I now interrupt

..my random babble about our honeymoon, because I have something else to talk about.

Houses. And moving. And holy shit, I think we are going to move. And it is only 45 minutes away, but it might as well be a world away.

I have lived in this same area since I was nine, minus some time in Austin and Dallas. Basically that equals seventeen years of living within three miles of my current house. I shop at the same grocery store my mom did. I go to the convenience store and the owner talks about when I was little and rode my bike there. I don't get IDed at the bank, because everyone knows me. I can't go to the gas station without seeing my old neighbor, or my old high school teacher, or my best friend. This little bubble, "The Bubble," has been my bubble for years. And now, we want out.

We have lots of reasons. Schools. Better neighborhood. The lake. Hills. Trees. But mostly, we just want to. And I do. I really do. But I am also terrified.

But I better get over it quick, because we faxed the offer over this morning.

Day 2

Day two was tourist day. The only day we did official touristy things. Two hours in the car each way to Black River, YS Falls, and Appleton Rum Factory. The drive, itself, was an event.

Our second day began early. Sometime during our drunken debauchery of the day prior we passed a tour guide parked at the front of resort. Rumor has it I questioned his parenting skills when I learned, in the first 2.5 seconds of meeting him, that he had a child living in the US and not with him in Jamaica. Despite grilling him about whether or not he paid child support, he still agreed to cart our asses around Jamaica. And he even brought me pictures of his kid. And later became our friend. Hi, Marc!

Though the trip was supposed to be about the Black River tour, the falls, and the rum factory, I was actually more amazed by the trip itself. Two hours each way, winding through small little mountain roads, bordered on one side by the ocean. We stopped at roadside stands for fritters. We giggled at the goats walking along the side of the road that apparently make their way home every evening all on their own. The whole trip I was in awe. The view! The mountains! The ocean! The goats!

Stopping along the way to Black River to take pictures.

By the time we arrived at Black River we were giddy and ready for some adventures.

Black River. Called so, because, obviously, the water looks black. However, the water is actually the clearest river water I have ever seen.

The four of us were joined by several other tourists, including a family with a disabled teenager. The mother immediately announced they were making this trip for the girl who looked miserable after being lifted, and almost dropped, onto a pontoon boat in her wheelchair. Mama, then whips out her camera. A polaroid. No not a fancy I-still-use-a-polaroid-for-artist-purposes polaroid, but a cheap, old polaroid. "Sit up straight and smile like you are having fun," she barks at the poor girl. Then before any of us knew what was happening, she made us all pose with her family members "like we were friends."




Someone should have thrown her to the crocodiles, which there were plenty of along the river. Our tour guide thought it great fun to pull the boat right up to them. Especially the side of the boat I was sitting on.


"Don't worry," he assured us. "They are quite tame," he says as he hand feeds them chicken.



Luckily, that crocodile did not eat our tour guide.


After escaping death by crocodile, we drove another thirty minutes or so to YS Falls. By the time we arrived the sky had darkened. Then the rain began. We made it about halfway up the falls, before some old dude leered at me and grabbed Emily's ass. I was a little upset, because, obviously, that meant she had the better ass.

By that point we were over it. It was raining. Hard. Old men were creeping us out. Emily and I found ourselves waiting at the bottom of the falls while the guys headed off to find the rope swing. While waiting we noticed two things.

1.The signs all explicitly warn you not to smoke ganja.

2. The non-American men wear little bitty swimsuits with their junk hanging out.

The guys never made it to the rope swing. And Kenny caught me taking pictures of this guy in the little pants. Kenny and Michael decided it was best to head on to Appleton Rum factory before we were completely water logged I got myself in trouble.

This is the tour that everyone looks forward to. All you can drink free rum. Rum punch. Rum shots. 30-year-old rums. Whatever your heart desires. Unless, of course, you heart desires to never see rum again after drinking rum punch for 8 straight hours the day before. The smell wafting from the parking lot was enough to make me want to puke.

But the tour was supposed to be really interesting, too.

Or not. We could have cared less how the pot stills work.

I did perk up when I heard that we could taste some raw molasses (a by product...see I was too listening Mr. Tour Guide Who Kept Fussing At Us For Trailing Behind). Sugar in any form is my friend.

Licorice, however, is not. And that is what that shit tasted like.

By then end of the day, we were done being goofy tourist. We took our fanny packs off Not really. You didn't think I actually have a fanny pack did, you? and started planning our next day. Local spots. Where the natives go. Those were our requirements. Marc, mapped out a plan, and we agreed to meet at four the next afternoon.

Honeymoon, Day 1

I figure it took us seven days to travel around Jamaica, it should take me about that long to blog about it. Or at least download all of the photos.

The first day was really just half day. The only thing worth mention was meeting another honeymooning couple, Emily and Michael. Love them. Love. After that, we went to bed before nine. By the next day, we were up and ready to go early. Six am early. On the beach by 7:30.

The bar opened at 10am. The rum punches were nice to us. Very nice. As was the fresh snapper cooked right on the beach. And that tuna melt that was unlike any other tuna melt I have every had. You know, other than the twelve or sixteen I ate while I was there. We spent the day camped out on the beach, listening to music, eating all we could eat, hanging out with friends, and taking a spontaneous snorkeling trip.

Unfortunately, the bar did not come with us on the boat, which meant a two hour lack of rum punch. And Red Stripe. But have no fear. Our captain, Lucky, took care of us. He found us a bucket of beer.

We passed around the bucket of beer bottle of "Wata" as we made our way out to the reef for the best snorkeling I have ever done. Although probably not the best snorkeling to be had. Just better than Mexico where we generally see nothing. This time there were eels, starfish, plants, crazy reef, and tons of fish.

Our snorkeling was cut short by a storm, complete with lightening. One a rickety boat. On water. Although Lucky ensures me that is how he got his name. By never being struck by lightening? He must have been telling the truth, because we made it back safe.

The storm had soon passed, and we made our way over to the pool bar. We had been previously warned about those bartenders and that flaming drink they had. But rum punches and a bucket of beer made Kenny think trying it would be a good idea.

His name is not really Austria. We just called him that. Because he lives in Austria. Obviously.

*I am told this is when the bar walking happened. I sort of believe this from the camera angle. And the wet footprints on the bar.

Honeymoon. Part 1 of.....

The wedding I hardly remember. The honeymoon? I have a total of 1417 pictures and 12 videos chronicling our journey. I remember pretty much all of it. Except some parts of Monday. It is apparently not a good idea to drink the rum punch from 10am until 8pm. What I don't remember, I was able to piece back together in pictures. And stories from the bartenders which included, but where not limited to

1. Emily (my vacation bestie) and I walking on the bar, stepping over people's drinks.
2. Me telling a girl she was not in our club of people we were married on the 15th, followed by Emily telling her she had been married "a looooong time." They had gotten married on the 8th.
3. Emily and I harassing the bartender who admitted to me that he had five kids with five different moms.

Don't worry. I took it easy with the rum punches the rest of the trip. However, I can't exactly say we took it easy the whole trip. We did a lot. We went everywhere. We did touristy things. We ate a local restaurants. We made good friends with our driver. We hiked. We snorkeled. We sat on the beach. I read four books. We woke up by 6am everyday, and were asleep by 9:30pm every night. I ate no less than three lunches a day. I loved the food. I ate fritters from roadside stands and drank coconut water straight from the coconut. Crocodiles swam within feet of me. I held a starfish, chased a stingray, and ran from jellyfish. And I loved every minute of it.

From the moment we arrived, I knew this was going to be an amazing vacation.

.....to be continued. With pictures.

Half. Whole.

A little over a week ago, I was just me. Now I am me, but married. Half of a whole. Or so I am told. Even though I feel more than whole now, I am suddenly just half.

I don't remember a lot about the wedding. Little snippets. It went fast and blurred by. I remember laughing. I remember smiling until I had to rub my cheeks. I can't tell you a single word I said during the ceremony. I barely remember hearing the song play during our first dance. One minute I was waiting to walk down the isle, sure my heart would explode it was beating so hard. The next minute, we were kissing the girls goodbye as we piled them into the car and headed off for the night. One minute I was just me. The next minute, I was one of us.

Today. A lot nothing. You are excited, right?

A weird thing happened. Maybe not that weird. Simply, my other computer has yet another virus. But, dude, google has straight up banned me from everything. It told me hells to the no. I can't view a damn thing because apparently my hacking ass computer is sending automated messages across the blogosphere. So if I randomly linked you to porn or some such, it wasn't actually me. Although, if it made you happy, I will take the credit.

In the meantime, I am running some virus scans until I see my neighbor who is a computer genius drive by, so I can go cry to him until he fixes it. Other than my computer virus, it is kind of boring around here.

We all threw up yesterday. We are all better today. I am driving myself insane with last minute things for the wedding, although really I have everything done. I just keep worrying that I don't have everything done.

Emmi has me watching "Scary" which is actually Coraline (please somebody I know have a girl and name her Coraline. I would suggest such to my sister if her baby is a girl, but it is probably a little to close to her daughter's name. I would also be happy with Delilah...LAURA, I am talking to you.) Jill is grounded after a little incident involving the woman cutting her hair. And by grounded, I mean she annoyed the piss out of me until I told her to go play at the neighbor's house.

And that is pretty much it. Tomorrow marks exactly one week until the wedding. I have something planned for every day of the official one week countdown. But with my lack of enthusiasm for blogging, I am not sure I will get to it. Let's shoot for three out of seven.

Talking Dirty

I don't know what it is, but I just can't for the life of me talk dirty. Mostly because I am, like, thirteen and still giggle at naughty words. Kenny has never complained, but what man wouldn't like a little dirty talk now and then. Something tells me it just isn't the same when I giggle and snort my way through it and whisper the naughty words for fear that someone might hear me. My friends have tried to be helpful over the years and give me pointers whenever I mention this issue. But, I am apparently a poor student. The most I can manage is something along the lines of "Hey Baby" followed by a wink and a nudge. It just isn't working. I need help.

I think help will come in the form of these.

Little tokens with dirty little phrases I can slip in Kenny's pocket or leave in his car. Although with my luck he would switch trucks with one of the guys, and I would end up telling our crew leader I want to strip for him. I won't even have to say anything. Which is probably a hell of a lot sexier, in my case.

And, for all of you parents out there, there ones for your kids to slip in their lunch boxes. Although, you should make sure you keep those suckers separate so as not to mix those up. I am not sure how my kid's kindergarten teacher would feel about me not wearing panties all day.

Two

Two weeks. In exactly two weeks from today, Kenny and I will be married.