Ode to the Breathing Apparatus

Sam and I stayed at this amazing resort in St. Lucia on our honeymoon called Ti Kaye Village. We loved the feel of a smaller resort (people there know your name and say nice to see you, sam and lindsey. what can I get you to drink, sam and lindsey, though not necessarily both of us at once all the time, that would be creepy). We got a package that included several excursions around the island, and we picked scuba diving as one to try. Granted neither one of us had been scuba diving, but this was an intro course that included an actual 30 foot dive on our resort's gorgeous reef.

And it sounded like an adventure! full of potential intrigue! danger! giant man-eating sea monsters! (or some nice coral at the very least.) The morning of the dive we signed some papers promising to do and not to do some important stuff, and then we got to watch a very informative video on scuba diving that included my favorite, underwater hand signals.

Then we put on wetsuits and fifty pound oxygen tanks, grabbed our flippers, and headed to the open water. Our group was me, Sam, Jem (Truly Outrageous!) the wonder instructor, and a 12 year old girl who was a certified diver. First we had to get in the water, and with fifty pounds of oxygen on your back this is a feat in and of itself. Jem warned us that the "last couple of steps" down were extra slippery since they were underwater. Not wanting anything to befall me before even getting started I carefully walked down, holding on tightly to both rails. Unfortunately, the stars were not aligned in the non-injury department and when I hit the first step underwater, I lost my footing and fell the rest of the way down into the ocean. I blame genetics that tend toward clammy extremities. I looked up and Sam had this look of supreme horror on his face. Jem the wonder instructor was mortified as well, and although my wounds upon later inspection would include a bruise from my ankle to my knee, a gash on my arm that still has a scar, and mangled toes, my embarrassment outweighed the pain and I refused to admit defeat. "I'm fine" I insisted. Now Jem the wonder instructor was convinced I was the goofus of the group and was keeping her scuba eye on me, and I was going to have do extra hand signals to prove my scubadiverness to her.

You have to show instructors you can expell water from your breathing apparatus thingy and clear your mask of water before they'll let you do an actual dive so, the 12 year old and Sam go underwater and are waiting on me to join them, but every time I start to go under my mask fills with water. I can feel the 12 year old's impatient eyes on me. Finally Jem wiggles over, probably thinking, this girl is a train wreck in the water. "I'm doing everything you say and my mask fills with water as soon as I try to go under." I demonstrated. She smiled a little and said, "You're smiling too much. It's creating a crease in your mask thats allowing water to rush in. Don't smile." After several attempts I got the serious scuba face down and joined the group. The test went off without a hitch and Jem gave us all underwater hand signal handshakes, which are the best! Now we were ready for the real deal!

After I got over the initial panic of breathing into a mask thirty feet down (my body didn't think I should be doing that and at first it seemed to be boycotting the idea)--it was really neat down there! I was so glad I had made it that I swam like Ariel. Flippin your fins you don't get too far...Apparently I was a little too much like Ariel because when Jem the wonder instructor turned around she made a "stop" underwater hand signal, pointed directly at me, and hand signaled me not to swim with my arms (use your imagination). Don't swim with your arms, ok, I thought, but apparently my body didn't listen cause 5 minutes later she turned around and scolded me again. What's the big deal! I thought. So I'm using my arms! Around this time, I also noticed, I had no peripheral vision and Sam was no where to be found. No matter, I enjoyed my 30 minutes on the ocean floor, just me and the octopuses and squidses and fishies, and occasionally Jem swimming by to make sure I wasn't inadvertantly doing anything lethal to myself. Everything had it's own quiet rhythm down there. The surroundings themselves are so calming, but it's also exhilirating since humans don't normally get to hang out underwater like that.

We emerged and I thought, that was unbelievable! Sam pulls off his mask, and I'm waiting for him to tell me the same thing, and the first thing out of his mouth is, "You almost killed me, twice." "WHAT?" I said, confused. "Yeah," he said. "When you were swimming wildly with your arms, you knocked my breathing apparatus out. Twice. That's why Jem was signaling you." I felt really terrible that I'd almost killed my new husband, but also really glad that it was him having to retrieve his air apparatus for real like we'd practiced and not me, because if that had happened to me I probably would have self destructed from anxiety. All in all, though, it turned out to be a pretty grand adventure. Oh Scuba, I wish I knew how to quit you.

How We Found Our Inner Crackhead

I'm just going to go ahead and say it. I have an addiction. There comes a point in everyone's life when you just have to go ahead and 'fess up. So I'm letting you in, dear Reader, about the my dirty little secret. I've come to terms with my problem, I've accepted it and frankly come to enjoy it. At first I felt a little odd, walking around the house with that dazed, vacant look in my eyes. I'd explain to people at work that I had the "shakes" just cause I was cold or tired. The truth of the matter, is that I'm a junkie. TV on DVD is my drug of choice and I just can't seem to kick the habit. And my wife is just as bad as me.
I knew we were both in for it when we first started dating and she confessed that there was a time when she'd come home from work on her lunch break to jones on episodes of Felicity. Sensing that our relationship was a "safe place" to talk about such things, I proudly explained that I burned through the 14 (sigh) episodes of Firefly in two days when I first got them. Then I furthered her J.J. Abrams problems when she got her wisdom teeth out and I left her with Lost: Season 1. Well that crazy fox burned through it with a frightful tv-pseudo-coma-like-craziness that only a gal hopped up pain killers and pudding pops can muster. God I love my wife.
And now it's like we try to out do each other in the best way! We saddle up on our crappy couch and inhale The Office like a couple of gunfighters playing cards, daring the other to "just watch one more" as the 22 minute segments fly by. It's sick, it's twisted, and it's commercial free! Nothing annoys me more than watching BSG (Battlestar Galactica for all you haters out there) and having my peeps interrupted by shameless advertising. Don't all these commercial-slinging pimps know that these people are FIGHTING TO SAVE THE HUMAN RACE FROM EXTINCTION? For the love of all that is Holy people, I don't need that kind of drama interrupted by ads for cereal, tires, or the dreaded reality show! Actually, I'll note that there is a Children's Hospital commercial and Applebee's commercial out there that make me get a little misty eyed but that's for another time.
I'm not promoting addiction. And I'm not promoting tv. However, I may be promoting TV on DVD addiction. It seems relatively harmless, you can take it at your own pace, and it's loads of fun for the whole family! I mean if you've got to have a problem, it's best to have someone to share it with right? I'm not going to judge my wife when I occasionally come home from work and she's crouched on top of the coffee table, caressing My So Called Life, gutturally uttering "Myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy preciousssssssss..." And in turn, she accepts the fact that I'm not above accidentally trampling someone's grandmother at the store so we can get home and check out a fistful of Scrubs episodes. And that's just a Tuesday night. You should see us on the weekends...

The Jig Is Up

A mere two months ago, I had eschewed all desserts and sugary beverages in my best attempt to stay the right size for my wedding dress. A few too many bon bons and that sucker was not gonna zip. But once Sam and I arrived at our luxurious resort in St. Lucia, appetizers, fruity drinks and desserts became de rigeur. I made up for what I had gone months without in a mere ten days.
Since our return, not much has changed. Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream is my friend; watching back-to-back episodes of the Office til my eyeballs hurt and snuggling with my honey continue to sound so much more appealing than venturing into the nippy out of doors. I really identify with the concept of hibernation. And then today, a reality check from the most unlikely of places. I have a part time job doing therapy with kids with autism, and as I was leaving a little girl's house today, her older eight-year-old sister was trying to get my attention. "Hey, hey, hey. Hey! hey," she called persistently. I introduced myself (this was the first time we'd met) and chatted with her about Thanksgiving, her new talking dog toy. Then she busts out with "Have you had any babies yet?" I smiled at the mom, and at said eight-year-old girl, thinking, how charming, kids at this age and their lack of filter, she's seen my sparkly new wedding ring, has put two and two together, and wants to know about my family. "No I haven't, not yet," I smiled widely at the delightful conversation I thought was about to unfold. "Oh," she says, "Cause you're really getting kind of fat." WONDERFUL! I watched her mother's eyes grow wide with terror, and she goes on and on about how rude that was and that I wasn't fat at all. I was one part amused and two parts horrified. I found myself actually trying to reason with her, to help her realize she'd made a mistake. "I'm wearing a really big sweater," I explained. She stared back at me blankly. "I probably have gained a little weight since my honeymoon," I heard myself tell her, while vowing to myself to take more walks and start yoga up again this week, for real this time. So thank you, eight year old girl who shall remain nameless, for saying what most friends would not. I look forward to our next interaction, when you may comment on the slightly outdated cut of my pant leg, or my shaggy unkempt brow.

The Chili Fixin' Debate

So Sam and I have been married just over a month, and though our tastes in music, movies, food, and rugs seem to mesh rather perfectly, a couple of incidents have come up that made me realize we don't do absolutely everything the same way. This realization was a little alarming at first -- you mean there are things I don't know about this person I've vowed to spend the rest of my life with? Case in point: chili accoutrements. On Halloween, as the chilly (ho!) weather was first starting to roll in, we decided to make a big pot of the good stuff and have a scary movie marathon. (Gremlins, anyone?) When it came time to serve it up, we grated some cheddar cheese and pulled out the sour cream, but Sam still had one question: Where's the macaroni? And I was like, what do you need macaroni for? Meanwhile I pulled out a giant bag of Fritos and began to sprinkle them on the sides of my bowl. Sam looked at me with some disgust. "Fritos, gross!" I looked at him with equal disgust as he began to boil water for his macaroni, which is, apparently, how he grew up eating chili. (I have since learned that spaghetti is a popular addition to this dish around the Cincinatti area, while only 200 miles south, in Nashville, Fritos reign supreme). I added some macaroni to my chili and he added some Fritos to his, but I think we both still dig what we've grown up on. The Fritos add a salty crunchy to the spicy mush of chili, but what do noodles add? I still don't know. All the same, it was a good exercise in appreciating our differences, albeit small ones, and should help as we enter Christmas tree season. (He's grown up on fake ones, my family has always gone to tree farms.) I offered to compromise by going really fake, sparkly, and fabulous (see photo) --but so far, he isn't going for it. Stay tuned fair readers.