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Vacation

Thoughts, Wanderlust

Jesus Dog and the importance of connection

September 26, 2018

I adjusted the hair around my face, tucking a few stray strands back behind my ear under my knit cap and scratching an itch by my warm forehead. My hand found Hank’s and, linked once again, we strolled together under the fractured branches that sketched the early spring canopy covering the southern Ohio forest.

“How long did the map say this trail was?” he asked.
“I can’t remember … maybe 3 miles.”
“Huh. Seems like this trail should have kicked us back around toward the road by now.”

The beauty of the day trumped any thoughts of potential trouble. We settled back into silence and synchronized our gates along a grassy lane, the past pressure of large tractor tires making our commute a little smoother. I heard the jingle of metal on metal and turned to see a medium-size dog trotting up behind us.

He was a mutt, perhaps the love child of an Australian Cattle Dog and a shepherd of some sort. His ears pointed toward the late afternoon sky and his collar, which was once bright blue, hung dulled and frayed around his thick neck. Without an invitation, the dog fell in line at our heels.

We passed a group of tourists taking a lunch break as their aged horses noshed on grass, green foam gathering in the corners of their mouths where the bit rings met the bridle straps. When our new four-legged friend didn’t join them at camp, as we’d assumed he would, we looked down at him and then up at each other. The canine galloped a quick lap around their herd, and they glared at us. We shrugged and kept moving.

“Look at that,” Hank said, after 30 minutes of walking our companion on an invisible leash. “He has one blue eye and one brown eye. That’s kind of different.”

And so he did. It was strange … ethereal. Thus, we named him “Jesus Dog”, and decided to accept him as part of our lost little tribe. He’d run off into the woods only to return minutes later, the sound of crunchy old leaves alerting us to his approach. He was entirely devoted to us and we were undeserving at best.

Seeing as how we’d clearly gotten off the marked trail, but we didn’t want to kill our getaway buzz, we chose to take Jesus Dog as a sign that we were going to be alright. He was a guardian angel with paws, sent to reassure a few misguided weekenders. We asked Jesus Dog if we were going the right way, and he seemed to urge us in the direction we were heading. We developed a rapport.

Eventually, we found a main road and walked along the shoulder until we intersected the parking lot where our vehicle was waiting. We each gave Jesus Dog a tentative air pat – because, you know, Cujo – and thanked him for protecting us before climbing up into the car. Jesus Dog sat down, an obedient and satisfied servent behind the truck. Hank had to get out and coax him to move on to the next lost couple, which eventually he did.
That night, we sat at the local brewpub and recounted the day’s events over a growler of mango beer. We confirmed that we had, in fact, walked approximately three miles off the marked trail with a mysterious, multi-eye-colored mutt. There was something about the whole thing that felt just sensational enough to be part of a fictional novel.

So, why does Jesus Dog matter now, you ask? He matters not only because we were gifted a celestial omen in an abandoned corner of the Hocking Hills tourist scene, but also because the tale of Jesus Dog is a spark. It fires up a connection to my husband archived in the neglected reels on the shelves of my mind. It’s a memory that belongs only to us, and that makes it special. It’s the handle to a faucet that fills my heart so that joy can float up to the surface.

It’s easy to call up joy with our children, right? They’re learning how to be humans, so everything is new and endearing and hilarious. My girls did something an hour ago that was cute enough to journal. But it takes intention to do the same with your spouse.

Tonight, when I sat down and started typing the tale of Jesus Dog, I immediately went back to that pub, my hands clumsy and cheeks sore from smiling. I pictured us sitting across from each other, oblivious to the other couples escaping the demands of their suburban realities, laughing and unearthing narrative gems from our past. See, the story is the time machine. Jesus Dog is the vehicle that transports me back to our date, just a state, but a world away from the grocery lists and oil changes of today. It’s the bridge I can walk across when the grind puts us on different shores.

What’s your Jesus Dog?

What’s that story that instantly transports you back to a time when you experienced unique joy with the person you chose to spend forever with?

Everybody has at least one. But then the question becomes: Are you revisiting it? Are you allowing the special moments to circle back around and tickle your soul and inspire you to go create more special moments?

Look, there comes a time for every couple when the only valid options are to a) sell the children, or b) throw your bags in the car and run away for a night, or a weekend or a week. Whatever you can swing. It’s in choosing option b that my suspicions that Hank and I are neighboring clouds are typically confirmed. In life, we share a sky, and occasionally collide, but mostly we’re just taking the shape of whatever role we need to play for whatever person in our day needs us to play it.

Making an effort to go away together quiets the winds. It’s a chance to look up at the face of the person you married, rather than selectively acknowledging them as you fry the potatoes and sort through the kids’ school folders. It’s like they’ve been talking through a fish bowl for 300 days and the minute you get away all the water gets dumped out. “Ahhhhh, I remember you.” your heart says.

When we go away for the weekend, we eat too much. We drink too much. We go for the longest, toughest hike in the state park. We get our coffee topped off, a couple times. We have conversations, rather than check-ins and appointment reminders. Ordinary luxuries feel indulgent and delicious, because they’re longer. Slower.

George Bernard Shaw said, “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it’s taken place.” Sometimes I assume Hank knows about my life. Like he absorbs it through osmosis because of our proximity to each other’s bodies and the people we love. But as more and more space expands and swells between our good conversations, the more evident it becomes that there are entire details of my day that never make it to my husband. Turns out, I have to actually tell him. I have to converse with him, regularly.

When was the last time you talked to your partner long enough to, not only revisit a memory, but also learn something new about them? I’ll be the first to admit that, too many times, while Hank is telling me about his day or asking about mine, I’m running a dress rehearsal of the next 30 minutes of my night in my head. I’m anticipating a fight between the girls or taking inventory of groceries. I am anywhere but there.

Going away and reconnecting is the face slap to send me back to the reasons I hitched my wagon to this star to begin with. I actually really like this guy. I think he’s smart, and funny, and I like disagreeing with him in the spirit of rediscovering and respecting our individuality. I owe it to this man to let the other stuff fall away for a few minutes.

There are very few people – one, if you’re lucky – who can look at a menu and guess what you’re going to have. If you’re fortunate enough to share that kind of intimacy, where someone cares enough to keep track of what you like and what you hate, that’s something worth celebrating. So book a sitter or a trip. Throw your bags in the car. Go walk with your Jesus Dog. Then, about a month from now, make a date to talk about it. The best stories are the ones you tell over and over again, and the ones you can tell together.

Laughs

For your amusement: A discussion on theme parks

August 22, 2018

I need to talk about something kind of crazy for a few minutes. About a month ago, my husband’s family did the nicest thing ever and treated all of us to a weekend-long amusement + water park extravaganza. Because we only had about 48 hours at Walley World, including travel, we packed a lot into a day. With three little chicks, that means, more specifically, a million bathroom breaks, a handful of meltdowns and a few moments of sheer panic when passing through swarms of farmer’s-tanned strangers.

I don’t do well in crowds. You might not know that about me. I have some lingering claustrophobia I blame on my older brother, Matt, who used to wrap a blanket around my head and sit on me. I think it’s an intense aversion to feeling trapped. Wearing sweatpants under a heavy quilt makes me feel trapped. People wrapping their arms around me from behind makes me feel trapped. And crowds definitely make me feel trapped. But in addition to that, there are some very unique nuances to the amusement park environment that no one really talks about that are Level 100 unsettling.

Entering the park

After you’ve been herded through the gates – bags searched (Why yes, those are my feminine hygiene products, sir), ticket scanned – you’re in. You’re golden. Then you look around and your momentary joy is immediately replaced by a mudslide of unease. The common area just past the gates at an amusement park looks like what I imagine Times Square would look like 5 minutes after a nuclear attack hit the west coast.

People are running around grabbing park maps, filling up lockers, pointing and pleading. Those who aren’t in motion are the ones standing in groups either lost entirely or fighting loudly about which area they should hit first.

“I want to go to the Land of Lollipops before the Happy Hills, damnit!”

“The Happy Hills blow, Gina. We’re going to Jubilant Jollyville and you can shut your face about it.”

On this particular occasion, we were guided to a booth to get wristbands with our cell phone number to put on the girls’ wrists. This, I was told, would come in handy if we got separated somehow in the sea of 20,000 people. I don’t know about you, but this type of exercise always comforts this mama’s soul.

The wave pool

I could write an entire novel about the living night terror that is the wave pool. My children are drawn to this attraction like Carrie Bradshaw to a shoe sale. They can’t be bothered to stop at anything else. If it has the words “wet” or “splash” or “rapids” in it, they’re waist deep before I’ve set the towels down on a sticky bench.

If you’ve never had the pleasure, a wave pool at a waterpark is essentially a giant bathtub, filled with a melting pot of humanity and children who can’t swim well, that routinely ripples with less-than-impressive waves. My favorite part of standing knee-deep in this urine bucket is watching everyone – adults included – lose their shit when the bell sounds, signifying the waves are about to begin. I can’t imagine what these people do at the actual ocean with actual waves.

True to form, my chicks begged to go straight to the nasty ripple fest. I stood there, as far back as I could be while still maintaining a rescuer’s stance, and watched a glob of thick black hair from an identifiable part of a stranger’s body float by my shins. To my left, a group of moms floated on noodles, speaking a language I didn’t understand. They’d been there, no doubt, at least two pees. To my right, a rather large man covered from head to big toe in a familiar thick black hair squatted curiously. Things inside me shriveled as I watched JoJo mermaid dive about 5 feet away, emerging with her mouth wide open.

This is the wave pool at an amusement park. And we’re all pretending it’s totally normal.

Also, peeing in a bathroom near a waterpark is like squatting behind a fern in the amazon. That is all.

The swelling

This falls under the category of “self-inflicted first-world problems” but I swell like the Pillsbury Thanksgiving Day parade float in amusement parks. That happens, you know, when you go an entire day without consuming a drop of water and eat only things that fall into one of five categories:

Cheese
Sugar
Fried cheese
Fried sugar
Fried bread

It’s not necessarily convenient to pull out a giant vat of grease and fry up strips of bread or Twinkies at home, so if you’re going somewhere and they’re willing to do it, it seems silly, almost insulting, not to take advantage. The problem is, after a day of this circus diet, I can’t move my wedding ring and my ankles don’t bend. A sacrifice I’m willing to make? You’re damn right.

The “thrills”

When I was growing up, the Magnum at Cedar Point was it. If you could get your happy ass on the Magnum and live to brag about it, you’d made it. You had balls as big as a Clydesdale and everybody knew it.

This summer, my JoJo was tall enough to hit the major rides. There was no way I was going to look at that big grin and not get on a roller coaster with her. As we climbed on, I reached over and grabbed her tiny hand. She was shaking, but still pumped. We shot out of the gate and went head over feet, feet over head for a solid 45 seconds, laughing and screaming and loving every second.

Not to be outdone or left out, Spike insisted she ride the tallest coaster in the park, which she just so happened to be tall enough to ride, by a stray curl. So, we got in line for the last ride of the day. This was one of those old wooden roller coasters. The kind that sounds like an angry mob trying to break the rusty hinges off an old storm cellar every time it blows by. Still, I felt like it was a solid parenting choice.

We climbed on, JoJo next to me, Spike and Hank behind us. As soon as I saw the lap belts, I started sweating. I frantically pulled the belt, trying to make it so tight it cut off both of our circulation. I pressed down on the lap bar, which seemed to be suspended 4 inches above our thighs at least. It didn’t matter, we were going.

As we climbed up the first hill, the biggest in the amusement park by a mile, she still had a whisper of a smile on her face. And then … like our equilibrium, it was gone.

As the old rickety ride hurled us over hills and down through black tunnels, I heard her screams:

“Mommy, I don’t like it!”
“Mommy, save me!”
“Mommy, I want off!”
“Mama! Mama!”
“Mom, I don’t want to die!”

Hell, if I wasn’t a 35-year-old mother, I would have been screaming the same exact shit. But I was just screaming, period. All I could think was, I willingly, voluntarily put two of my children on this death trap. I did this. And now we’re all going to die.

What was likely just over a minute, felt like an hour. Our bodies jerking and jolting through the humid summer night air. As it came to an abrupt end, it felt like I had fire in my throat. I realized I’d been holding onto JoJo’s lap strap the whole time. My wrist felt bruised from being brutally hurled against the divider between us. I unclenched things I didn’t know you could clench. My oldest daughter looked at me like I’d just given her a puppy, then promptly poisoned it. It was, “How could you?!” without a word being spoken between us.

I turned around and there sat Spike. Eyes wide. Smiling like an insane person. I guess it takes all kinds, doesn’t it?

Wanderlust

Vacation: All I’ve ever wanted (to trap in my basement forever)

June 22, 2018

Last week, Hank and I loaded up our family wagon and our three little chicks and headed east to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. It was a real vacation. The kind where you let your hair go frizzy and read a full book, cover to cover. The good kind. The slow kind. The transformative kind of vacation.

We left right after work and Hank drove into the night. I fell asleep to the mesmerizing passing of the reflectors in the center line and sporadic headlights somewhere in Ohio and awoke around 2 a.m. in West Virginia. Sloppy Joan was in and out of sleep, thrashing and whining every 5 minutes or so. The timer had popped; our little turkey was done. After we pulled her and the others out of the car and stumbled into our double queen room, she shocked us all with an allstar rally, positively giddy at the excitement of a hotel room.

We walked out to the car Saturday morning to discover our surroundings. It was like falling asleep in the depths of tall grass only to wake up in a field of towering sunflowers. We were in the mountains now. Beautiful, lush green Moana mountains. A soft fog was settled in between the peaks, with the morning sunlight piercing through the smoke. It was breathtaking. I held my lukewarm morning coffee, sipping and soaking in the unexpected beauty, crests enveloping us on every side.

More than 9 hours and 15 potty pit stops later, we arrived at our home away from home for the week. Sure as an army of ants will follow a trail of tacos, a curious child will take a flight of stairs as far up as they go. So was the case with our chicks, as they flew up to the eagle’s nest deck before we even went into the house. This third level structure was constructed solely to twist and torture my fears of a child tumbling to their doom, but redeemed itself by providing a view that drained my lingering stress pangs. As they turned to run back down the way they came, I closed my eyes as my ears found what they’d been seeking since we crossed the south bridge onto the island: Waves. The rolling crescendo was punctuated only by the chatter of carefree seagulls. To the east, blue waters. To the west, the sun setting over the sound. There, standing on the treetops, I took a true breath for the first time in two months.

The house was perfect for our little crew. Bunk beds for the girls, a king-size mattress for me and the Mr., a fully functioning kitchen, living room and cool blue color palette. We stayed in Hatteras, which was the southernmost area of the Outer Banks, and much less commercial than some of the other sections. This was what the doctor ordered. There was a market with a friendly grocer just up the street, a handful of eateries, a nature center and a Wings, brimming with cheap ocean crap. We required little more.

It took me until Monday to really feel it. Sitting in a lowrider beach chair, cold beer in hand, watching my girls building a sand castle with my husband beside me, I realized I was light. Nothing mattered. We had nowhere to be and no one to answer to. We were five souls set free for at least six more days, though I tried not to count them. There’s a weightlessness that comes with severing the tethers to your everyday life that can’t be described or replicated. It’s the closest one can come to true peace, I think.

That afternoon, a sweet gal who’d been coming to the area since she was a child – one of the many kind people we encountered on our trip, which also included a 55-year-old nurse who loaned Spike her kite that Hank eventually had to chase through sand dunes and up telephone poles – became our personal Hatteras insider. For starters, at our new friend Kim’s advisement, I began putting coconut oil in the girls’ hair in the mornings to avoid those pesky beach tangles. Game changer! Aside from grooming, and among other dining and sea creature pointers, she also gave us a tip that would change our agenda for the remainder of our vacation.

“Oh! And you have to come out at night to see the ghost crabs,” Kim said.
“OK,” I nodded, feeling sceptical but unseasoned.

And so, one evening after dinner, I stayed in with Sloppy Joan as Hank and the older two dug up flashlights, doused themselves in bug spray, and trotted down to the shore in the dark in search of these special night creatures. When they hadn’t returned after 30 minutes, I assumed our tour guide might have been off. But no. I was distracted from my fourth consecutive episode of Chopped (We don’t have cable anymore) when I caught a tunnel of light on the porch out of the corner of my eye. It was Spike, pressing her face against the glass sliding door, shining the light up her nose like a camp counselor unwrapping a juicy tale about escaped serial killers. She stormed in.

“Mom! You won’t believe it,” she exclaimed. She was sorting through the words scattered and sprinting through her little head.
“Tell me!” I urged.

JoJo came in, Hank trailing behind her, a fog of Off! aggressively, offensively penetrating my nostrils.

“There were these white crabs everywhere!” Spike said.
“Really?” I exaggerated my enthusiasm.
“Really,” JoJo took over. “And there were big ones, and small ones and they were so fast – right, Dad – so fast!”
“So fast,” Hank agreed.
“That’s so cool! We should have gone with you,” I said.
“Yeah! But we’re going to go every night. Dad said we can go every night,” Spike said.

And we did.

Each night, drunk on a heavy dinner of fried fare, senseless carbs and some form of ice cream, we would change into long sleeves and pants and walk under more stars than we’d ever seen back to the beach. We’d wait until the last possible second to turn on our lights and once we did, we’d be met with hundreds of sets of beady little black eyes. Hank would try to catch them, an endearing glimpse of him as a curious child. Their mechanical legs were deceptively speedy. The girls would move from one to the next, screeching while proclaiming they weren’t afraid of them one bit.

But it was Sloppy Joan who confronted their master. One evening, our fearless third born took the end of her flashlight and poked at a particularly large crab repeatedly, until the crustacean was forced to raise up on his hind legs and point his pinchers toward his opponent. The four of us stood around her, shouting like drunk 40-year-olds at an MMA fight.

“Oh my gosh!”
“Get ‘em SJ!”
“You’ve got this!”
“Back up!”
“Poke him!”
“Put the flashlight down!”
“Hit him! Hit him!”
“Stop it! Stop it!”
“Oh for–!”
“Yes! Yes!”

Eventually Hank grabbed her and pulled her out of the ring as the giant crab scurried away, one eye on the insane family from Indiana, and one eye on the freedom of his sand hole. We stood there for a few minutes, watching lightning in the clouds somewhere far off over the ocean, and let the adrenaline wash away with the tide.

Spike had her sights set on a conch shell. It was all she wanted, and let me tell you, when Spike wants something, she’s going to make that shit happen. Speculating that the most prized shells came ashore first thing in the morning, I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. I went in to find her nestled next to JoJo, her mouth gaping open in complete surrender to sleep. I shook her gently and asked if she wanted to go sunrise shell hunting. She was dressed in 3 minutes and we were quietly slipping out onto the porch.

It was a first for both of us; Sunrise on the beach.

I let my brunette beauty walk on ahead and, because they were so sweet, I committed the moments to memory, so I could always remember her that way: The golden ball of the day’s first light at her shoulder, rising above the sand dunes and illuminating her bronzed cheeks. The toothless smile and unbridled joy when she finally found her shell. The surprising size of her footprints in the surf staggered next to mine, proof my baby’s growing up too fast.

By Thursday, I was starting to feel heartsick over the thought of our week coming to an end. I had become accustomed to our lazy routine. Our days consisted of hours on the beach, interrupted only temporarily every few hours by food and sleep. Our girls, only one of which had been to the sea, had become uninhibited mermaids, in spite of two jellyfish stings for Spike and a traumatic crab pinch.

Watching them in the waves, because they were so sweet, I committed the moments to memory. So I could always remember them that way: SJ standing in the surf in a neon pink bikini, her piercing eyes beneath the brim of her matching sun hat. Her browned skin. Her smile. The relaxed waves in her hair and a stormy sky behind her. My JoJo running confidently across the tide, surfing and splashing and begging me to watch as she does it all over again.

Reality is a force greater than any magnet. It is a gravitational pull you can only outrun for so long, and soon it was time for us to leave. As the miles between our little sliver of paradise and our home, our jobs, our responsibilities grew smaller, the nagging circumstances we’d temporarily abandoned returned. Texts and emails started flashing on our phones. The older two started arguing in the back. The universe knew the sand was running out in our magical hourglass.

Why is it so dang hard to hold onto that vacation nirvana? Retaining that calm is like trying to hogtie the wind or stand in a rainbow. Impossible.

When I meditate now, I picture the waves. I picture myself sitting in that chair staring into the horizon with my daughters’ freckled cheeks and soaring birds peppered in. I try to smell the saltwater air. I grasp at the peace, but it evaporates in my desperate hands.

How do we carry it home with us? How do we bottle up that zen so we can sip from the vessel a little at a time as needed, buying time until we can replenish the contents all over again?

When I was on vacation, I had ideas. Ideas for books. Ideas for our home. Ideas about how I was going to change our lives and be less short-tempered and seize every second. I was all juiced up on joy and high on leisure. Now I’m frantically sniffing out a source for my next hit. It feels like our traditional roles are rigged to favor routine. Like we walked into an arranged marriage with monotony.

Eight summers. I have eight summers left until my JoJo is 18 and no longer obligated to be around me. Do I want her to remember me as list-loving Mommy or wave-riding Mommy? Ideally I could be like an Oreo. A sweet, enjoyable layer of happiness sandwiched between two essential spheres of structure and stability. I want to inject enough of my vacation self into my life that, overall, they remember me being pretty darn enjoyable overall.

Ah, vacation … you beautiful summer fling. I’ll never forget you.

Wanderlust

It’s Tampa bay for this buccaneer

February 9, 2017

I love my husband.

I do.

You won’t find a better human walking this earth. But homeboy is one lucky son of a biscuit that my love language isn’t gifts.

In our 15 years together, he’s gifted me on various birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases and Valentine’s Days with such treasures as a rubber ducky from his school bookstore, long underwear (a few times), a mini muffin pan and, most recently, Microsoft Office. Now that’s not to say he hasn’t had some real winners in there, too. He has. But none sexier than Excel. I mean … you guys, merging cells, sorting, formulas …

And here I am giving him lemons like this:

“Why didn’t he just say it out loud?” a coworker and mutual friend asked.
“Huh?”
“You should always say things like that out loud. ‘I got my wife Microsoft Office for her birthday.’ I feel like he would have done things differently.”

Every holiday is caked in suspense. What will he come up with next, I wonder. He’s a thinker, my husband, and he lives in a literal world. It’s part of what I love about him.

So, this year, on Christmas morning, when he excitedly handed me a small cardboard box and told the girls Mama was going to open “the one,” I immediately started running through the possibilities in my head. An attachment for the Kitchenaid? A bug net? A set of encyclopedias? No. It was a foam airplane. Taped to the bottom of the box was a picture of me and my friend, Nissa.

“Oh, is Nissa coming here?” I asked.
“No, you’re going there.”
“What?!”
“In February.”
“I am?!”
“Yes.”
“But, I’ve never flown by myself …”
“It’s a direct flight. Really easy.”
“But … oh my gosh!”
“Well, I asked the girls what we should get you and JoJo said, ‘Mom needs a break,’ so we decided to send you away for a weekend.”

Does this make my child incredibly observant and sensitive to others, or has all of my bitching and yelling over her seven years of life resulted in her recognizing my borderline psycho personality, thus prompting her to suggest shipping me off? I’m still not sure.

I immediately picked up my phone. I wasn’t sure if the time was different in Florida. I wasn’t thinking clearly.

“I’m coming to Florida!” I messaged.
“I know! Are you excited?!” Nissa replied.
“Yeah! I just can’t believe it!”

I thought I’d seen every play in Hank’s playbook, but this was entirely unexpected. One of my resolutions was “less things and more experiences,” so my old man’s yuletide treat was right on time. But I was admittedly nervous.

“Your mom and brother told me you’d hate it.” Hank said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. They said you’d feel guilty and hate the travel.”
[both true.]
“Oh, gosh, no I love it.”
[also true.]

How does a woman go 34 years without taking one of the most popular forms of long-distance transportation alone, you ask? I don’t know. I mean, I’ve just always had someone with me. And I prefer it that way. You might recall I have special eyes, so navigating the unfamiliar can be tricky. I also have another disorder I don’t talk about much. Chickenshitosis. I’m often frightened by things that are generally completely harmless and part of being a grownup.

The weeks passed quickly, as all weeks do after your third child, and soon I was packing my carry on for my long weekend in Tampa.

A bit about Nissa. I know this pretty gal from the Sunshine State through my previous employer. After my first day on the job, I went home and told my husband that there was a girl about my age, but I didn’t think she was necessarily interested in making friends. Turned out, she was just monotoned! We grew close as crossed eyes pretty quickly. She was the graphic designer. I was the copywriter. We pitched a blog and then spent months taking trips where we found creative ways to expense food crawls around New York City (“It’s what our target demographic would do!”) and attending conferences with castmates from Laguna Beach and the likes of Rachel Zoe.

After about four years collaborating during work hours and bonding over Bachelor finales in our free time, Nissa told me she was moving back to her home state. I hated Florida for a hot second. She came in for a visit shortly after I had Sloppy Joan, but that was it,aside from emails and SnapChats, for years. In fact, she had a whole child in the time that passed since our last meeting. She became a mommy. And has another on the way.

The most important thing to know about Nissa is she loves food. This Scandanavian can throw down on some grub, lemme tell ya. If I had to pick someone to plan my last meal on this planet, and I got absolutely no say in it, I would pick Nissa. She’s the girl who knows which restaurant specializes in sardines three ways and which one makes pasta strictly from the hair of angels, and so on. I’ve gone on at least six trips with her that I can think of off the top of my head, and she picked the restaurants we dined at in every single city. She never misses. She started sending links to restaurants about 3 weeks out. I couldn’t wait.

I arrived in Tampa without incident Friday afternoon. It’s always so surreal when you set eyes on someone you haven’t seen in awhile. Like your pupils have to adjust to their familiar face. Not surprisingly, she told me we were heading to South Tampa for tacos and margaritas (just for me, because, you know … bun, oven) at bartaco.

“Do you want to sit outside?”
“Yes!” Always yes. I had left 32-degree days behind me and I wasn’t about to stare at the sun through a window.

We got some magical combination that included spicy cucumbers, a special slaw, 6 tacos, 2 tamales and guac with giant tortilla chips. I also treated myself to a pomegranate margarita. While we dined al fresco, catching up and reveling in the fact we were sitting across from each other, my sweet friend informed me she was waiting to hear if she got a new house. She did. We found out around the time we polished off the guacamole.

This was cause for celebration! (Not that we needed cause.)

We left lunch and hit two sweet spots in less than an hour. Don’t show up if you can’t keep up, OK? There was an adorable new gourmet ice pop shoppe across the street, The Hyppo. Prego went for salted chocolate and I picked up an avocado coconut option that belonged in my belly. It was heavenly. I swallowed it entirely within 3 minutes. My popsicle partner, however, was multitasking. I watched, amused, as she held hers in her mouth and texted her mortgage broker. It would melt and drip. She’d curse. Then she’d put it back in her mouth to send a new text and the insanity would repeat. Don’t waste it! Was what felt right to say at the time.

Next stop? Sprinkles … but these were for later. We aren’t wild animals! We opted for Dark Chocolate Banana for Nissa, Maple Bacon for her hubs, and a Chocolate Marshmallow for me. It was 70-something degrees and times were good.

We stopped by her new digs for some proper surveillance of the situation. The house was beautiful. One thing I find amazing about Florida architecture is how much it differs from house to house. You’ve got your beach bungalows, you’ve got your Spanish colonial revivals, you’ve got your modern mansions, you’ve got your Georgian-style homes. Dare I say I even saw Tudors! It’s all just hangin’ out … mingling. I mean, I like it. There aren’t pockets necessarily. It’s just a giant junk drawer of kickass houses.

Just when I couldn’t take the waiting anymore, we went to pick up Nissa’s little girl. She was cuter in person than in the 9 trillion SnapChats I’d seen her in before that day. There’s a magic in seeing a friend as a mom for the first time. It’s like all of the sudden you feel this energy of shared struggles and consuming love for your little nuggets. And it’s beautiful. Nissa used to stay at our house occasionally and JoJo always wanted to sleep with her. She would play with the girls and dance with the girls. She threw me a baby shower when Spike was on her way. She was an honorary aunt made of all the best stuff. So seeing her here, now, with this towheaded toddler made my heart swell.

Saturday morning brought breakfast and nail painting. I slapped some polish on my new little friend’s tiny fingers and took her on laps around the pool so they could dry in the sun. The funny thing about people who live in Florida, is they forget how delightful the sun is. As soon as it appeared, I was like a poodle at the back door. I couldn’t wait to get to it. The warmth on my skin was like sloppy angel kisses. I turned my face toward the glow and soaked in the soothing heat with my new petite sweetheart.

Nissa and her husband Alexis have a boat (name TBD). Their neighborhood connects to a channel so getting to the bay is a breeze. Right before we left their house to ship out, at the very last minute, I decided to throw my bathing suit on, just in case. Nissa packed up some Trader Joe’s truffle cheese and beverages and we made our way out onto the brilliant blue water.

Now, I’m from lake country. We have our boats tied to docks and we take those boats out for a couple of counter clockwise laps around the modestly sized body of water a few times before we tie the boat back up to the dock. When your boat goes into water that feeds into an ocean, there are no laps. We could have sped across the surface forever. We parked for a bit in the bay and broke out the snacks. I had a beer and a glass of wine, while the little one stuffed handfuls of truffle cheese into her mouth. Seagulls came. They told their friends and more seagulls came. I started to feel a twinge of pee moving in.

There were two pregnant women on the boat – Alexis’s sister and husband came along – so I figured it was only a matter of time before someone had to relieve themselves and I could see how it was done here. But no one said a word. We decided to cruise some more. As the shoreline got farther and farther away, my bladder started to scream. We hit bumps, I squeezed every muscle from the waist down. We turned, I clenched. As soon as the deafening noise of the motor went to a whisper, I mouthed to Nissa that I was moments from pissing myself.

“Oh no!” she offered. “Alexis, we have to pull over!”

But we couldn’t just pull over. We were right next to a bridge that was also a highway. And boats were coming up quickly behind us.

For 15 additional agonizing minutes, as we coasted to calmer waters, I battled the urge to just succumb and turn on the faucet. As soon as we reached the canal, I knew the hour was upon me. I darted to the rear end of the boat – nearly taking out Nissa’s pregnant sister-in-law – put my feet on the ladder off the back and let my butt kiss the water’s surface. There, in the Tampa bay, in front of million dollar condos, a pair of people I’d met only hours before, a boat full of old fishermen and my sweet host family, I proceeded to pee for no less than 10 straight minutes. All I could think was A) This would be mortifying if it didn’t feel so damn good, and B) Thank God I put my suit on. No one knew where to look. It was the best of times and the worst of times.

We got home in time to get cleaned up for our lady date. We were putting on makeup and we were going to eat somewhere fancy. We went to edison in South Tampa. If I could actually describe the pork belly BLT appetizer and peanut butter dessert we had there and come even close to doing it justice, I would. But I can’t. You’d just have to taste them. Aside from the bomb ass dinner, we did get a show as well. I don’t know what it was about the table behind us, but it was just full of characters. First up … a couple who was beyond interested in my Korean Chicken and Waffles entree.

“Oh, look at that … she got the chicken and waffles.” the woman said, less than one foot away from me.
“Oh man, that does look amazing,” her partner added for good measure.
“Is that a sauce on there? That’s a sauce on there.”
“It looks so interesting. I bet it’s good.”
“What kind of sauce do you think that is, hon? A sweet sauce? A spicy sauce? I wonder …”
“I don’t know, hon! Sure looks wonderful.”

This went on for a few minutes until I finally turned around, smiled, and said, “I know, I’m pretty excited about it, too.” And they felt satisfied.

At some point, this duo parted and a new pair entered the scene. I don’t know what sparked their argument (I thought I heard him say “sister”?) but the newcomers behind us got into the biggest, ugliest, most brutal fight. She tried to get up and leave, he convinced her to stay and what followed was the most tense series of photobombs in history. (See examples below).

It was a treat sitting in a restaurant, out of our sweatpants, catching up about her trip to Italy, our marriages and our goals. I text and email Nissa regularly, but nothing can replace the lost art of face-to-face chatting with a great girlfriend. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Sunday funday! We went to Ulele in downtown Tampa. Because we are about eating all of the things, I will tell you that I had a beet and pear salad with whipped goat cheese that changed something in my mouth permanently. I then murdered two lobster rolls and polished it all off with maple and bacon ice cream that was coated in cornflakes. If you’re thinking, “That sounds good,” you would be damn right. It was. It all was.

We left to take little Miss to the splash pad next door to the restaurant. The water was straight-from-the-hose cold, and homegirl wasn’t feelin’ it. The sun was relentless, beating down on my reflector-white forearms. I knew I was burning, but I just didn’t care. We took the long way home, down Bayshore Dr., and I enjoyed my zen-like vacation high.

Even more so than deciding who gets to square dance with Ryan Reynolds, the truest test of friendship is whether your girlfriend is willing to get up at 5:20 in the morning and take you to the airport. Mine was, and she did. It was dark and chilly and, knowing my flight anxiety, she even offered to come in and usher me to the right line. “No, Mom, I should be able to figure it out.” I felt turdy for being so scared to get to my gate.

We hugged. Twice. And I felt some hot tears tapping on the back of my broken eyes. Time for takeoff.

I had been reading “Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail” for the first part of my trip, but decided to switch to “The Universe Has Your Back” by Gabrielle Bernstein for the flight back. I read almost the entire thing, which, let’s be real, when was the last time you ever sat down and just read an entire book, cover to cover? “I can’t remember,” said every mom ever.

The premise of the book, and I’m paraphrasing here, is that ultimately you get back what you put out into the universe. If you look at the universe as your teacher rather than this thing you want to control, but can’t, you’ll be in much better shape when it comes to facing fear and uncertainty. I found it incredibly timely considering my current Facebook feed. Come at things from a place of love, not fear, and you will see change in your life, and in the climate around you. It was a really good read. I’ll get into it more down the road maybe. The ironic part was I was trying so hard to zen out and get into the Spirit Junkie vibes, but the woman in the middle seat was breathing her morningness all over me. It was a difficult mental exercise.

I landed and got my luggage without incident. Hello, world! I am a grownup now! On the way home, I stopped at the grocery to pick up a few things and smirked at how naturally we fall back into our roles. I stepped off the plane and right back into my mom jeans … I mean Toms … I mean … something cool that moms wear.

I have to say thank you to Hank and JoJo for treating me to this mini break. Thank you, sweet girl, for recognizing that I am human and that I work hard. Thank you, Hank, for showing our chicks what a supportive spouse really looks like. I can only hope they end up with a partner as exceptional and practically perfect as mine.

Wheels up! (That’s something people who fly a lot say.)