Well… I’m not actually there anymore, but I was this weekend. My BFF from high school, Adam, has been my friend and confidant for more than 15 years now. We’ve been through thick and thin, fought and made up and always manage to land on our feet and keep right on walking down the path. Sometimes we don’t speak for months at a time, due to distance and life -but that’s the thing about a true friendship. You can pick up right where you left off, and the trust you’ve established has held despite tests and tribulations.
So when things were going terribly for me, he swept in and gave me a little vacation. He lives in Florida and has enough connections (and was willing to spare some dinero as well) to get me down there for the weekend, and a visit to Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights 2009. Check out the commercial…
I’m working on a video montage from my trip, but suffice it to say -it effing rocked. I spent Friday at the beach and got the faint beginnings of a tan. I plan to post a lot more pictures and videos around my Facebook, but most of the pictures I took are available to view on my Travel album at Photobucket.com. 
My first day was gorgeous, blue sky and white foam above a sandy beach just scattered with treasures and oddities from the depths of the sea. I found a big chunk of coral, but ended up tossing it back into the waves to evade a housefly the size of my pinky fingertip. A bottle washed up as we were sitting under our umbrellas, and for just a second we thought it might have a note. It was empty- but it was carrying some barnacles from it’s home below the tides.
We also spotted an alligator crossing the road on our way home from the beach -it looked to be at least an adolescent, and both my Floridian companions remarked that they’d never seen one so big just crossing. Needless to say, I thought better of getting out to snap a photo, and therefore only really got a last-minute shot from behind him as he reached the grasses on the other side. I had tucked my camera away inside my purse by the time we came upon him, so the chance for a really great shot was lost. =(
We went though the Wolfman, Dracula, Silver Screams, and the Child’s Play houses -imagine actual sound stages (inside which television gems like Double Dare were filmed) that have been made into haunted houses with a million dollar budget and crews of paid actors lurking around the sets and jumping out to scare the pants off of you. Outside the houses are zones with specific themes like Apocalypse and Cirque du Freak, where actors in full-on special effects makeup do the same. Chainsaw guys, bloodied tv producers with even bloodier clipboards, and shambling zombies walked the park among us, startling the unsuspecting pedestrians as they filed past. I saw a woman on a bench absently staring off into the distance as she talked on her phone, and watched as a hatchet-faced zombie in dressed in rags stormed over to grunt in her face. Her eyes were like saucers when she jumped- It was priceless!
Adam upgraded our tickets to come back a second night, but unfortunately during our absolutely fabulous dinner at Moonfish the rains came and didn’t cease until we had long past given up hope of walking around an outdoor fest the rest of the evening. It was a great trip, and also a great reminder that life is about so much more than a paycheck or owning a home. I’m not sure what the rest of 2009 will bring, or the years ahead either… but I know that I have a great family and some truly admirable and generous friends. That’s enough to keep my head up for now, and hopefully someday I can pass that hope on to someone else who needs it. On that note, here’s a hastily made slideshow.
town with the most selection. When I’m financially stable I’ll be able to use my buying power as a consumer to support the right businesses. As long as we’re all this destitute, we really can’t afford to search out a grocer who’s NOT owned by a major company (Schnucks or Kroger or… oh yeah, that’s it) and spend more there. The reason I’m starting out with this, however, is because I got this glorious hall of sustenance for the week and still managed to stay $5 under budget. Of course, I forgot drinks for Bastian’s sack lunches -but I can get those and we’re still good.
Before I went out yesterday to run the rest (hopefully) of my non-dental errands, mom invited Charlie and me over for lunch. I was reminded of all the times my mother used to tell me that we come from “peasant stock” and how that’s part of the reason our family has traditionally given birth to large babies (mine were 10.1 and 10 pounds respectively). Personally I think this is, to some extent, ridiculous to think about but not necessarily out of the question. In any case, she is an expert at making due and therefore I’m paying homage to her hot dog bun garlic bread. Thanks for lunch, mom, and for a second tip of the day.
