The Year We Had No Plans For New Years

The kids are with their father on vacation and I spent the day de-Holidaying the house, filing, talking to my Dad on the phone, talking to myself a lot, and watching the marathon of my favorite show.

HG worked.

I didn’t shower until 5:00.

Why was I talking to myself, you ask?

Because I am just not used to being in this house all by myself.  I’m used to having to beg and plead for just five minutes of silence when the kids are here, and when they’re not; well HG and I are otherwise occupied, but I’m rarely here alone all day long.

The dogs are not good conversationalists, and frankly they were getting in my way a lot today.

Which brings us to,  we have no plans for New Years Eve.

Really, we were excited to go out and celebrate our upcoming DP, but since that isn’t happening, we find ourselves at a loss for entertainment, which is completely rare and atypical for me on this or any free evening.  Perhaps I should consider making some new friends and not pissing off the ones I have?

(Something to think about for the New Year.) 

So here we are and the only thing we can think of is to go to dinner (without a reservation,) and then come home to play cards or the kid’s Wii.

Holy Hell!  Someone call the press, it’s going to be mass excitement in the RSG/HG household!

Either way, whatever we do, we will be together to bring in the New Year, which I must tell you all is the very last in good year’s for awhile.  Good things happen in even years, and in years that end in seven, so live it up people, this is the end of the trifecta.

Until then, my friends.  Be safe with whatever debauchery you get yourselves into this evening, and keep in mind that NYE is amateur night.  Watch out for the crazies.  They are everywhere.

Ciao.

It was a Wii kind of day.

Christmas Morning.

Lots of screaming, lots of noise, massive amounts of garbage produced by massive amounts of colorful wrapping paper, carefully chosen, purchased and lovingly placed on packages only to be ripped apart and thrown into a large plastic bag where it will spent eternity not decomposing in a landfill somewhere in southern Oregon.

My mother bought the girls a Wii. My father bought the girls Guitar Hero. They got loads of other stuff brought to them by Santa and us and others.

It was exhausting.

Because my wife is just a little bit on the side of being a tad bit obsessed with neatness; after the present opening extravaganza we went right to work.

Cleaning up.

After that, I was able to spend the next several hours, cooking. And after that, I was able to help clean up again. All total, two meals were prepared, the dishwasher ran several times, we vacuumed twice, four bags of garbage was produced, seven hours of Wii was played (by the children,) and I was completely stressed out.

To make up for my pain?

My wonderful wife gave me wonderful Holiday presents, including:

A Canon Video Camera (not for those kind of videos Limpy)
New slippers (from Ginger and Abby.)
iLife ‘08
iWork ‘08
Digital photography book
And of courses there were the early presents I bought for myself with her credit card.

HG did all right as well. She got an iPod Touch which I must say, I am secretly hoping that she will get tired of so that I can commandeer it when she’s not looking.

All in all. It was a very stressful, busy, and exhausting, but very fulfilling in an insane kind of way kind of day. It’s a lot of work creating positive Holiday memories for your children, and I must say that I am glad it is over for another year.

Next year. I’m simplifying. No tree, one present each, and soup for dinner.

Yeah. Right.

Hope you all enjoyed your holiday, next up . . .

A Week Without Children, and The New Year We Had No Plans.

Is it over yet?

Yes I realize my lameness of posting that I was going to post and then did not. Lame.

It’s been a complete whirlwind, beginning right after I said I was going shopping. I was all set to come home, bake a little, post a little, perhaps take a nap? No. The nap did not happen.

I had my new desk delivered on Christmas Eve. So while my friend from whom I purchased the desk, who works at an office furniture store, put it together, I decided that it was a swell time to move my old desk into DD#1’s room, which meant moving about six dressers around so that all of the furniture matched, which meant moving all of the clothes around into the dressers, which meant cleaning out the girls dressers and getting rid of everything that did not fit, which brought me to time to get dinner started and the girl’s coming home.

Have you ever read that book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?” I would be the mouse. Except I don’t like mice.

Christmas Eve.

A time for peace and harmony, love, tranquility, remembering the birth of Christ. Well, except that Christ wasn’t really born on Christmas Eve, nor was he born in a stable, nor was his mother a virgin, nor was she un-married at the time for if she had been un-married and knocked up one of her relatives would have “honor killed” her by throwing her down a well or stoning her to death.

But I digress.

Rather than having peace and harmony, we had our neighbors and their two children over for dinner as well as my mother and brother. My neighbor, who I didn’t think actually liked me that much, brought us really nice gifts, which was a little surprising but way cool. Our neighbors, are quite religious. The kind who have a cross-shaped wreath on their door and say, “God Bless You,” on their answering machine. I’m pretty sure their republicans, and I’m pretty sure that they think that HG and I are on the fast track to eternal damnation, but hey? They came over for dinner on a religious holiday to share fellowship with us.

Christmas. A time for the lion to lay down with the lamb, and the Christians to have dinner with the lesbians. Who knew?

Coming up next . . .

Christmas morning.

The gifts, the screams, the gasps of joy.

(I promise it won’t be three days.)

Happy Sunday

From the Iguana.

This Iguana came out to see everyone at the pool at the resort on our Olivia vacation. You would have thought that T-Rex himself made an appearance the way the lesbians got excited. It wasn’t a cat for God’s sake, but they still got excited and fretted over the little thing.

I never saw so many cameras pop out in all my life. One of the comediennes was there and said that there was more paparazzi than for Paris Hilton. She was right.

The Iguana eventually ran up a tree for awhile.

After that, I grew tired of him and resumed my project of sitting by the pool, sipping a tropical beverage and reading my book.

And if you’re reading, Mindy Klasky, I read your book in a day and a half.

Loved it, thanks!

I don’t know what happened to the Iguana, but I can assure you that he is in the photo folder of several hundred lesbians.

And to think I could have had a purse out of the ordeal.

Olivia’s Vallarta Palace, 2007

It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times.

But instead of knitting, death by guillotine, and eating cake, there was pool games, debauchery and eating . . . well a lot of eating (and drinking too.)

It’s difficult for me to put into words describing an Olivia vacation to someone who has never experienced one.  I suppose if I had to use one word, it would be, Utopia.  You read about Utopia’s in high school right?  Perfect societies.  Yes, that is what an Olivia vacation is.

After a very long night of traveling (we took the red eye, and every flight had a crying, hacking, coughing, sneezing child sitting in front of us,) we arrived in Mexico City with only one flight left.  Our last leg of flying we met two nice women also on their way to Vallarta Palace and coincidentally were seated in the same row.  Mexicana airlines is very cool, they give out free drinks, and not the little airline size booze, they have full size bottles of liquor to mix your cocktail!  We had a celebratory cerveza and  anticipated our landing in Puerto Vallarta.

When the plane landed, I was so excited I thought I might pee my pants.  We exited the plane,  were shuttled to the terminal and immediately met by a porter who came right over to us, “Are you with Olivia?”  We told him we were and he waited with us for our luggage.  All I did was point at ours and he was scooping it up before I could help, amazing.  We were then escorted to a table with an Olivia sign where we were given bottled water, a warm washcloth to freshen up and a beautiful Bird of Paradise flower.  The porter escorted us past customs and outside to a waiting van to drive us to the resort.

We arrived earlier than many of the guests, so we were greeted by practically every Olivia staff member, including the founder and CEO.  Glasses of champagne were put into our hands and we looked around at the beauty and poshness of this exquisite resort.  Our room wasn’t quite ready, so our luggage was taken and we went to the gym to change into shorts.

I was amazed at the beauty of this resort, everything was so fancy.  Marble floors, beautiful fountains, gorgeous pools; the pictures couldn’t do it justice.   We decided to have some lunch at one of the resort restaurants that looked out at the sea.  After my first cocktail, and my first few bites of lunch, I looked at HG and said, “I like this better than the cruise.”  She said, “We’ve been here less than an hour!”  But I already knew this was going to be a vacation to remember.

After lunch we walked around and got familiar with the resort.  There were several gay men strutting about in bikini’s and we found out that Atlantis Cruises (which does vacations primarily for Gay Men,) had been at Vallarta Palace for the two weeks prior to us.  It was such a nice transition, having them leave and us arrive and they were absolute sweethearts to us, giving us tips of what to do, and where to go.  One of the boys even gave HG and I their leftover sunscreen and a pool raft, (the other girls were jealous!)  After more looking around and one or two more Cadillac Margaritas, (and let me tell you, for an all-inclusive resort, the did NOT skimp on the drinks, I had floats of Grand Marnier in every Margarita,) we joined in on one of the first games of the week, blackjack!

The activities director at Vallarta Palace is a twenty year old lesbian named Anna. She was an absolute sweetheart and so much fun to be around.  I think she was in a little bit of heaven, having that many lesbian women around, and seemed genuinely happy to be with all of us.  Anna was going to deal the blackjack, and we would be playing with chips for prizes.

I have a theory about Olivia vacations that I came up with remembering this blackjack game.  Unless you come with a group of people, the theory is that the first 10 people that you meet on the vacation, will more than likely be the 10 people that you either run into the most, or hang out with for the rest of the week.  This was very true for our blackjack game!  We met several ladies, (two from Portland,) a fun, fantastic girl named Kathryn and a cute couple from North Carolina at that blackjack game.  Those were the ladies we chatted with and had fun with the most,  all week long.

When our room was ready, we went to check it out.

It was beautiful.  Tile floors, huge two person jacuzzi in the room, beautiful bathroom with a shower the size of our powder room at home, fully stocked refrigerator with bottled water, soda, and beer.  And a bar with full sized bottled of brandy, scotch, rum, and tequila.  Amazing.

By this time, I was hitting a big wall and was exhausted (from no sleep, Margaritas, and sun, so I “waited for the luggage” (which means I fell asleep on the comfy bed,) while HG went to play beach volleyball.  HG was beyond excited, and she was on a mission to do everything!

Later, we napped, showered and dressed for dinner, (I was happy to find out that I wasn’t the only one who was dressing for dinner,) and enjoyed the first show, comedian Lisa Koch, who we thoroughly enjoyed.

The next couple of days were exactly like this.  A lot of sun, a lot of fun, swimming in the ocean, boogie boarding, playing pool games and blackjack, various cocktails, a lot of food, fantastic service, wonderful people, dancing, karaoke, laughing, more fabulous comedians.  Fun, fun, fun.

On Tuesday we went on a sailing excursion.  This was such a fabulous day and one I won’t forget anytime soon.  We were driven to a marina and out to our boat for the day, a 50 foot incredible sailboat with a crew of two who catered to our every need.  They brought us amazing continuous food, unlimited cocktail service, fun.  Our first stop was a spot where dolphins hang out.  We saw a dozen or more dolphins, and they swam right next to our boat.  When we stopped, the hung all around us, playfully coming up for air, checking us out.  We were allowed to jump in and swim around with them, although they kept their distance, we were still only about 50 feet away from them in the water.  It was an incredible experience.  Our next stop was a private beach where we could swim or snorkel or just hang out on the boat.  I chose the latter, HG decided to swim to the beach which was entirely too strenuous for me that day!  We met some nice ladies from Alaska, and some other ladies who along with myself decided that our sail back would be much more fun topless!  Our last swim was a skinny dip for some of us, and it was so exhilarating and free feeling; there is truly nothing like swimming naked in the ocean, and I highly recommend this experience peeps

Later that evening we had a nice dinner with our new Alaska friends and enjoyed the show.  By this time, exhaustion had set in and I, the party girl, had to skip the dance club and go to bed.

This ended the first half of the trip, and the “best of times” part as well.

To Be Continued . . . 

Okay.  I wrote a cute little post about how we’re heading out on our trip here soon, and we are.  The plan today was to take a nap between the hours of 3-7, get up, get ready and go to catch our red-eye flight to Guadalajara, then Mexico City, then Puerto Vallarta.  We’ll be there by noon Saturday.

Couldn’t nap.  So now we’re sitting here watching Dr. G, (well, HG is watching, I’m blogging and surfing.) And now.  As I wait to get ready to go.  The anxiety is setting in.

We have been SO DAMN busy this week that I feel like I have been operating on Adrenaline, coffee, Halloween candy, and Tylenol.  Everything on our lists have been crossed off and now as we wait to go to this vacation that we planned a year ago, I can’t help but feel a heaviness in my chest.

I totally realize that it’s safer for me to travel than it is for me to go to Safeway, but when you’re packing up and leaving the country for a week, it’s difficult to not think of bad things that could happen.

I could die in a plane crash.  Be abducted by terrorists, thrown in a Mexican prison.  What if something happens to one of my children?  To Ginger?

My children.

I hate telling them goodbye and thinking about missing them so much.  I hate thinking of them missing me.  Yesterday DD#1 said that she was feeling anxious about everything that she had to remember to do, and the fact that she wasn’t going to have a Mommy next week, (Hello Guilt?  I’m Kathryn, nice to meet you.)  Of course I have their entire schedule typed up on a Master Schedule with copies to half the world, but apparently DD#1 was worried.  The girls will be well looked after by their Grammy, and my friend Stacy, and their dad of course.  They won’t even realize I’m gone?

We took our Powers of Attorney to be notarized today, our Wills are in place, our Advanced Directives signed, all of that stuff.  My mom has copies of our passports, the school has been notified, emergency contacts updated, lunches paid for, clothes cleaned for the girls, DD#3 is packed for the week.  Really, I took care of everything.

The house sitter comes tomorrow, the dogs will be taken care of, and I.

I just need to relax and go have a great time with my wife.

My wife.  Rocks.

She is the one who takes us on these trips, these fabulous adventures that we are so, so, lucky to be able to go on.  She loves to travel and see and do things, and I am happy to oblige her and be her travel companion.

She.

Is the center of my life and the single most incredible person I have ever met.  She makes everything special in my life.  Everything.  Even if it is something simple she does it for me in such a wonderful and loving way.

She never takes me for granted, she never takes advantage of me in any way, she never holds things against me or uses my short-comings as ammunition in an argument.  She respects and loves me, even the things she may not “like” about me so much, (like my lack of laundry skills.)

She is amazing.

Often times I will think about her, even if she is sitting right next to me, and suddenly my heart will jump and flutter.  I will feel the love that I have for her burn inside of my chest and down through my stomach, down my legs.  My body gets consumed with love and desire for her.

And I.  Get to be with that wonderful woman, for an entire week, in a Mexican paradise, (and unlimited cocktails!)

God.  My life is good, and that makes me feel grateful and abundant and okay.

Okay?

All will be well in the world for the next nine days, and when I return, I’ll be wondering what the hell I was so worried about, (and wishing I was leaving again!)  One more hour, we’ll be on our way; I think I’m okay now, and of course, I have blogging to thank.  Once again.

Until I return, Ciao!

Adios Amigas!

HG and I are heading out of Dodge, (and the Scary Suburbs too.)

If you need anything, you’ll be able to find me here.  I’ll be the one in the bathing suit with a Margarita in my hand.  Perhaps Dos Margaritas Por Favor!

There will be lots of lesbians, lots of fun, and hopefully lots of women taking their tops off.  I’ll be taking photos of course,  for the sake of recording the events for posterity sake, and to work on my photography skills.  The holidays are coming, and who knows, I might get a good Christmas Card picture.

I will not have my laptop, so I won’t be reading any blogs.  Y’all behave and have a fun week!

Please? No flannel on the beach.

I believe that I have mentioned here that HG and I are embarking on a lovely vacation in a few weeks. We will be going here:

to beautiful Nuevo Vallarta on an Oliva vacation. It will be sunny, warm, fun-filled, and best of all, only lesbians will be there. (Actually, the BEST part is that all of our cocktails are included, but the lesbians are definitely a high up second.)

So, to lead up to our tropical paradise vacation, I have participated in the little online forum for our group. I have read all of the posts, commented once or twice and “met” some nice ladies. One thing that came up recently which I found quite disappointing was that the “Casual Elegance” dress code that the resort requires for it’s dining areas does not apply to us. I found this a bit odd, so I posted a comment about how it was a bit insulting that the dress code standards were being lowered for a group of lesbians. Practically no one agreed with me, and I heard all sorts of reasons including: “It’s vacation, we should be able to relax,” “I don’t want to pack more clothes,” “Some people can’t afford to buy special clothes just for dinner,” “We’ll have the resort all to ourselves, so it doesn’t matter.”

Okay, I heard the reasons, but I still don’t quite get it. If one is spending a minimum of $2,000.00 per person to go on this vacation, one should be able to throw together a nice blouse and a pair of capris for dinner. And I think, that because we have the resort all to ourselves, we should make an extra effort to look nice. Who want to have a nice dinner seated next to someone in a tank top and running shorts?

Yesterday, we received our travel packet where it clearly states that the dress is, “cool, comfortable, casual! Swimsuits, shorts, t-shirts, pareos and sandals”

So, let’s try to understand this.  The Olivia travelers aren’t expected to adhere to a dress code, but they’re expected to know what a pareo is?

It’s disappointing. Not because I want to pack my ball gowns, but because it sends a message that a group of lesbians don’t have enough class to adhere to a dress code standard that is set for everyone else. Lesbians have a hard enough time combating the stereotype that we have no fashion sense, wear flannel, only keep our hair cut in a mullet and wear socks with our sandals. Let’s not add to this by assuming that we don’t have enough style to adhere to a “Casual Elegance” dress code. I seriously doubt that travel companies who cater to gay men do this, and I know that typical couples resorts, such as this one, keep a fairly strict dress code standard for their usual guests. Just not the lesbians I guess.

However. I do not care. I will be dressed in my Casual Elegance, looking very casual, yet very elegant. And so will HG. Because I will be picking out her clothes for her, and our outfits will coordinate.

Because that’s the kind of doily dyke I am.

Still on Holiday

Holiday is going well. Following the Evil Spider Bite, I’ve recovered well. Those Mexican drugs worked very well, and the best part… The entire visit plus drugs only cost me about 370.00 pesos. That’s dirt cheap for the rest of us!

The following day, my arm returned to normal size and I was feeling quite well. Well enough to go to a little shopping and hanging out at the beach. Yeah us!

We’re having a great, but relaxing time. The one thing you can ask from a mini-vacation visiting with the out-laws. It’s all so good.

One more day and then we return to Portland, to real life, without the sound of the ocean as we sleep and the cool breeze and the sun shine of the Mexican weather.

But that’s okay.

We’ve had a wonderful time.

Adios.

On Holiday

HG and I have made it to sunny Mexico to visit Hottie Mama and Hottie Papa.

We had to get up at an un-godly hour and drive to North Portland, where LeLo’s Airport Limosine service was in business.

Yes, LeLo is THAT good of a friend to take our asses to the airport before 7:00 AM. 

Upon arriving and settling into my sister-out-laws house where we are staying, I quickly fell asleep on the couch.

When I awoke, I discovered I had been bitten by a scorpion, okay maybe just a run of the mill spider, but my entire arm has swollen up.

Hottie Mama is taking me to the pharmacy to hopefully get some really good drugs.

That mixed with the two bloody mary’s that she has already made for me equals that I will probably be feeling just fine quite soon.

Unless I die, I’ll post again . . .

Hasta Luego Baby.

UPDATE:

I’m not dead.  Hottie Mama took me to the Mexican doctor who didn’t speak any English, and lets just say that my Spanish isn’t so up to par these days.  I did a lot of nodding, but then she came in to give me a shot because I think she asked me if it was itchy.  I think I said yes instead of no, and she thought a shot in my butt was in order.  Luckily then, I called in Hottie Mama who helped me out a bit and told her not to give me the shot.  Instead she gave me some pills and a prescription for some cream.  I have absolutely no idea what I am taking, but it seems to be helping.  Unfortunately for me, I did not know how to say, “May I please have a prescription for pain pills?” in Spanish.

Damn.  I knew I should have paid attention in that class.