COVID beach day

Time to decipher some notes that look like they've been written by a baboon with a wet ballpoint pen:

It's Day One of our Corona Getaway.  I simply cannot call it a vacation, because one does not vacation in the same state they live in.  

Vacations don't require masks that trigger memories of a panicked nine-year old me getting teeth removed under a local anesthetic, vacations don't have hand sanitizing stations where burly men in sombreros and sunglasses usually stand, vacations don't mean social distancing.

But being a Karen, I will attempt to seek out the bright side as I make these notes.

Bright side..bright side..where the hell are you on this chilly, overcast morning?

Oh, I know!

I had my first breakfast in six months!

My first diner-quality iced coffee! My first bacon strip!  My first slice of rye toast!

My first experience with a bunch of pigeons giving me the eagle eye(s) atop their perches on the high hedges that surrounded the atrium garden.

It was just Jim and I, a plate of share breakfast potatoes, and the flies.

So many flies.

I think our house pet/insect, the fly that took up residence in our room, died peacefully in his sleep, but his extended family showed up in droves this morning.

Now I feel like I'm at a real resort!

A tropical resort!

But there, the unwanted guests would be colorful birds, not annoying flies.

Flies bring me back to the new normal, the new reality where our vacation destination is lined with cars instead of palm trees. Where we smell exhaust fumes where we normally smell freshly fallen coconuts.

Last night in the rain, as Mary Poppins described the specials, Jim became very pre-occupied with what looked like a bell-shaped tattoo on his left forearm, something he wouldn't allow me to blog about last night because he was convinced it was a melanoma. I told him to google "unanticipated bell shapes on a forearm" but that was probably too specific.

But today, the bell faded, making us both believe it was probably an insect bite.

From an angry fly.

We're having bidet issues, as the spray is too gentle. We are homesick for the bidet we left behind. Our actual behinds miss it as well.

I know, I KNOW I write way too much about bidets, but do YOU still have sixty unused rolls of toilet paper under YOUR vanity sinks??  Well??  Do you??

(asking for a friend)

Jim encouraged me to use the hot tub as long as I didn't say a word to anyone, so I made him wait for my reply a good two or three minutes when I answered:  "it's hot and lovely, but you told me not to talk to ANYONE."

He seemed peeved but admitted he likes having a witty wife.

I ask:  "Would you rather have a witty wife or a pretty wife?" and he was supposed to answer, "why, you are BOTH of those things, sweetheart", but he did not.

Once the sun crept out, the pool experience was nice.  Reggae music, screaming children who were apparently orphans, and my light lunch.  

The light lunch had 22 plain tortilla chips and one tablespoon of guac with some chopped veggies and cost $12.00.

You'd think for that kind of money I'd be asked if I wanted flies with that.

We head out for the beach, and I'm THINKING we should just leave without paying, but that's exactly what we inadvertently wound up doing.  (We thought leaving our room number with the order would suffice)

Our server who looked like Gugu Mbath Raw(don't bother googling because if you don't know her name, you ignored my request that you watch "The Morning Show" and it hurts my feelings to be ignored) breathlessly chased us down and said, "you guys didn't pay!" and I replied:  "I'm not paying twelve dollars for twenty-two chips.  I'd like to speak to the manager."

(Okay..I did not)

As we walked toward the beach ramp, we noticed a dog squatting an awfully long time on a lawn in front of a beautiful house that faced our hotel, but upon closer inspection, we saw there were two dogs--two dogs made of medal in squatting positions with the word "no!" angrily embalmed on their bellies.

I say to Jim:  "I bet that "no!" is referring to the "Trump 2020" flag hanging from the second floor balcony."

We notice a beach boy pulling a stack of 300 lounge chairs as easily as they were a stack of three silver dollar pancakes.  He looked like someone Becki Falwell would openly covet, and he escorted us to a socially distanced beach area, whipping out his power drill from his bathing suit(yes, I mean that literally) and drilled a hole sufficient enough to securely hold an umbrella.

Finally!!

It's the first day  of freaking SEPTEMBER and I was getting my beach fix.

I'm not counting that one day we spent at local Union Beach because I'm a Karen, or the week we spent last March pre-Covid in Antigua because I'm a KAREN..

Becki's Boy Toy warned us the water was rough, but that's an understatement.

Rough is a description of the toilet paper in your average hotel that doesn't have a bidet, these waves were tsunamis.

I just needed to be in there long enough to cool off, Karenspeak for "use the ocean's facilities" when I got a scary image of me winding up under a boogey board or some old man's legs, neither which would be recommended in the age of Covid-19.

But you know something??

I eventually did cool off, in more ways than one, and I enjoyed the shade of the umbrella and the bursts of sunshine and the roar of the ocean and I finally felt settled and happy, like I do on the first day of a real vacation.

I then felt a raindrop.  And another.  And then another, but Jim claimed not to feel a single one. We had a tiff about it, and I promised to let my blog readers know the outcome of the tiff as soon as we could agree upon what, if not raindrops, was that wetness pouring from above.

Spolier alert:  It was raindrops.

Because the rain stopped but the roughness of the waves did not, I suggested we go back and use the hot tub, 'though Jim was skeptical.  I was seated and he dangled his legs and I was relived that most resorts don't allow children under fourteen to be in the hot tubs.

Rules that don't apply to mask wear don't apply here, because two minutes into our talk, Jim asked me if there was a kid in the hot tub.  I told him that it wasn't possible, but the kid sprung up.  He was NOT over fourteen but he WAS under water and came out totally unscathed.

He then invited all the other eight-ten year olds to join him and as we fled, we both agreed we'd need Covid tests more than skins tests to see if melanomas ever look like bells that fade the next day.

I am glad some of you still enjoy my tales of woe.  Not sure I'd have the patience for a Karen like me, but I nevertheless thank you for reading