Swimming with the fishies
I just got back from Hawaii, and I’m exhausted. I managed to write a few tidbits down while I was there, and I just finished scanning a few pictures into my computer. Keep posted for more stories about the trip.
This Hawaiian vacation has been spectacular. I only have a couple days left, and I have managed to keep from burning myself too badly.
Yesterday, my mom and I went snorkeling. Ray wasn’t really interested in getting in the water, so we left him lying in the hammock outside our vacation rental, happily reading a book.
I really wanted to try to see the turtles at Turtle Beach (apparently it’s a favorite place for turtles to hang out), but there is never a guarantee that you’ll actually see one. Apparently, the place attracts a lot of tourists, and a lot of the locals are upset that the tourists are endangering the turtles’ livelihoods, so there are all these signs up all over the beach that say “don’t crowd the turtles,” and other such warnings.
When we got there, the beach was pretty crowded, and my mom was pretty pessimistic that there would be any turtles at all, due to the large volume of tourists. I guess the turtles might also have “don’t crowd the tourists” signs posted around the beach, too.
Anyway, my mom wanted to leave before we even got to the beach, but I saw what looked like a rock in the water start to move, so I kept on going. Now, I haven’t gone snorkeling for some time, and I’m not the world’s best swimmer, especially when it comes to underwater stuff, so I figured I’d wade in and just stick my face in the water and remind myself how to snorkel for a while, just up near the beach part, before I go looking for turtles.
So I put my mask on, put the snorkel in my mouth, and stuck my face in the water, getting used to breathing through the snorkel, and lifted my feet off the sand, and started to float. I turned my head to the left and saw my mom’s legs, and I turned to my right and saw a GIANT SEA TURTLE as big as me, not three feet next to me, looking at me as if to say, “Hey.”
“Holy shit!” I screamed through my snorkel. I backed away and stood up, my heart pounding. I had had an underwater camera in my hand, and instead of taking a picture or just taking in the beautiful of such a marvelous creature, I had freaked out and probably freaked out the poor turtle, who was gone by the time I got the nerve to go back underwater.
I’m probably the only person on the beach that morning who had seen a turtle, and what did I do? I freaked out. I’m so MAD at myself!
After my brief encounter with the sea turtle, my mom took me to another little snorkeling cove away from the tourists, and I managed to actually keep calm and take some good pictures. You’ll see more as soon as I’m more awake to put them on the site.
(a humuhumunukunukuapua’a, the state fish)
Filed under Vacation | Comment (0)Parting Shots
Tomorrow Ray and I are off to Hawaii to visit my mom and decide where we want to get married next year. I’m very excited, although it’s 8:45 PM and I still haven’t really started packing. I figure I’ll stay up late tonight to get my body used to the 6 hour time difference between here and Hawaii. Oy.
I’ll most likely not have any or very limited internet access while I’m away, and although I’ll take lots of pictures and have plenty to say when I get back, I thought I’d leave you all out there with some pictures of stuff right here in NJ.
First, Ray and I went to a diner the other night, and the placemats were covered with ads, as is the norm for many fine dining establishments such as this. While we were waiting for our greasy waiter to serve us, I amused myself by laughing at all the ads. This one in particular had me chuckling.
In case the photo is too blurry, the ad says “Specailizing in Honda’s and Acura’s for over 25 years.” I’ll be over here, grinning and watching you all cringe at the spelling and grammatical errors. I have already cringed, so now I can enjoy you doing the same.
In other news, I have more cute pictures of my cats. Well, okay, this time I got a picture Scratchy, who likes to hide under his chair (you saw his feet earlier). Whenever I try to get him to go outside and play, he rolls around and shows me how cute he is. He likes to convince me that if he’s this cute right now, he’ll be cute all the time, and therefore I should just keep him indoors all day long.
I’m not sure why, but he also looks like he’s glaring at me, as if to say, “Don’t take pictures of me unless you’ve talked to my agent!”
Filed under Travel, Vacation, Wedding | Comment (0)Hoodlum Hasidim
On Monday, Ray and I had to go home, rent a van, and bring it back to the Ren Faire. The leather shop needed to be packed up, and none of us have cars big enough to bring back all the crap they’ve accumulated over the summer, at least not in one trip. Thus, it was up to me to keep Ray company as we traversed half the state of Pennsylvania twice in one day.
Luckily we had plenty to talk about, such as setting a date for our wedding (March 17, 2007), a place for the wedding (Oahu, Hawaii), how big the wedding should be (SMALL: only 30 people or fewer, so don’t be offended if you don’t get an invitation), and if we should have a big reception when we get home for our friends who can’t make it all the way to Hawaii (that’s a big yes).
At one point, we stopped at a rest stop, and I saw the strangest sight. There were about three or four guys sitting at a table outside the rest stop building, smoking and chatting. Nothing strange about that, I know, but they all had thick beards, those curly locks in front of their ears, and all of them had tassels or tzitzit hanging under their shirts. I immediately pegged them as Hasidim, but there was something incongruous about them: they were all wearing brightly colored baseball caps and smoking.
Now, I’m not Jewish, so if I offend any of you with my ignorance, please forgive me. But my only exposure to Hasidim have been at banks and on the subway in New York. And usually they’re dressed in black and white, no colors at all, so the baseball caps were throwing me for a loop. And since I’ve never seen a Hasid outside a non-smoking area, I have never seen them smoke. I suppose my feeble mind thought their strict religious practices would prohibit smoking, since it’s bad for you. So the first thought that came to my mind was, “Hey, these are hoodlums. They’re sitting outside wearing colors and smoking! Those are some real bad boy Hasidim!”
Anyway, the thought gave me the giggles. Hoodlum Hasidim are taking over the rest stops on the PA Turnpike. Guard your daughters and lock up your dogs. There’s Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with P that stands for Pareve.
Filed under Bizarre, Ren Faire, Vacation, Wedding | Comment (1)Stupid Humor
So we just got back from our annual visit to the Shore. Yes, “Shore” has to be capitalized. For those of you who are not from NJ/PA, the Shore actually refers the shore of New Jersey, or the Jersey Shore. Never mind that 31 states have a shore of some sort, 25 of them being on an ocean or gulf. No, no: around here, the Shore is the place to go in the summertime. Just watch any of the Kevin Smith movies; the Shore is where everything in New Jersey happens in the summer. Any time the weather gets nice, everybody in the whole state goes to the shore. At least that’s what it seems like when you hear the traffic report.
We usually go once a year to our friend’s beach house. His family owns the place and rents it by the week during the summer, and every year he gets to have it for a few days to do with as he pleases. And it pleases him to invite his friends and barbecue and have a grand old time.
So we went, grilled, sat around, read, sat around some more, went into town to shop and go to the arcade (which really sucks these days, due to the fact that they’ve overrun the place with stupid slot machines), and sat around some more. I didn’t think I would ever say this, but my ass is really tired of all that sitting around. I got bored really quickly, mostly due to the fact that I brought the wrong books to read. I meant to bring Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix with me (which I hadn’t read), and instead, I brought Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (which I’d already read). So a lot of the first day was spent twiddling my thumbs while everyone went to the beach.
Why didn’t I go to the beach, you ask? For one, there weren’t enough beach passes to go around, and I didn’t feel like paying for one. Secondly, I have no swimsuit as it makes me really depressed to go swimsuit shopping (I really need to start working out). Thirdly, Ray doesn’t like to go on the beach because he says you get sand in places you didn’t even know you had places before. I tend to agree with him on that point, so we opted to stay in. And I was very bored.
The second day I managed to annoy Ray enough to make him take me into town so I could buy some books. That kept me happy for the rest of the weekend. And at the end of our stay there, one of our friends pulled out a game that I really like a lot, which is Munchkin, a non-collectible card game that spoofs games like D&D and Magic. It’s hilarious! Playing that game was the best part of the weekend, by far.
The 4th of July fireworks weren’t as good as last year. We went out by the bay between Long Beach Island and the mainland, and couldn’t see much because of heavy cloud cover. It was a little eerie, though, watching the fireworks go up into the cloud and explode, turning the clouds different colors.
We drove home after the fireworks were over, and fell asleep, exhausted. This morning (yes, we took an extra day off…we’re such rebels!) we decided to watch a movie one of our friends recommended: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera. It’s kind of a send-up of those 1950’s sci-fi horor flicks, and it is pretty funny. If you liked Amazon Women on the Moon, you’ll definitely like this. There’s a lot of stupid humor in it, and every once in a while, I really like stupid humor. If any of you ever saw or were a part of my directorial debut/farewell, Money, Power, Murder, Lust, Revenge, and Marvelous Clothes, you know I like stupid humor.
Filed under Books, Vacation | Comment (0)Back From Vacation
I meant to write this while I was on vacation so I could do this in snippets. Now I have a couple of big long adventures to talk about. And I’ve got to got to work. Argh.
Just to tide you over, here’s a summary: Ray and I drove to Vermont for a wedding, drove back (8 hours each way!), I came home and worked for a couple of days, then I got on a plane to California where I saw my brother graduate from high school. Now I’m back, pooped from jet lag, and I have to do transcription work every day this week, so I hope my fingers don’t fall off. Whenever I type for more than 30 hours a week, my fingers start tingling, and that’s a bad sign.
I hope that will hold you until I get home this afternoon. Again, assuming my fingers haven’t fallen off, I’ll go more in detail.
Filed under Vacation | Comment (0)