Oh where, oh where can she be?

I'm still here. Last week I wasn't, however. I was here instead:



It was a last minute trip South of the Border. Threat of hurricanes and tropical storms be damned! We had an opportunity to spend a few days in paradise and we jumped on it like a starving dog on a raccoon carcass. Or like me on the complimentary minibar and all-you-can-drink margaritas.

(No mas tequila. No mas.)

For three days we were treated like royalty. I thought it was hard coming home from BlogHer this year but it was nothing compared to coming home after being able to open up the shades in the morning and stare at the ocean all day while ordering room services and doing nothing any more taxing than having a small Mexican man named Gabriel massage my shoulders or read a book a day.

Reality doesn't bite, it sucks. It sucks hard.

But all good things must come to an end and so did our short stint in paradise. Back to the toil of laundry and waiting for the school bus and needing to schedule things like haircuts for my children who decided to play hairdresser while on their grandparent's watch.

Maybe I'll take some more of that tequila after all.

(Pictures taken from the extensive patio off our suite with the Hipstamatic app for iPhone, under the influence of sunshine and tequila and comfortable chaise lounge chairs. Which is why I couldn't be bothered to stand up to take the pictures.)

Step into the heart of darkness. Or as I like to call it, vacation with my kids.

It's been a busy couple of weeks 'round these parts.

Mr. C. took two weeks off in a row for vacation - something virtually unheard of for the man who is looking into having his Blackberry, Macbook AND iPad surgically attached to him, kind of like Iron Man for geeks - so we decided to make the best of it and scheduled not one but two separate vacation trips. First up, Story Land in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Don't know about Story Land? It's an amusement park best suited for the under 10 year old set that's been in operation since the 1950's. It's quaint, it's heavy on the Mother Goose motif, the only way out is through Ye Olde Gift Shoppe of Doom. It's awesome. I went there as a kid, as did Mr. C., and by jeebus our kids were going too! So we went. Along with half of New England.

Okay I'm exaggerating. Only a third of New England was there. We went mid-week when it was slow.

The kids loved Story Land and we're planning on going again next year. Because next year, poor CC won't be stuck in a stroller most of the time. Maybe. She has a tendency to wander and a stubborn streak as big as Texas and shut up, husband of mine, she DOES NOT GET THAT ENTIRELY FROM ME. At least I only wander when there's something shiny to look at and not every time we encounter something that plugs into the wall.

CC had a good time, though. We threw her in a germ-infested pit of plastic balls and she was happy as a toddler in a germ-infested pit of plastic balls.


One of the highlights, for Chicky at least, was Cinderella's Kingdom:



A place I thought for sure would be skipped. My daughter loves pirates and beating up little boys, but she can take or leave a Princess. But on this occasion, bring on the sparkles! And I mean that almost literally.

Want to see something that strikes fear in my heart and wakes me up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat?

*shudder*
Look into my eyes. You will buy me a $15 soft serve ice cream and there's nothing you can do about it. And I'll take that row of stuffed Humpty Dumpty's too.

Dude. Just... DUDE. When we saw the face painting stand I thought for sure she was going to ask for the SpiderMan or the one that looked like a snake was eating the wearer's face but no, she went for... that. Whatever that is.

Come to think of it, sans fake gold crown on her forehead and that was me in high school. Only I wore more blue eyeshadow.

She had to be coaxed to sit on Cinderella's lap. To be fair, I'm pretty sure she took Cinderella for what she was - an underpaid, blond teenage girl in a dress that look suspiciously like the one I wore to a prom in '87. So she just stood next to her. All the better to make a quick getaway from.

Cinderella needs more blue eyeshadow.

Later in the trip we took the girls to Santa's Village, another place I had been to as a kid, and I'm not going to get into that trip except to say there was a very large cross and a huge nativity scene there and I'm sorry but you're not going to rationalize that away enough for my heathen liking.

I'd show you pictures of my children posed on sleighs and standing next to fake penguins and elves, just as I had a wee child, but I lost most of them in the great iPhoto crash of '10. They may still be on my memory card or they may be on my hard drive or I may have been ready to start shooting tequila at that point so let's move on.

The next week after barely any rest from four days in New Hampshire we set off for my sister's house on Cape Cod. If you have a relative who lives near an ocean and happens to own an eating and drinking establishment, I highly recommend you take them up on the offer to stay with them. Especially if that relative has extra bedrooms so you don't have to spend another week with your beautiful but non-sleeping children and has a seemingly never-ending reserve of wine. I'd show you pictures but I don't have many. Much too busy sleeping and eating and drinking and laying in the sun and Story Land who?

Which leads me to today - A mountain of laundry and a house in questionable condition, I still haven't caught up on my sleep and three days until I leave for BlogHer to get it all done. And no never-ending supply of wine.

Dude.

Weather was fine. Wish it was here.

I'm back from vacation. Reluctantly. Unhappily. Slightly sunburned and jet lagged.

Sigh

It sucks to end a vacation. I missed Chicky like crazy but it was hard to come home, back to reality, and leave all that freedom behind. Which is funny because I hate to travel. I hate airplanes and airports and living out of a suitcase. It takes me forever to relax and leave my worries behind me, but I love it when people bring me margaritas. Love it. And I love that my only worry was where I was going to pass out.

(You think I'm kidding.)

(I'll see you at Blogher.)

(I'll be the one that's swaying.)

Phoenix, and the resort we stayed at, were beautiful. Very posh, lovely weather, and did I mention the margaritas? I'm fairly certain I did but the tequila and the 90 degree temperature went straight to my head. It's a good thing it was so hot because I got to sweat everything out of my system.

Hey, I wasn't alone. There were lots of people doing the same damn thing. Stop judging.

With the exception of our first night (The night of the ho-down. Ho boy. There are no-ho words.), and our last evening (Gala awards dinner in the desert. How they pulled that off with that many people - hundreds of us and an open bar. Are you sensing a theme yet? - I'll never know) and one one-hour business session that Mr. C had to attend we were pretty much left up to our own devices. Which meant lots of pool time for me.

With the pretty people.

Christ.

I haven't seen that much tits and ass since, um, ever. I live in Massachusetts, after all, where our motto is "We're too smart to be superficial!"

(Which is why MA won't be competing with Brazil for "the most beautiful women in the world" title. Or Delaware, for that matter.)

And let me tell you they, the Tits (they deserve to be capitalized) were all expensive and all spectacular. I'd like the name of those women's doctors because there was some incredible work lying around that pool.

It was all very amusing (says the woman who hid behind her tankini and her book). As the hot days went on, and the more drinks were consumed, the parade of skin around the pool got more plentiful. And the men were more appreciative. I swear if they could have without threat of lawsuit the men "cooling" - ahem, swim trunks don't, um, control much, do they? - themselves in the pool would have held up score cards as women passed.

8.0! 6.5! Wow 9.5!!

(gotta leave room for improvement)

It was a bit like being back in college... If the college I went to was attended by men with six figure salaries and huge egos. But they didn't bother me (because, duh, I don't have big boobs) and I didn't bother them (except the Yankees fans who caught sight of me in my Red Sox hat, sore losers) so all in all Mr. C and I had a great time.

Oh! One of the best parts of our trip (besides the weather and the drinks and the free massage and the gourmet food and the...) was during the last night's awards dinner. Every year they have some recognizable music acts. Last year? Hootie and the Blowfish.

(Thank God we didn't go last year)

But this year? The Dan Band. Fuck!

And I say that with the utmost respect and admiration. If you saw them in Old School you know of which I speak.

If you ever get the chance to see them live, jump on that opportunity like a horny man on a box of porn. You will not be disappointed. Unless you're like half of the chuckleheads we attended the dinner with, middle aged wives and their millionaire husbands who forgot to purchase a sense of humor with their new Mercedes, who were so offended by The Dan Band's version of Genie in a Bottle (gotta rub me the right way) that they left early. Eh. More room at the front of the audience for me.

I saw Dan the next morning at the hotel's Starbucks and I wanted to hump his leg - because that's how I show my appreciation for things I really like. But I figured his wife probably wouldn't have liked it. And poor Mr. C. Nobody wants to be that guy. The husband whose wife gets all nasty on the entertainment. My husband's career would have been ended right there and then how would I afford all that plastic surgery I now realize I so desperately need?

Not that we'll ever be invited back. My husband was one of the few token technical guys invited to this sales shindig. I think there was, maybe, four of them - the token techies - out of 600 sales employees. But we'll always have Phoenix. And the free margaritas.

Um, I think.

Damn tequila.