Filed under: Exercise, Middle Age, Posts, Spring Break, Travel | Tags: adulthood, adventure, Caribbean, champagne, family, French, humor, islands, Loterie Farm, Middle-Age, sports, Spring Break, St. Maarten, subourbonmom, travel, zip-lines
Day Three of Spring Break, St. Maarten:
Today was one of those perfect days you fantasize about when you’re scraping the windshield and cursing the fact that you didn’t get that finicky backseat window in your car fixed before winter hit.
Our intrepid leader Mark and his up-for-anything assistant Stazzi took us to a place called The Loterie Farm (pronounced “Lottery Farm,”), an oasis in the middle of St. Maarten that offers an idyllic infinity pool with cabanas you can rent, straight out of “Who The Hell Lives Like That?” magazine. (This is the genre of magazine that features houses with all-white furniture and carpets, and ads for curtains that cost more than my snow-covered car.) For the more adventurous, there is a network of zip-lines and hiking trails throughout the jungle.
Before we left, there was the usual 45 minutes of trying to round up seven people and all of their gear for the day:
Me: “Does anyone have the bug spray? Did you put sunscreen on? No you didn’t—you’re not shiny enough. Put it on—not here, outside! Did you bring sneakers? You can’t zip-line in flip flops…”
Everyone else: “Mommmm…”
Eventually, Mark and Stazzi managed to corral all of us into the rental van. When we arrived at The Loterie Farm, we entered the pool area and plunked our gear down. What a surprise! We were a loud, laughing group of Americans invading a quiet and serene European setting–no wonder they hate us. A frowning French waiter brought a complementary bucket of champagne, which made me salivate like a dog looking at a steak, but that would have to wait—there was zip-lining to do first. After all, I do have a little bit of a work ethic.
The zip-lining was as fun as it was exhausting – I definitely recommend it to anyone with a sense of adventure. After and hour of straining muscles over a ropes course and clipping and un-clipping ourselves to various cables and trees, the tired Fam plodded down the last wooden ramp to the fix-it-yourself rum punch bar—seriously, they had that. I love Island People. The more athletic and wise among us (Daughters 1&2) made do with water. Dripping with jungle sweat from squatting and zipping and maneuvering my not-as-limber-as-I-thought body around, I went back for champagne and my bathing suit.
Guess who didn’t bring hers?
Hubby, already in his suit and ready to get into the pool and cool off with a glass of the bubbly, saw me getting ready to FTFO and took me to the Teeny, Tiny boutique that was there just for forgetful people like me, to buy a suit. Everything in that boutique was Teeny Tiny, including The Loterie Farm Dog, a Chihuahua named Felly who periodically got the “zoomies” and ran in circles before collapsing in the grass ( I think I lost 20 minutes just watching him). The only things not Teeny Tiny were the price tags. Of course, the Teeny Tiniest things in the boutique were the bathing suits. And Ladies, in case you were wondering, Land’s End tank-inis don’t exist in Europe or The Islands, except on suburban-American moms. We may think we are camouflaging the muffin-tops in them, but the rest of the world can spot us a mile away, and they shrink back in horror.
What I ended up purchasing was a band-aide-sized, black and white bikini that, next to my sunburned skin, made me look like a zebra with a bad case of mange. You could clearly see the tan lines left by my forgotten suit.
Mortified, I wrapped a towel around my waist, trying desperately to ignore the fact that there was air coming down the back of the bottoms because—yes, it’s gross, but true—I’m pretty sure I actually had crack showing. Classy.
But, after a delicious tapas meal and a couple (make that several) boat drinks over which we solved the problems of the world, I was no longer mortified. In fact, I felt kind of French—I had a too-small bathing suit, lack of inhibitions, and an attitude of undeserved privilege—or is that more like a recent college grad? It’s hard to tell the difference, except for the accent.
Either way, I decided it was a pretty nice way to spend time on vacation; and since Daughters 1 & 2 are closer to graduating than I will ever be again, I’ll just have to become French. Oui?
“Mommmmm…”
“I know, I know. Put some more sunscreen on. You’re not shiny enough.”
Filed under: Middle Age, Spring Break, Travel | Tags: Carribean, family, hiking, humor, islands, Middle-Age, mom, Spring Break, St. Maarten, subourbonmom, travel, yachts
Spring break this week couldn’t have come soon enough, after yet another week of missed work, missed school and sleet that no longer sounded like popcorn on the windows, but more like an irritating toddler tapping on the bedroom door while Mommy was in “time-out.” Courtesy of my very generous in-laws, we were invited to spend a few days in St. Maarten. For weeks I’d been envisioning white sand beaches, tropical drinks and hangovers that mysteriously disappeared with an hour or two of being in the sun.
I also had visions of how I would be looking in my bikini.
Huh.
I didn’t remember I’d have two teenage daughters with me, and that I would be surrounded by other youngsters in their 20’s, with no wrinkles or worn-out-looking skin draping their bodies like Scarlett O’Hara’s curtains before she made them into a dress.
But I wore it anyway. Hell, I didn’t know anybody there.
I also tried to justify it to myself by going for a walk from where we were staying up to a radio tower on top of the “mountain.” Okay, it wasn’t really a mountain, but it looked like one when I was eyeballing it from the breakfast table, with a stomach full of healthy granola trying to counteract the bellyful of pizza and Heinekens from the night before.
My eyes have always been bigger than my stomach, and that day, they were clearly bigger than my exercise capabilities.
So off The Fam went, a water bottle in each hand, our pale, prison-term skin glistening in the mid-morning light and blinding the locals. As we plodded along the congested street to get to the “mountain”, my only thought was, “My goal today is to sweat out the many, many toxins I ingested last night.” By the time we’d gone about 500 yards, I’d achieved that goal. We hadn’t even started uphill yet.
Our friend and guide to all fun things local, Mark, led us landlubbers through the maze of tiny lanes winding up the hill. Each indentation in the road hid a charming villa overlooking the ocean in a panorama of turquois and cerulean blues that made your heart actually ache, wanting to see that view every day. In his characteristic speed-walk (large steps, head swiveling from side to side like an ostrich as he scanned for potential hazards), we hiked up the mountain that I had quickly decided was not eroding with time like a normal mountain, but was in fact growing, probably due to some strange up-thrust of island infrastructure-related sewage activity. (For some reason, there was a stench of raw sewage that would come at us in wafts all over the island—random waves of shit-smell that would actually burn the back of your throat until you cleared the area).
Two-thirds of the way up, I had to take a break. Mama Bear was falling behind, and not in a, “I’ll block the cars from the rear,” protective kind of way. My lungs were on fire, and the hip I busted white water rafting was seizing up in a way no WD40 or bottles of Aleve were going to fix. Ahead, Mark and Daughters 1&2 were plowing on with heads down and shoulders hunched against the humidity and the the incline.
Hubby was patiently waiting for me to catch up, the last prisoner on this Bataan Death March.
Eventually, we made it to the top, and the view? It was worth it—a panoramic view of our part of the island.
The best parts of the whole adventure?
- No texting
- Daughters 1&2 were impressed with something that, while not exactly life-sized, was not on SnapChat until THEY put it there.
- I didn’t have to use my inhaler, and the hours on the elliptical weren’t wasted.
- I was toxin-free…
- …until I had the three frozen lemonade drinks at the beach bar later on that were GUILT-FREE.
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Posts | Tags: adulthood, clocks, family, glasses, humor, malls, Marriage, menopause, Middle-Age, REI, shopping, Sleazstaks, south, southern, subourbonmom
Many of you know I’m not a gadget girl. I am missing the shopping gene that Daughter #1 has, which enables her to spend hours in a mall, touching everything that is for sale. However, recently I was in our local REI store, killing time while the family roamed around, and I found something that was so cool, I almost spent the $14 just to wear it once into my classroom:
That’s not me: it’s my big brother…you can’t say I never made you famous!
How could you not want chameleon-vision glasses? I would LOVE to spend one afternoon driving around in these, watching people’s reactions. Of course, since the glasses enable you to see behind you and to the side, I would be an even better driver than I already am (my insurance agent Stephanie would agree, saying something like you can only go up).
Despite the cool glasses (which I opted not to buy), I’m still not a gadget girl. I don’t need the latest and greatest bells and whistles on everything I own—but I married someone who does. Most of the time this works to my advantage—my dishwasher is super-quiet and my car has heated seats and intermittent wipers, things I never would have bothered with. The fact of the matter is, it’s a pretty safe bet that if something ever happened to Hubby, I would be living in a shack with nothing but a CD player and a black and white t.v.
About a month ago, Hubby bought a gadget that might cause our entire marriage to implode. Apparently, he has always wanted one of those alarm clocks that shines the time on the wall or ceiling. Yes, the man who claims to not be able to sleep if I have the bedside light on, or if my book light is too bright, has purchased an alarm clock that projects bright blue numbers a foot high on the wall opposite our bed. All night long, the room is bathed in a Poltergeist glow, and I keep waking up, expecting to see Drew Barrymore in her white nightie sitting in front of out t.v., saying, “They’re heeeere…”
As a woman in her 40’s who finds herself awake in a puddle of sweat for no good reason, having a giant blue announcement that it’s 3:00 AM is unbelievably annoying. It’s even more irritating when, as I turn over for the twentieth time and crack open my eyes, it informs me it’s 3:10…3:13…3:42…4:00.
So I’ve decided on my revenge. I’m going to put on those glasses (looking like a Sleazstak from the old Land of the Lost show), and wake Hubby up. I’m pretty sure they don’t have alarm clocks like that in the hospital. No matter which of us ends up there, I win.
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Posts | Tags: adulthood, brains, Eyes, humor, memory, menopause, Middle-Age, National Geographic, news, Patrick Dempsey, Science, sex, south, southern, subourbonmom, television, vision
I was looking through our latest copy of National Geographic (I think I am one of the dozen folks in the world still getting it–thanks Mom!), and I came across a couple of articles I couldn’t resist commenting on.
A recent study from Canada’s McMaster University tracked the way men and women moved their eyes as they scanned pictures of faces. In a nutshell, women made more eye movements between the features then men, generating a more vivid picture in their minds. I would like to know why women scan faces more—does this mean we’re naturally more critical of each other? (“Oh Lord, she’s got a glob of mascara on her left eyelid, Bless her heart.”) 
Or is it just part of our enhanced communication skillset? (“Caveman Bob looks like he would be a better mate than Caveman Steve—he’s got laugh lines.”)
I would also like to know if the same holds true for other body parts—say, breasts, for example. I would love to see a study done that determines if men spend the same amount of time scanning breasts as they do faces, or if it is more. 
To be fair, a study should also be done to determine if women scan men’s bodies as much as they do faces. I’m betting they do—I like big…feet as much as the next girl.
In another article, Caltech and UCLA used pictures of celebrities to study how the brain processes what the eyes see. They found out that an individual nerve cell fired up only when subjects were shown pictures of Halle Barry, even is she was dressed up as Cat Woman. Apparently, we use very few neurons for every image we see, and this makes our brains super-efficient at storing information. But if I’m using one neuron for each image, tv must REALLY be using up my brain capacity.
Think of all the images we see every day on tv, YouTube, and SnapChat. No wonder I can’t find my keys or remember where I parked; I’m too busy assigning neurons to hotty actors like Patrick Dempsey and Ian Somerhalder while I Google people in the carpool line.
Since I am completely unable to pull up the name of the lead singer of U2 if I’m asked on the spot, or remember why I came into a room at any given time, my image storing capacity is clearly taking away my language and memory recall.
Maybe this is why in the 1950’s they called the tv “the idiot box.” I think they were on to something.
Now if only I could remember where I put the remote…maybe if I think of Patrick Dempsey holding it I’ll find it.
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Parenting | Tags: adulthood, cell phones, children, family, humor, kids, Middle-Age, mom, parenting, sleep, sleep texting, smart phones, subourbonmom, teenagers, teens, texting
I recently read an article about “sleep texting.” Apparently, this is becoming an issue, especially with teens, who have their phone attached to their body, sucking their communication skills away as fast as the Seahawks sucked away Peyton Manning’s dreams.
This happens at my house, too!
Similar to sleepwalking, people are now reading and responding to texts while asleep. Some of those afflicted have even resorted to wearing mittens and socks to bed to prevent this from happening. Wow—that’s a generational difference. We older people have been known to wear socks with lotion in them to bed to keep our feet and hands from cracking–not so we don’t text our friends. In fact, I have no desire to hear from anybody after 8:00pm, much less contact them in my sleep.
One doctor said having your phone where you can hear it buzz while you sleep is similar to how a mother is conditioned to respond to a baby crying in the middle of the night; the slightest sound wakes her up. For those of you who had babies, you remember that sleep-deprived stage when you woke up to every little scratch and squeak your newborn made? Well, teenagers are sleeping as lightly as we did, and it is making them even more pleasant to be with during the day.
But in a world where communication is becoming such an issue, with bullying at the forefront, just imagine the drama that could ensue from sleep texting in high school. (Please note I am aware of how pathetic my attempts are at mimicking the texting shorthand Daughters 1&2 use–I still can’t bring myself to use the word “totes.”)
It’s 2:00am and “Julie” is woken up by the buzz from the phone on her night table:
Samantha: you up?
Julie: ya y?
Samantha: Jack just broke up with me
Julie (dreaming about Grey’s Anatomy, which she’s been watching non-stop since Christmas break): McSteamy?
Samantha: wut?!? Since when do you like jack… (red, angry face emoticon)
Julie: he’s hot but he likes Lexi
Samantha: Lexi? In Algebra?
Julie: Lexi loves him.
Samantha: how do u know?
Julie: they had sex
Samantha: when? how do u know? I thought she was a virgin!! (seven confused emoticons)
Julie: but he has a kid and she’s mad
Samantha: ???
Julie: (back asleep–no response)
Samantha: WTF I hate it when u do this u r so weird why don’t u answer me?
Julie: (no response—asleep)
Samantha: I knew u couldn’t b serious about it u always make a joke about everything u r supposed to be my best friend don’t even talk to me at school! (fifteen crying emoticons)
Now, imagine Julie trying to explain that she has no memory of sending those texts to an irate Samantha, just after Samantha has crucified Lexi and Jack at school. (is there a shaking head with pity emoticon?)
Subourbon Mom 