doing, will eventually pay off for me, not for a group of people above me who take home big bonus checks and then tell me there won't be any left for the rest of us. I know, I know the relationship is new and I can't bet all my chips yet. I am just thankful that it has started off so well. One can only hope that it will continue on as such.
This time last week I was deplaning in Seattle, my skin protesting the temperature and humidity that greeted me on the jet way. It is always an awful and terrible thing when one has to return from a warm climate to the Pacific Northwest in the winter. The waves continue to roll in without you where you just left. The trailer park continues get up early for yoga and the fish truck goes right on blaring advertisements from the street at 7:30am. But you aren't there and no one misses you. It's only you missing it. Mexico was good this year, our third year. Each year is different, but always lovely. Melissa had to stay home, so Claire and I were left to make our own fun this time. A few of the highlights were:
1. The evening after our first day, Claire and I enjoyed some margaritas of her mixing, which are always very good. We enjoyed a couple before dinner, then a couple after dinner. Then we decided to take a walk down the beach with our glasses to enjoy the moonlight on the waves. We were talking and laughing and I was rubbernecking at a building, not watching where my feet were headed. I easily tripped on a large sand volcano that some kids must have built. With one swift motion, I was laying on my stomach on top of the volcano. The amazing and hilarious part was that somehow I had negotiated my glass through the fall as to not lose a drop of my delicious treat. We about peed laughing so hard.
2. On the trip to our 'private' beach, a spot down the road with rarely anyone around, we had company. We were chilling out on our towels in the shade and a young man with long, curly hair carrying a plastic soprano recorder walked past us looking for his own piece of sand. We had to snicker a little, due to the recorder and the giant hairdo. He plopped down under the next tree and striped down to his black underwear before laying down. I alerted Claire to the incident and instructed her to look the other way. A minute later, she alerted me to the fact that he had also lost his shorts. I swung my head around to see the side of his rear end sticking up in the air, and I just about choked from restraining my giggles when he fired up the recorder and starting playing a little naked tune. It was hideous, but not as hideous as it must have been for the group of teenage boys that walked by as the man swung around to sit with his knees pulled up.
3. One evening we noticed a sort of brass band rehearsing down the street from the trailer park where we stay. It was very charming. The next night, I awoke from my sleep to hear the same brass band plus a few dozen more musicians, playing at a volume that even my earplugs and the fans couldn't begin to drown out. It was like having the entire Husky marching band playing across the street from your house. I dozed off between sets, and woke up again when they got going. When the brass band degraded into various instruments accompanying karaoke singers around midnight, I contemplated getting up to join their party. Finally around 2am or so, things broke up and the amps were turned off. It's a different world down there, devoid of noise ordinances. I was glad that I had no reason to get up the next morning and hopeful that everyone at the party had a good time.
