the maw of Fafnir

Day 5 - 3/16/08

Final day. Got up, saw sunrise. Took pictures. Many pictures. Went back to bed for several hours. Dreamt of ninjas attacking me just as I sat down to mess about with an Excel spreadsheet. Wonder what that's all about. Ninjas. Eventually got up again and went for lunch. Had blue margarita to coordinate with outfit. (I begin to believe that margaritas may take the place of my previous favorite drink, the screwdriver.)

Went back to room, read, went swimming, got bowled over repeatedly by waves, given how strong the wind was. Went home, took shower, went on sunset boat cruise. Too cloudy for good sunset, but drank punch and lounged about on the boat for two hours. Nice catamaran, good to go sailing, given that snorkelling doesn't work with glasses. Came home, ate dinner and rum cake. Mmm, rum cake. (Where has all the rum gone? Into the cake. Why? It tastes better that way.) Decided that a question on my "Informational Questionaire for Prospective Dates" should be "What's your opinion on cheese?"

Read some more, determined that we both had long layovers in Atlanta. Were vaguely displeased. I threatened to buy another Phillipa Gregory novel to keep me entertained during the long hours. Henry offered one of his books, telling me not to stoop to such ludicrous depths.

Getting up relatively early tomorrow, inclined to remember to wear more clothing, given how cold I was on the flight out. Am looking forward to being home; forced relaxation is rather tiring and I can only imagine how the porridge is doing.

Needless to say, but I'll do it anyway, AWESOME idea, whosever it was. Warm warm warm all of the time, even at night. A little too humid sometimes, but the everpresent seabreeze keeps the temperature just right. I will say, though, that I will not miss the feel or smell of sunblock. Or what the sea breeze/water does to my hair. I believe I'm more tan -- I daresay that my tummy is, given the tanlines, but I couldn't say how noticeable any of the rest of it is. Come to think of it, I have very few, if any, pictures of me in the sun. I doubt anyone will believe I was even there. Clearly, I'm just playing hooky from work and ordering rum cakes online.

Day 1 - 3/12/08

So a few days before I left for the wondrous world of the Grand Caymans, I stumbled upon "The Hedonism Handbook" at the Stanford Bookstore. Intrigued, I picked it up. The back said, "Dare to go on vacation without your laptop and cellphone. Let red wine and great sex improve your health. Embrace your secret urge to do absolutely nothing today." Huh, I thought. This is precisely what I need to help me enjoy my vacation in the Caribbean. So I bought it.

In the end, leaving the Bay Area to go on vacation was somewhat more difficult than expected. I was at work late, trying to set up things for porridge emails, kept wondering if I should bring my laptop so I could do work during my 5 hour layover in Atlanta. After 4/4 people said, with varying degrees of emphaticness, "No, you're on vacation," I left it at work. By the time I actually boarded my flight, I had already thought of at least 6 or 7 emails I'd forgotten to send before I left. But as my handbook says, my coworkers will deal. How do I know? What would happen if I had died? They'd go on. So vacation will be no different.

Anyway, Henry met a very groggy and sleep deprived me in Atlanta, we flew down to the Cayman Islands, rented a car, got lost, figured out where we were, got to our hotel. We're staying at the Reef Resort, which is on the opposite end of the Island from everything else. We're very happy about this, as it means that for most of the afternoon, we were the only people in the water, and there were only three people on the beach. And it's spring break time. Good choice, us.

Anyway, the water is remarkably clear and this feel very like something out of a movie, complete with bad DJ and couples dancing outside the beach bar. I have yet to order a fruity drink, but I lay in the sun in a bikini and went swimming (well, wading, given how shallow it is here), lay on the dock and looked at the stars, and had lobster for dinner.

Also, I bought a hat. Bright blue, matches excellently with my sarong and bikini, and generally looks pretty cute. There are pictures. By the way, did I mention? SUN, WARMTH, and OCEAN that doesn't freeze. It was a little cloudy, but honestly, if that's all I have to worry about, I'm doing all right.

I think tomorrow, I will do absolutely nothing.

The sun is out, the sky is blue...

Today, I was glad to discover a couple of things:

1) No matter how much time you spend talking to people or trying to understand them, inevitably you will be surprised by them. In some cases, more than once.

2) There are still people in the world who believe very strongly in the success and brilliance of love, and who are not necessarily jaded by whatever situations they might have been in before you knew them or after you lost them.

Both of these things makes me quite happy, even though I'm not sure that I fall into either category. It's just good to know that things like Truth, Love & Beauty still exist as ideals and that people are very different on an individual basis.

In completely unrelated news, I had an awesome dinner at Kaygetsu, which consisted of 6 courses of unidentifiable foods and fantastic tastes and much green tea. I had spent a good few hours stressing about what I was going to wear, how/whether to do my hair, how/whether to put on makeup, and other things, before watching a couple episodes of season four of Buffy (yes, I have seen all of it more than once but I'm rewatching it) and forgetting to be stressed until about 10 minutes before I had to leave. Thank goodness for skillz which allow me to get ready and look good within 10-15 minutes.

I also realized, after some conversation, that I'm vaguely addicted to my Livejournal and that I tend to write in it more than is good for me. Of course, this isn't actually reflected in my entries, given that I spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm going to write, deciding how much information I want to divulge, and then writing whatever part of it I feel like I can write, sometimes expounding further in a friends-locked post. (Though, as you may have noticed, I don't like friends-locked posts much.) Usually, I get the urge to post something 2 or 3 times a day, but generally restrain myself to posting once every 2 or 3 days.

Henry is safe in Texas -- I know this because I called him and he picked up. I thought, for whatever reason, that he was two hours behind (so calling him at midnight my time wouldn't be so late for him), but, as it turns out, he's two hours ahead. And now much less well-rested. Sorry, Henry.

I have also added large amounts of things to my Amazon wishlist. And I kind of wonder when I think I'll be able to afford the complete Star Trek seasons of the original series, the Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine, as well as the whole set of movies. In the meanwhile, I kind of also need to get Buffy 5-7 and Angel 3-5. It's a pity that my birthday is so close to Christmas. Although I don't get any fewer presents, I only get them once a year...

I also kind of want to go and buy an entire new wardrobe, with shoes and everything. I've recently had an increasing urge to become more girly. I don't think this will actually happen, although I should probably go buy another pair of flat shoes (maybe puma SpeedCats or more ballet flats) and maybe a pair of peeptoe pumps.

I have at least two snails in my tank. One of them is named Sparky. I think the other is Trouble, both in name and in actuality. Apparently, snails are hermaphroditic, so can produce without a mate. And apparently, they do this often enough to take over the tank. I have experience with this, actually, since I found one snail in the morning, and twelve hours later, there were two of them. Coincidence? I think not. I have to figure out what to do about them, although the internet tells me that most snails are generally beneficial to the tank.

Finally, I realized that it was the last week in July, which means that Summer is nearly 2/3 over. This is both sad (end of summer) and good (beginning of pumpkin pie and a return of Christmas music). Also, at the end of September, my parents will have been married for exactly 40 years. My dad wants to go watch a large quantity of P-51 Mustangs take to the air in Ohio, but I'm not sure we'll be able to all make it out there for that. And it's no fun without all of us.

As part of summer going away, Formula 1 season is also drawing to a close, with Louis Hamilton, the rookie, in the lead for the Championship. Will Kimi, Alonso, or Massa be able to steal his early lead? Only time (and the remaining races) will tell.

If this were the normal size of my LJ braindumps, would you really want to read two or three of them every day? Yeah, I wouldn't, either.

right, so i'm in riga. gone from dublin. dublin was good, but rainy; riga is sunny, but small. i could probably find something wrong with anywhere i am. :(

no, but seriously, folks, i'm having an awesome time. latvia is a nice nice country and the people here are very friendly and keep planning our days for us so we don't have to.

in other news, coffee is awesome.

totally a good day for beach-hopping....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0ZayLAysjg

a tad tardy, but good luck to everyone with finals!

and happy spring.

yes, it is now tanktop weather. praise the sungods...

Praise of Re Har-akhti, Rejoicing on the Horizon, in His Name as Shu Who Is in the Aton-disc, living forever and ever; the living great Aton who is in jubilee, lord of all that the Aton encircles, lord of heaven, lord of earth, lord of the House of Aton in Akhet-Aton; (and praise of) the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, who lives on truth, the Lord of the Two Lands: Nefer-kheperu-Re Wa-en-Re; the Son of Re, who lives on truth, the Lord of Diadems: Akh-en-Aton, long in his lifetime; (and praise of) the Chief Wife of the King, his beloved, the Lady of the Two Lands: Nefer-neferu-Aton Nefert-iti, living, healthy, and youthful forever and ever; (by) the Fan-Bearer on the Right Hand of the King ... Eye.

http://touregypt.net/hymntoaten.htm