brother sister beach day

Just like that I'm back home and my west coast vacation is over.

I'm glad I made the trip, I got to spend some quality time with my sister and of course saw my grandfather for his birthday.

And I got to sink my toes in the powder sand of Siesta while I was in town.

Now unbelievably I am preparing myself for my final week at work in Boca before it's back to Aventura for a new adventure.

Time flies.

I miss miller

It was hard for me to leave without packing him up to take with me.

But at least we got to spend some quality time together.

: (((

I love him.

sorry

Didn't realize I'd let a full week go past without posting ANYTHING.

Would it help if I told you I've been scoping out this:

Rest assured I will be joining him for breakfast as soon as possible.

Taking a much needed mini vacation tomorrow, hopefully will have interesting things to share.  Otherwise, you'll have to wait till this weekend when I go watch that turtle eat cactus.

this guy

I feel like I showed Kim a good time in Ft. Lauderdale, including a fair smattering of wildlife.

I'm sad she has to leave tomorrow but I'm glad that Jon is coming down.  So much excitement in the past few weeks.

we made it to the beach

It hasn't been the nicest weather for Kim's visit but we did at least get down to the water this morning so she could go for a swim.  Afterwards we went for a bike ride and it did actually end up getting sunny enough that I got tan lines from my tank top.

I'm hoping that it will be beautiful tomorrow and that we can spend all day at the beach.  For now we're watching the Golden Girls and trying to motivate to go out for dinner.

spending the day in Napa

We had the morning to ourselves so we headed to downtown Napa for some wandering and window shopping.  We got some really great coffee at Molinari Caffe where they turn their tip jar in to a work of art:

I was impressed.

Evan and I dropped Kelly off to get a massage while we headed to the Thomas to massage our insides with delicious booze.

I had a great bloody mary, Evan had a sparkling lavender lemonade, and we both had some lovely conversation.  With each other and with strangers at the bar.

When we met back up with Kelly we headed to the Oxbow Public Market for a bite to eat before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding, which is where we find ourselves now.  In fact, I need to get dressed, looking forward to a good night.

off to work I go

source

Apparently I'm being punished for all my vacations with 6 days of closing to look forward to.  At least I can save up some money and recoup from my jet setting.

What I don't look forward to is the horribly off key whistling that I know I will have to endure.  And to the worst songs too.  Yesterday it was "smooth criminal".  How are you going to whistle along to that?!  It's the same note over and over.

I seriously thought I was going to lose it, but then I would look over at Eduard and see the rage in his eyes and know that I would be ok.

Keep me in your thoughts this week.

regatta ready

I feel like I'm always dressed up with nowhere to go.  Besides work.  As usual.

But there is a vacation on my horizon so I'm just trying to keep my nose to the grindstone in the meantime.  I've also been trying to get my affairs in order but that is proving harder than expected.

You really need two parking spaces if you're going to have two cars.

::sigh::

miller and me

My weekend in Sarasota is already getting ready to end and I feel like it only just began.  Maybe it just feels that way when you're hanging out with Miller because he makes time fly.

This morning I woke up having the feeling of not knowing quite where I was.  Adding to the confusion I couldn't figure out why I heard a man's gentle snoring in bed next to me.  By the time I woke up enough to figure out it was Miller, he had woken up enough to realize that he needed pets, food, and pees immediately.

But once all of his needs are met it's really nice to just hang out with him.  Especially on the back porch, I've been enjoying a room with a view.

All in all it's been a nice mini vacation so far.  I have a few more things to check off my list today before I head back south, including picking up Heather's May internet gift.  Some of you may be able to guess what it is based on the fact that I had to come to Sarasota to get it.  Dan, I'm looking at you.

And so is Miller, disparagingly,

same old same old

I didn't even realized I missed my post from yesterday.  Sorry, that's two already in this month, that isn't good.  I promise I will try and get back on track.

For now you can blame Jon visiting.  My days have been filled with a lot of drinking and a lot of playing this.

Also, pretending to spot celebrities at lunch, including international superstar/pilot, john travolta:

Not the best shot of him, but most of the other attempts I made to get his picture resulted in images like this:

I think that picture has captured the moment when Jon began his transition in to Bev, his bitchy drunken alter ego.

Each night I have to say good bye to Bev and hope that she will transform during the night and emerge from her cocoon as my friend Jon who I know and love.

As of this morning I'm still waiting.

more vacation please

Jon arrived early yesterday morning for some fun in the sun.  Apparently it's wretchedly cold up north right now?  I had no idea.

It's in the 80s for most of the day here.  It hit 90 at one point yesterday afternoon.  Thankfully it was just a short walk to the cool clear waters of the Atlantic.

And omg did I FREAK OUT when I saw this guy:

Jon was not as impressed with it as I was.  I guess he's seen it before.

It looks so amazingly fun though!!!

It was like a jet pack attached by a hose to another unit that trailed along behind him in the water.  It was the thing in the water that had the engine and sucked water up through the hose to become the jet pack.  Essentially this was who was at the beach yesterday:

source

I really want to do it, but I also want to do it with somebody else.  I'm too scared to do it alone.

After getting perhaps too much sun at the beach we headed back to the city to find food.  I was a little confused and took us to Lime again, thinking that it was the day for the drink special.  It was not.  We did however get a visit from these two nice guys:

They don't want you to feed them because they already get enough encouragement to come peepin' around, but they are just so adorable.  Jon had a hard time resisting their charms.  I guess because I've seen them before I'm more immune to their cuteness.

But only slightly.

: (

so colorful

It has been unfortunately overcast for Jon and company's visit down here, which means more drinking than was necessary.

We were at the beach but a sudden storm sent us inside where we each ordered a drink more beautiful than the one before it.

This is the only picture I have to document yesterday as the rest of the day was a drunken blur.  Not as bad as Friday when this happened:

I was finding sand in the worst places all night long.  Thanks Jonathan.

Today I am hungover.  I am currently waiting for Jon to get out of the shower so I can get some food in me.  I am excited to take a break from drinking.

post life chore mini vacation

The great thing about living in Florida is that you can turn a regular day off in to most people's vacation dreams.

And even though he isn't feeling well Jon pulled it together to be good company.

Now we're doing the afternoon after beach routine (beers and showers) before heading out for dinner.  We got in an argument earlier about how key lime pie isn't green so maybe we'll drive down to settle this dispute once and for all.

this old place

Yesterday was very nice.  A+.

Not much was accomplished but it was beautiful and I got to spend some time here.

Complete with tiny birds.

Sad to be heading back today but will be glad to see that special little guy.  Heather has reported that he's on his usual hunger strike while I'm gone.

time flies

It really feels like just yesterday when I was doing this post about rolling the black beauty over to 50,000 miles.  In reality that was back in march, not so much "just yesterday".

If I really wanted to I could totally figure out exactly what activities contributed to the past 10,000 miles and make a sick ass pie chart illustrating the details but I'm too lazy.  I'm on vacation ok, leave me alone.

I hit the 60,000 mark somewhere in alligator alley while en route to Sarasota for a visit.  As you may have noticed, I was enjoying having my car out of stop and go Miami traffic.  And of course it was off and on rain the whole way so if I didn't keep up a good clip I would get drenched.

But it's beautiful here.  I'm hoping I'll get to make it to the beach at some point.  We'll see.

please come visit

This is what you all are missing by locking yourselves away in NYC/Philadelphia/Boston/Berkeley/wherever else you're hiding.

The weather is getting perfect now.  Touching the 80's during the day, perfect top down weather in the morning and evening.

And don't you want to tell your friends and coworkers that you're a snowbird?  There's no shame in admitting that you want to come down here.

This was where I spent the afternoon yesterday making new friends, drinking sangria, and getting a tan.

Lauderdale dreams

I was only in Ft. Lauderdale for about 24 hours, but it was enough time for me to fall in love with it.  It's amazing that it's so close to Sarasota, but so completely different.  I mean the palm trees in lauderdale have coconuts on them!  Coconuts!!  We certainly don't grow coconuts on every palm tree in Sarasota.

There was also a much more fun scene for younger people.  I stopped in a local liquor store where this guy layed down the law:

Can't argue with him!

Besides the presence of liquor stores and bars, there was also an abundance of people walking down the sidewalk which was such a sight for sore eyes.  Whenever I walk anywhere in Sarasota it's like people assume my car must have broken down or something (actually my check engine light came on yesterday.  shoot me).  But lauderdale was so different, I think mostly because we were in a touristy area where most of the people were carless.  It reminded me of NY, and actually I met a bunch of guys from NY that were staying at the same hotel as us.

I'm sad that I couldn't stay longer, but I am excited to make another trip down there soon.  I mean, even the starbucks in lauderdale sells saucier things than any other starbucks I've ever been to:

Take that ariel and your seashell bra, starbucks is kicking it up a notch.

But I'm home now, back in the arms of that handsome little kitty, who has yelled at me nonstop since I got back.  Apparently I didn't have his permission to leave.  But the hotel we stayed at was pet friendly, and even had a little black cat that lived there, so I think I'll just take him with me the next time I go down.

Soon please!