As I thought, the holiday season is as fun as ever and ramping up to what is going to be the most highly anticipated Christmas break of my life. Every other year it’s been just a break between classes or whatever else I’ve had going on, but now that I’m actually having to ration vacation days I feel like this break has got to work double duty or something. It has to be completely awesome, or else how much will it suck to spend my precious holiday days having only a mediocre amount of holiday cheer? I’m going to wring every bit of joy I can out of people in those three weeks, so be prepared for some serious, hardcore Fun Time with Alisha.

Surprisingly enough, part of what’s made the last couple of weeks pretty fun has come from work. The Friday after Halloween my department had an outing offsite to do some “team building.” It was all pretty top-secret what we would be doing, and a few of us were confused by an email we received saying to bring extra clothes because there was a possibility of getting soaked that read like a disclaimer for a log flume ride. When we got to the hotel where the event was we were told we’d be given supplies to make a boat to race across the hotel pool. I was imagining those little sailboats kids make and race by blowing their sails, but then we were told we’d have to have one member of the team as a captain…to get in the boat and race it across and back again. I did not want to do that. But when I located my team and saw two big guys, a large woman and a pregnant lady, I knew I’d automatically drawn the short straw. I was glad then that I’d worn waterproof mascara that day.

Building the boat was a lot of fun. More fun than work ever should be, which is why I love working with the people I work with. Thankfully for my team their captain was also a pirate with rowing experience, so we definitely had an advantage over the teams around us making all sorts of ill-conceived contraptions. We cut up our boxes and started shaping them into a kind of long, canoe-type thing before we wrapped it in plastic and duct-taped the heck out of it. Some of the other teams had a bunch of smaller boxes wrapped in plastic and I honestly thought one group was going to poke their captains’ legs through two such boxes and have her attempt to walk across the water.

When it came time for the race I felt sick with dread all of a sudden. The first heat went off and one team’s captain flipped straight out of their boat and head first into the pool. The other team made it nearly all the way before their vessel collapsed in a heap of saturated cardboard. It was the funniest thing I’d seen in a long time. I was hurting from laughing it was so hysterical. The next heat was the same, with both teams unable even to keep their boats upright. The problem, completely opposite to my suspicions, wasn’t that people were sinking, but that their boats were far too buoyant. They would try to get in them and they would flip right over and pitch them into the water! Person after person was going in and I felt sicker and sicker, both from laughing and nerves. One of the teams in the heat before mine actually made it across and back all in one piece, and then a competitive urge came out of nowhere and I knew I had to beat that team.

When the horn was blown two people on my team lowered the boat into the water and I had to brace my weight against one of the guys so I could get in on my stomach without destroying the boat. Once I was in I was shocked that I was still afloat, but then I started paddling as fast as I could, thinking about how fast I had to get across to beat the time of the person before me. I made it across, my team turned me, and I headed back. In no time at all I had made it back in record time! Hooray! And only minimally wet. I didn’t even need the waterproof mascara.

At the awards ceremony I really cleaned up. I got a $25 movie gift certificate for winning the pumpkin carving contest from Halloween, my team won the best boat design award, I got a $50 gift certificate for being a captain and our team each got a really cool gift for winning the “Sea-trix Regatta.” It was the best day of non-work work ever.

I was really disappointed when I moved down here and found out there used to be an MLS soccer team in Fort Lauderdale, but that it had folded a while back. I’m not really that into the MLS, but it would’ve been nice to see some games. So I was very excited when I found out the U.S. men’s under-20 national team would be playing a friendly against Guatemala last Wednesday. I don’t really care much about the under-20 team specifically, if at all, but Freddy Adu was going to be playing and I really couldn’t pass up the chance to see him. Like I said, I don’t make a point to watch any of his games with D.C. United, but I did tune in back in April of 2004 along with countless other curious onlookers to watch him make history as the youngest person to play in a U.S. professional sport at just 14 years old. He is a phenom.

Hilary went with me and we drove up to Boca Raton after work. There were a lot of people there, but not nearly as many as I thought might be there, and far more little kids than I would have thought, or hoped. The weather was gorgeous and cool, if a little windy, and it felt so nice to be outside. I’d read that most of the players on the U.S. side were already playing professionally, mostly in the MLS and a few in Europe, so I expected to see a pretty amazing game. When it got underway it was good, but I was a bit underwhelmed if I’m being completely honest. It was the Freddy Adu show from the beginning, but that was all anyone in the crowd was there for anyway. Every time he touched the ball kids would scream his name, and if anyone else had the ball they’d scream for him to give it to Freddy. It was cute at first, and then it just became horribly demoralizing for everyone on the pitch without the #11 jersey. Adu played well, but not well enough to give us the first point, which went to Guatemala. The second half felt slower, but Adu equalized and we got the extra goal we needed to win the game in the last five minutes by one of the few non-professionals on the team, an Anthony Wallace from USF in Tampa. Oh dear, I’ve turned this entry into a sportscast. Now back to the irrelevant and inconsequential.

During halftime I’d gone to a building near the field to find a bathroom that wasn’t a porta-potty. I was waiting behind some men for a unisex bathroom when one of them told me they thought there was a women’s room down the hall if I didn’t want to wait. It felt a bit sneaky to venture further into this building where I didn’t feel like I should be in the first place, but time was really of the essence so I thanked the guy for the tip and left. As I was walking down the hall I passed a few Guatemalan players who were heading for the locker room. I’m not sure what degree of VIP under-20 soccer players are, but I felt stupidly privileged, like I had accidentally walked backstage at a concert or something. When I was coming out of the bathroom I nearly whacked the U.S. keeper in the back with the door! I can’t imagine that kind of injury would go over well with his boss at NEC Nijmegen so I’m glad I managed to pull it back just in time. I then lamely told him he was doing great, despite the fact that at the moment we were losing because of a goal he’d let in. Smooth one, I know.

At work on Friday we had a nice big meal catered in advance of Thanksgiving this week. It was really delicious, which is good because if Turkey Day at my brother’s place turns out to be a flop, at least I will have had one good plate of food. I’m really excited about going to Philadelphia this Wednesday. It feels like I haven’t been anywhere in forever! And when I was thinking about it, I haven’t really. Besides the occasional weekend hanging out with Kelly in Orlando and my one sojourn to Wausau for Possum Day at the beginning of August (and my afternoon in the Bahamas, if you can count that), I haven’t had a vacation in ages! Not since April when Kevin and I traveled around Florida for a couple of weeks. I usually manage to fly somewhere every few months or so for something fun, but I haven’t in so long that I’m really counting the days ’til I leave. Even if it is just a quick trip up, I’m looking forward to the cooler weather, being able to wear boots and sweaters and taking advantage of the tax-free shopping on Walnut Street. Oh, and I am looking forward to seeing my family, too.  

I read a book once called Notes from a Small Island in which Bill Bryson discusses the spatial relativism of Britons and Americans (sounds horribly dull, but it’s actually quite a funny book, I swear). The gist of his argument is that people develop their concepts of distance based on the size of their environment. According to him, because America is so much larger than Britain, Americans think nothing of a 6-hour road trip to visit friends or family for the weekend, whereas a British person would be scoping out B&Bs along the way to break up their “journey”–if they attempted it at all. (More likely, if someone were to move 6 hours away they would never be seen or heard from again.) I’ve discovered after living in South Florida for nearly six months that our conceptions of the manageability of distance have nothing at all to do with space, and everything to do with effort. Never in my life have I dreaded a two-mile drive so much as I do now. It really is unbelievable. If I was in Orlando or Gainesville, I’d think nothing if I had to drive 20 miles to pick up something I needed; that would be like, what? 15, 20 minutes. Now, fugedaboutit. Twenty miles might as well be 200. Not happening. And to think my mom thought she’d be seeing me more often now that I’m back in the States…ha! Do you realize how far it is to Gainesville? Way farther than 20 miles, let me tell you.

Shucks, look at the time….I better be getting to bed! Studying will have to wait…

The day wasn’t even over before I could definitively say that Americans just know how to do Halloween. I really missed all the decorations, costumes and festivities last year when I was in the UK. Although Kelly, my other roommate and I dressed up and went out the weekend before Halloween, the only scary thing that happened on the day itself was getting my legs waxed. This year was a nice change of pace, particularly because I didn’t just dress up this year…I got to dress up twice. I really don’t know why I get as much of a kick out of dressing up in crazy clothes as I do. I do know, however, that it doesn’t take a whole lot of convincing to get me to agree to it. Usually I’m the one instigating others.

This weekend Kelly and I drove up to Orlando and got right to work Saturday morning creating works of Halloween art in the shape of costumes for the party we were going to that night. After stops at Target, Party City, Dollar Tree, Crafts & Stuff, Jo-Anns and Rack Room we had all the supplies necessary to transform ourselves. That afternoon we toiled in Kelly’s living room until we had given birth to the most hysterical home-made costumes I’d ever seen. I almost died when Kelly’s roommate put on her oompa loompa costume…she looked like she’d just stepped right out of Wonka’s chocolate factory. We’d made her a little white outfit, stripy stockings and spray-painted a wig bright green. Kelly’s last-minute idea turned out really awesome as well. Her red anniversary dress, some black buttons, a cardboard container and yard of black furry fabric turned into a really cute British palace guard costume. My costume was more cheeky than crafty. I threw together a home-made Kabbalah tank top, a blonde wig, dark glasses, a hat and tied little Baby Bandu in an African-print sling across my back and boom–I was Madonna.

We’d originally planned on going to downtown Orlando that night, but we ended up instead at a house party thrown by a friend of a friend (isn’t that always the way though). The guy whose house it was had gone all out…the front room was walled over in black garbage bags, there were black lights all over the place and a massive fog machine pouring thick vapor across the entire house. Everyone there had done an excellent job on their costumes, including one guy who was dressed as Jafar from Aladdin and three guys who were dressed as characters from Lost. One guy who had painted a scar across his face was Locke. Another big guy was Hurley, and had even brought a massive big jar of fake ranch dressing with the Dharma Initiative label attached. The third guy was Hurley’s imaginary friend. I thought they were so good I had my picture taken with them, and Hurley even let me hold his lotto ticket.

The whole night I had no idea who anybody was. I only knew people by who or what they were dressed as. So about all I know is that the werewolf threw the party, Triple H drove us there along with the oompa loompa, Jafar and Jessica Rabbit, the palace guard and I beat the dread Pirate Roberts in a game of Beirut and  Ron Burgundy helped me locate the head of Baby Bandu when it was separated from his body when he was the football in a touch game in the backyard. At the end of the night, and after a quick call to Sophie in Watford that we made unbeknownst to the phone’s owner, it was one of the most fun nights I can remember having for a long time. It definitely ranks up there with jaunty cap night and any of the best nights at Time and Envy.

I expected that Halloween would be extremely anticlimactic after having such a great time over the weekend, but I was proved quite wrong! Luckily for me I work for a cool company that’s all about having fun and plying people with food at every opportunity, so there was plenty going on when I went back to work on Monday. Starting off with jack-o-lantern carving! I love it! How many people get to carve pumpkins at work I wonder? I went for a Jolly Roger design to complement the costume I wore to work on Halloween.

I know, I know…I was a pirate last year. But I wanted to avoid causing any kind of controversy so I decided that the Madonna wig and Baby Bandu should stay at home. So, instead I pulled out some of the stuff I wore out last year, mixed in with a few new pieces and voila…pirate! Although the pirate boots of last year now live at the Bosnian charity shop in Acton, this year’s outfit had one key accessory that last year’s was severely wanting–a parrot. I knew it was a good idea to get that bird at the grocery store in Gran Canaria! With my little green parrot on my shoulder and a new, improved cutlass complete with swashbuckling sound effects secured in my sash, I was ready for work.

There’s no way I’ll win the contest for best costume. One of my coworkers came in rocking one of the most amazing get-ups I’ve ever seen! She was dressed as the Queen of Hearts and had this massive hoop skirt, a huge white ringleted wig and geisha-esque face makeup. It was awesome. Most other people had costumes of varying degrees of creativity and effort. We had a party in the afternoon with tons of food where I satisfied my two-year long craving for candy corn pumpkins, but the best part by far was the palm reading.

When I heard that one of the girls I work with would be reading palms I thought she’d be making up a bunch of funny stuff, similar to the games of MASH that Kelly and I amuse ourselves with far too much than is befitting our age. Then when people who’d had their palms read ahead of me walked away from the table looking a little astonished I was very eager for my turn. I don’t believe in mystical stuff like that, but I do think it’s supremely entertaining. I’d always been fascinated by it as a kid and had checked out library books on the subject, but I’d never had anyone else do a reading before. The furthest I ever go is reading my horoscopes in the backs of magazines.

When I sat down for my turn Alejandra took my left hand in hers and adjusted it so she could find something she was looking for. She then studied it for a few seconds before saying, “This is weird. I know you only have one brother, but your palm says you have two siblings.” I’d talked to her about my brother in the past, but I don’t think I’d ever mentioned my sister to her. When I told her I did have two siblings, she just smiled and said that made sense.

The rest of my reading was really interesting. She went on to tell me that physical distance already separates me from my brother, and that we’ll continue to be apart in the future. Additionally, I will also be separated from my sister in the future. I will live a long time and be financially stable for most of my life, apart from one period where I’ll need money. She reassured me that she suspected this would be due to financing my children’s college education. And I thought they were just creases in my hand! According to her, a person unrelated to me, but connected in some way to one of my siblings and who will have an impact on my progeny, will enter my life and stay with me until the end, presumably a spouse. She said I would have two great loves in my life, and that one would be weaker than the other. She also said that the weaker one had already occurred. She then looked up at me with a concerned look on her face and said, “And it has left you scarred!” Oh no! Apparently I’m damaged goods. Oh well, my hand says I have one greater one to look forward to within the next five years and that this person will eventually lead to two children. This part was great…she said the genders of my children were ambiguous to her. I joked that I hoped that didn’t mean they would be hermaphroditic (not that I would love them any less!), and when I thought she would laugh she just deadpanned, “Or they could possibly be gay. But I’m almost sure one will be a girl.” Not bad. One girl and one Pat.

My future really wasn’t that bad at all. Especially compared to a couple of other people’s. Most everyone had some pretty standard lives to look forward to, but poor Adriana was told she would be lucky to make it past 50, and another woman was told she would have two great loves in her life too. The problem with that is that she’s married, but according to her palm she hasn’t even met her second love yet! Uh-oh.

In the afternoon I was crashing after all the sugar I’d had earlier and I didn’t think I was going to make it through the day, let alone go out downtown like I’d told Hilary and Adriana. But I got my second wind before I left to go home and wanted to get as much mileage out of my pirate costume as possible. I met them at their condo and some of their neighbors and their friends came over too and we all walked over to Himmarshee. I was gobsmacked at the turnout. I thought we might be one group of only a handful that came out dressed up, but literally everyone downtown had gone all out on amazing costumes! It was hysterical! I’d never seen so many people in costumes in one place ever before in my life. There were some really great ones, like the 10-ft tall dancing Gumby, a massive Lego man, a historically accurate Jesus, a Luke Skywalker with Yoda clinging to his back and, hysterical yet completely repulsive, a guy dressed as a huge, used maxi pad dancing around outside the Brick Room. Nice. Not only was it so fun to see all the different costumes, but I think one reason it was so great last night was that nobody was trying so ridiculously hard to impress anyone. Nobody except the girls dressed up as a Sexy fill-in-the-blank and the few guys who’d shown up as Chippendales really cared about anything other than having fun. I for one didn’t miss all the overly gelled, perma-tan metrosexual guys. If only every night was Halloween.

And now it’s a full year until next year’s Halloween! Too bad! It’s okay though, because now that it’s over it means Thanksgiving’s only a few weeks away, then it’s Christmas, my birthday and New Year’s! Then January hits you like a ton of bricks and it’s depressing. Nothing good until February (and then that really depends on your circumstances!), and after that St. Patrick’s Day at a stretch. Then nothing until Fourth of July. That’s too sad to think about…better to enjoy the holidays now that they’re soon arriving!

As usual, I tracked her flight on Google Earth all morning at work, this time remembering not to panic when the little plane dive bombed-into the middle of the Atlantic. It did eventually reemerge, and when she was just flying over the water off Florida’s northeast coast I grabbed my keys and headed for Miami.

I’d never been to Miami International before, apart from when my friends and I somehow accidentally ended up there a week or so ago in an attempt to find a restaurant in Little Havana. That place is nuts! The traffic wasn’t so bad getting there, but once I was on site it was a little bit intimidating. The roads were narrow and people were cutting in and out like mad, swerving around tourists and taxis and doing 50 in 10 MPH zones. I’ve adapted my driving habits to survive the gauntlet that is my daily commute, but I felt lucky to be alive and my car in one piece when I finally parked my car in the nosebleeds of one of the massive garages.

I quite like airports. I just think it’s really interesting knowing that everyone there is off to somewhere new, and could be going anywhere in the world. I’d love to just go up to random strangers and ask where they’re going and why. In Orlando it’s fun to see all the families with little kids toting around bags of Disney merchandise and decked out in lime green Mickey Mouse t-shirts and hats with big mouse ears attached. I thought Miami might be like that, full of vacationers excited to be flying in from some cold, far off place to warm, tropical Miami. It wasn’t really like that at all, unfortunately. As I waited behind the long glass wall at the international arrivals lounge looking out for Kelly, there were lots of grim-looking people filing by. During the half hour or so I waited there were some happy scenes, though. Several people, having recognized familiar faces standing with me in the crowd behind the glass, would start to wave and hurry on ahead to meet whoever it was waiting for them on the other side. It was really sweet, and it made me so excited for when I’d see Kelly walking through the doors from the customs hall.

When it was finally my turn for a happy reunion, we hiked back to where I’d parked and we navigated back through the craziness of the airport roads and made it back to my place. Not one to let me down, Kelly had brought back with her the world’s largest supply of trashy British celebrity magazines. All in all, probably fifty bucks’ worth! I was in heaven…all the Closer, Heat and Grazia I could ever want. Finally, I can satisfy my curiosity about the state of Chantelle and Preston’s marriage and see how distressingly thin Posh is these days. For a guilty pleasure I don’t think I feel nearly as guilty about reading this stuff as I probably should.

Today it’s back to work while Kelly chills with the kitties at mine, and then it’s off to Orlando tonight for a weekend of Halloween fun and shenanigans. Hopefully not quite as fun as last year! It’s kind of hard not to have a great time when you’re dressed up in costume, though. And this year’s should be good. After much thought and consideration I’ve decided to go as Madonna. Not the cone-breasted Madonna of decades past mind you, but the modern mature, Kabbalah-loving, roller-disco dancing, baby snatching Madonna that we know and love today. I’m quite excited about this one, people. I’ve got my little David Bandu packed away in my suitcase already, and he is ready for some fun times this weekend. I’m trying to convince Kelly she should go as Vicky Pollard, but she’s afraid nobody here will get it. I would. Is that not enough? It would make’a me laugh. Hard.

So the past couple of days we finally had a taste of autumn weather down here and it was gorgeous. I woke up and stepped onto my patio and felt chilly air for the first time since…I can’t even remember. The much-anticipated cold front that had dumped huge amounts of snow up north finally pushed its way down here. We certainly didn’t get anything even remotely close to what I would consider “cold” weather, but we did get two days of mornings in the 60′s and beautifully sunny days with highs only in the mid 70′s. I finally understood why so many people would want to come here for the winter. Today it’s back to the sticky, warm norm, but if winter turns out to be anything like the last few days then I’m in for a real treat. Not exactly your typical winter weather, but I’ll take it! I heard someone in the office say the other day that winters down here are our reward for making it through the summers. I think it was reward enough to not have any major storms, but if we get gorgeous weather on top, so much the better!

One random last thing. Have you ever thought about all the random photographs you might be in from other people’s family vacations? You know, when you’re walking by and you realize that you’ve walked in to someone’s photograph. I’ve sometimes thought about how many dozens or hundreds of photos there might be floating around out there with me in the background and how cool it would be to see some of them. Well, quite randomly, part of this dream came true for me recently! I’m sure you all are familiar with YouTube, a site with millions of video clips ranging from full-length TV episodes to short clips of people picking their noses. You can find just about anything there.

During an afternoon of boredom recently I was doing random searches trying to find anything to entertain myself. I found video clips of kids trying to light fresh produce on fire in the town where I was born, a music video filmed along Acton’s High Street and eventually I even found clips someone had recorded from this year’s Possum Festival in Wausau. That just goes to show that you really can find anything on YouTube. So I was watching the handful of clips, enjoying the amusement of seeing the same sights I’d seen in August from someone else’s vantage point, when I thought how funny it would be to see someone I knew in this person’s video. Then, lo and behold, literally two seconds later I saw myself walk in front of the person’s camera! It was kind of weird to see myself in some stranger’s YouTube video. In this case it was completely harmless, but it does make me wonder just what else could be out there in cyber space that I have no idea about! With camera and video phones so prevalent there’s nowhere to hide! Not that I ever do anything untoward or embarrassing that I might not want to the world to see. So go forth and search YouTube for a concert you went to recently, or the name of a street you frequently walk down…you just might find yourself passing by in the distance, staring off into space as you wait for the bus or picking your nose in the background of someone’s cherished family video.

Friday night was the opening night of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, the longest film festival in the world. This superlative obviously was enough to bring in a few important people, because when Hilary, Adriana and I walked up to the Parker Playhouse after parking in a dirt lot across the street there were all sorts of ridiculously expensive cars parked in front and even more queued up for valet service. We had got all dressed up and it was fun seeing other people decked out like they were somebody special. I saw some guy with a camera snapping photos as people walked through the front door and so, jokingly, I asked him if he wanted a picture of the three of us. He asked if I was somebody important and I kind of laughed because I thought he was teasing. I’d seen the people he had snapped before we walked up and they didn’t look like anybody special, just middle-aged people in expensive-looking but not very stylish clothes, and we were young and dressed really nice…surely he was kidding. Nope. Perhaps if we’d valeted they would have realized who they were reckoning with; it’s all in the entrance.

The opening film for the festival was Volver, a Spanish film directed by Pedro Almodovar, but before it was shown they played a short film by some has-been actor who used to be on Beverly Hills 90210. The short film was quite funny, but that guy, Ian so-and-so, was absolutely awful! He is such a crap actor! Before Volver was shown (which was awesome), he was there to give a little speech and wave his hand. I felt a little embarrassed for him, to be honest. Especially later on when I saw him standing around at the buffet at the after party waiting for the popcorn shrimp to be refilled.

After the film premiere I no longer suffered from any delusions that someday I might appear on Fort Lauderdale’s society pages in the local papers, but in case I had any doubt that I am in fact a nobody, that was cleared up on Sunday. I was out looking for bits and pieces to put together a Halloween costume when I found this neat little shopping center with an absolutely beautiful vintage store that I fell in love with and several other really unique boutiques. I was enjoying being able to walk to different stores at once rather than having to get in my car and take my life in my hands trying to get to several places, so I walked along until I saw a clothing store that looked interesting.

When I went to pull the door open, it was locked. The sign said it was open, so I rang the bell. A woman with a little dog opened the door and asked if she could help me. Umm…who says that? It’s a store…it’s a place where people go to buy clothes…what did she think I wanted to do? I’m a bit old for selling Girl Scout cookies and I didn’t have a basket of roses or a bundle of newspapers in a wagon to make her think I was a street hawker. I’m sure I probably looked a bit confused when I said that I wanted to come in and look around. She kind of looked me over and asked if I had an appointment, and that the store was a personal shopping store that didn’t normally allow browsing. She then went on to say that they “dress” celebrities and that they’re just rather “picky” about who they let in, but that if I wanted to I could come in and take a look. Oh gee whiz, can I really? I eyeballed her rather shabby attire, gave her a dirty look and told her thanks, but no.

What is with the people down here? I expected a certain degree of superficiality and elitism, but I thought that would be limited to golf course memberships and yachting clubs! I can’t stand the idea of it…elite social circles that you can only get into if you make X amount of money, drive one of only three cars available in the country and have spent your husband’s fortune in an attempt to defy biology and get a body that Nicole Richie would envy. The idea is disgusting! If I were to wake up a billionaire tomorrow they could keep it…their photo ops and their Jimmy Star clothes. (And FYI, if there’s anyone who needs plastic surgery, it’s dear old Jimmy. And his clothes are ugly too. I’m not bitter, though.)

In movies they always make out that finding out your ex-boyfriend is engaged is some kind of soul-shattering experience, but in this case the relationship was ancient history and we haven’t spoken for years now. It was actually quite an amusing discovery! He has a Web page where he posted pictures of him in front of a waterfall getting down on one knee to propose to his girlfriend (who was dressed in top-to-toe spandex, but I will bite my tongue). It’s funny to see that he is still at least part of the guy I knew so long ago. The elaborate surprises and the need to pictorially document every aspect of his romantic genius were blatant. I texted Kelly to tell her and she asked how I felt about it. I told her I didn’t care at all, which was the truth. Better that other girl than me! I wouldn’t want my future child to have a fivehead anyway.

While I’m on the subject of romance, I should mention that Kelly’s back in England visiting her dear Mark again for two weeks. She left last Monday and will be coming back one week from this Tuesday. I don’t like it when she goes because I can’t talk to her every day! And if my cats hadn’t chewed through my computer microphone wire I could’ve called her cheaply on Skype, but so much for that. Thankfully, she’s the one person in the whole of the UK that I seem to be able to both send and receive texts without difficulty.

The last time Kelly went to the UK back in August I’d found this really cool web site that let me track her flight in real-time. But wait, folks, that’s not all…it was in 3-D using Google Earth! It is one of the coolest things I’ve ever found online. I just typed in her flight details, opened the link in Google Earth and it zoomed in to where her plane was at that very moment, and I could zoom all around her plane from every angle. How cool! So after she’d called me from Chicago to give me her flight information I punched it in and found her plane once it had taken off. I was at work, but every so often I’d open the window and see what kind of progress she’d made. I’d been watching it for several hours, but then when I came back from lunch and sat at my computer I saw the yellow line of her flight path–plunging straight into the ocean. I kind of sat there for a minute trying to think why it would show that, because it had always accurately reflected the plane’s altitude and I just couldn’t work out how on earth it could have malfunctioned since the data was being fed to the system directly from the plane’s gauge readings. Then I started worrying. I opened up CNN’s web site to see if a plane crash had been reported. It didn’t show anything, but I thought maybe I’d witnessed it before the reports had time to go to the wires. My heart was racing and I went to Adriana’s desk and had her come help me look. I showed her the yellow line in the water that should have shown Kel’s plane over the Atlantic halfway between the East Coast and the UK. We both looked at it and I showed her where she’d started in Chicago and where the line dropped off into the blue. Then, when I zoomed out so I could see London on the map, I saw a yellow line emerging from the ocean a few hundred miles East of where it had submerged, and then Kelly’s plane cruising along at a healthy height on its way to Heathrow. I felt so stupid, but also so relieved! I’ve never been a nervous flier, but I tend to get a little anxious when other people do. So, to save me some grief, pick a side, Kel!

Things down here in Fort Lauderdale have definitely been much better lately than they had been a few weeks previously. The car stuff is finally sorted out at last and it seems now that the only thing for it is to get a new one. While that should be fun and exciting news, I’m not looking forward to the whole ordeal of the negotiations and then the payments for who knows how long. I might just consider taking the public transportation around here. And while I’m at it I might take up crack as well.

Down round the Fort it feels like it’s been so busy! But busy in a fun way. Last weekend I went over to Adriana and her roommate Hilary’s place in downtown. We were going to get some drinks on Las Olas with a few of their neighbors and one of Hilary’s friends, Lauren, who works with her at Citrix in Consulting. We were getting ready to go out and Hilary’s friend called to say she was on her way and would meet us at Mango’s. But when she said goodbye it didn’t sound like she was saying ‘Lauren.’ When I asked her to verify she had in fact said Lauren, an unpleasant wave washed over me when she said ‘No, Florin.’ Oh crap.

I hadn’t told either her or Adriana anything about it because I knew Hilary worked with Florin, but mostly because it had only been a week of nothing much punctuated by an embarrassing faux break up. So I had to tell them and explain to them that it might be a bit awkward, particularly because even though I’d said we could try being friends we’d only seen each other once since then. He didn’t know I was going to be there either. I decided I wasn’t going to let the situation bother me.

He walked up to our sidewalk table at Mango’s when we were halfway through our hard lemonades, which was probably for the best. Luckily, it wasn’t awkward at all and we actually all ended up having a great time. Crisis averted! It was for the best I think, because when I saw him outside last week during lunch he smiled and waved as opposed to ignoring me like he’d done once before a couple of weeks ago.

This past Friday night was nice. I’d been asked by my supervisor to take a candidate out to dinner with another girl I work with. I’d met the girl in Orlando when I was there for the recruiting trip a couple of weeks ago and she was really nice, so I thought it would be fun. That, and we could go to a really nice restaurant for free! Score! We went to the Samba Room on Las Olas, which is where I’d been taken when I’d been down here interviewing in May. It had been delicious then, so I was really looking forward to it and had been building up a good appetite bordering on starvation all day so I could really enjoy it. I ordered a steak and I was really looking forward to it until they brought it out and it was covered in some kind of bleu cheese sauce. I HATE bleu cheese. It was awful. Everything on the plate was tainted with it. I found solace in the fact that dessert was coming up and it had been amazing last time I’d had it, but when mine came out doused with rum I was severely disappointed. I also hate dark rum. Aww. The really nice expensive dinner served by a fancy waiter with an accent like JFK was a big flop and I left feeling only slightly less hungry than I’d arrived.

After dinner I was walking along Las Olas with the candidate to let her get a feel for the area, when suddenly she pulled up short next to a garbage can on the sidewalk. It looked at first like she was spitting out her gum, but then I realized she was primly vomiting the contents of her stomach. I didn’t know what to do. When I asked if she was ok she was obviously very embarrassed and didn’t want to be a bother, but I was worried about her and told her I could go get the car and pick her up. She wouldn’t have it and wanted to keep walking. It was so bizarre. I felt awful for her and couldn’t really get any more information without seeming to pry. So now I can say that not only do I bore people to sleep while I’m talking to them on the phone (you know who you are), but I also induce people to vomit simply by being in their company.

Yesterday morning was so stunningly beautiful that I had to get up and go to the beach just as soon as I’d finished my coffee. I stopped off first to pick up a beach chair from Target, and I was amazed to see row upon row of Christmas trees, inflatable snowmen and plastic reindeer stocked from floor to ceiling. I know they must start stocking this stuff at the same time each year, but it never fails to startle me when I walk in off the street fanning myself from the Florida heat only to see penguins swaddled in scratchy scarves and fake trees lightly dusted with polystyrene snow flakes. And there I am, looking to buy a beach chair, and none are to be found anywhere. It’s Florida, people! I know the northern states are beginning to turn on the heat, but go peddle the coats and gloves to them and let’s keep the beach chairs in stock down here, savvy?

I did manage to find a lone beach chair stashed in the garden center, so with that I went to my favorite stretch of beach and enjoyed the beautiful weather. It is still a bit too hot for my liking, but at least the water had cooled off and it was so nice and cool. Adriana came to meet me and we stayed for a while. Too long, in fact, because my face and chest got a bit too pink for comfort. It all worked out though, because later Adriana, Hilary and I decided to take the water taxi from the Riverfront to Beach Place, and I blended in with all the other tourists.

I didn’t know what it would be like, but we had so much fun riding the water bus! It took kind of a long time to get there because we were going along the canal, which is a no-wake zone. It was beautiful seeing all the ridiculously expensive and opulent homes built along the water, especially since we left at 7:00 and got to see it all at sunset. The people down here have too much money for their own good. We saw Leonard Nemoy’s house, some concert pianist with a guest house shaped like a grand piano, the guy who owns the Miami Dolphins and his yacht with the helicopter landing pad on the back and some other 89-year-old guy with a palatial house on a peninsula surrounded by dozens of royal palms at $15,000 a pop. Oh, and he’s married to a 30-year-old. I’ve seriously got to look into house-sitting gigs at some of those places! I’ve never seen so many houses with massive yachts parked outside as if they were any old practical sedan.

We had a really nice dinner at this little seafood restaurant right across from the beach on A1A that had these two cute old Cuban men playing guitars outside. We were eating right on the sidewalk next to the road, across from which was the beach. The moon was huge and beautiful and shimmering over the water, and there was a small group of people sitting on the low wall across from us listening to the men playing their guitars. There was a man salsa dancing with his daughter who couldn’t have been more than about six. She was so cute…she was switching her hips like a pro while everyone from the restaurant looked on, dancing barefoot with just a skirt on over her bathing suit. It was just so adorable. The food was amazing too, as were the giant mango margaritas.

The rest of the places on the beach are really pretty touristy and I’m not such a huge fan of them. I don’t like the built-up parts very much at all. We went to this one place called the Elbo Room that’s supposedly famous because of its fabled Spring Break past before Fort Lauderdale banned the breakers. It was just a dive. We’d gone to a couple of other places and they were touristy, yet civil, but as soon as we walked into that place it was just wanton drunkenness and suspicious puddles on the floor. I’m happy to leave the holiday-makers to the beach and I’ll take Himmarshee for my evening entertainment. I doubt Elvis would approve of the state of things over there now, either.

I really needed that happy little boost tonight. Today was a rough day. Last night I went to see The Strokes in Pompano and today at work I was dragging. It was just one of those days where no amount of coffee was going to do it for me. That didn’t stop me from trying though, and by mid-afternoon I had the mother of all headaches and wanted to crawl under my desk and sleep it off. It was really awful (still is in fact), but I had to go to the Aventura Mall after work to take care of a few things.

Big mistake. Nothing good has ever come about from going to the Aventura Mall. Let me recap: The first time I went my air conditioning broke, second time I went…ok, so nothing happened that time…third time, I had a fender-bender right before I got there (luckily it was a non-event so no real harm) AND my air conditioning broke on the way home, and today I go back and as I’m leaving my air conditioning breaks…again! It was a good thing I had a migraine because I felt too bad to spend any brain power worrying about it.

I had my window down on the drive home and I thought I smelled something burning when I stopped at the off ramp on Oakland Park Blvd. When I got going again I didn’t smell anything and I thought it must’ve been one of the other cars next to me. That was until I parked in front of my condo and saw smoke rising from the hood of my car. I have never had a car smoke like that before. I’ve always seen those crappy cars driving down the road, billowing black smoke from various orifices, and cast them disparaging looks. Well, today I was that poor SOB with the piece of crap smoking car…and it sucks.

I dumped my stuff in the passenger seat and popped the hood to take a look, hoping nothing would explode in my face. A guy was walking towards the building and called out, “Your car is smoking!” Thanks, Sherlock. I was flustered and I couldn’t get the hood up, so he came over and popped it open and the smoke kept on coming. I guess he knew a thing or two about cars, because he told me some things I didn’t understand, checked my oil and told me that wasn’t the problem. He was very nice and helpful, but he didn’t shed much light on the situation. It has to have something to do with the work they did on the air when I got it fixed on Friday (which was NOT covered by the previous work after all and has cost me the other arm and leg), so now I have to take it in again so I can sit in the scary waiting room and hope I don’t contract syphilis while they smash things about for a couple of hours and then tell me they fixed the problem.

It’s only Monday and I feel like I need the weekend desperately! Luckily for me I had a pretty good one this past weekend to fortify me for this crap. I went to the beach Saturday morning, which was so unbelievably pretty. It would have been the perfect day if it hadn’t been so hot. I couldn’t even lie down as the morning went on because there wasn’t enough of a breeze. I finally had to leave because it was so stifling. But I did get a pretty picture on my camera phone.

Last night I made up for not going out Friday or Saturday night. The Strokes were playing in Pompano and I went to see them with Jeremy from work and a couple of his friends from Orlando. It was such a good show! I was more amazed at the people there than I was about anything else…who knew Fort Lauderdale had an indie scene? It was so refreshing to see people wearing something besides painted on day-glo lycra or stripy button-up shirts with spiky gelled hair! Oh how I missed it! I was really beginning to doubt that these people even existed this far south. It seriously felt like I had been transported back to London for a couple of hours, which can only be a good thing. Oh yeah, and the band was good too. They were awesome! The opening band sucked–the only decent song they played was a Prince cover–but The Strokes were really great and the venue was pretty amazing given my expectations. It was loud, hot and the drinks were overpriced, but that’s all part of the fun! Hopefully we’ll get some more good shows down here again soon.

You can fool me once, pock-faced, teenage, high-tech scumbag, but oh no, you can’t fool me twice. I refuse to be deleted again. I’m backing up.

Apparently, some little scumbag whose mother obviously didn’t love him enough decided it would be a good idea to hack into the BootsnAll system and completely wipe one of the servers, and five of my most recent posts along with countless others’. Luckily I was able to get three of them back using Google’s cached pages, but two of them are gone! Nooo! Why don’t I ever save a local copy?! It’s just so annoying because one of them was long and had taken me ages because the formatting was giving me fits. I tried everything I could to get it back, but Google and Yahoo!’s caches aren’t recent enough to get a copy of these posts.

That’s where you guys come in! I have one last ditch hope of finding these posts, and that’s with your temporary Internet files. I checked mine already and I don’t have a copy of the pages in question, but one of you might. If you saw either of these posts (or both, even better) and could locate them in your local files and could send them to me I would love you forever and write an entire post dedicated to expounding the sincerity of that love. Or any other topic you may request. Bar none.

To check your files, do the following. In an Internet Explorer window click on Tools –> Internet Options. In the Temporary Internet files area, click Settings. Then click View Files. In the window that opens, you can sort the files by clicking Type on the toolbar. Scroll down to the HTML files and look for one that has an address like http://bootsnall.com/Alisha. Open the files and see if any of them have a title that matches either “Highfalutin Times” or “Arr, schwab the decks!”. Please be a star and help me! Over the past few hours of nauseous searching and correspondence with the Aussie in charge of all of BootsnAll, I still haven’t been able to find these myself, but maybe one of you will have better luck.

Awww…I hate this.

I thought kids were supposed to hack their school systems to change their grades, porn sites for free access or launch missiles with video games or something. Who wants to hack a travel Web site and delete people’s cherished memories? Stupid socially-retarded punk kids…

Find out about how this day came about. I only wish I hadn’t spent so much time rambling on last night with my post or else I could have seen the pirate-themed Wife Swap! Life is so cruel sometimes.

Some of you know that last Halloween I fulfilled a life-long dream of spending the night as a pirate. After weeks of prep work with Kelly, sifting through every last fancy dress shop and the majority of the chavtastic shops in West Acton, I had a pretty darn stellar pirate costume. I had the black and white striped top, waistcoat, red and black striped stockings and even some pirate boots. Oh, and a plastic sword and scabbard–lethal. But the one thing that could not be located, despite hours of scouring, was a parrot. What good is a pirate without a parrot? I tried everything I could think of to get a stuffed one, and it turned out that live ones were just as hard to come by:

 (E-mail transcript between Serengeti Ranch, an animal rental service used mostly for the entertainment industry, and me last year)

—————————————————————-

—–Original Message—–
Sent: Oct 19, 2005 6:27 AM
To: serenranch@earthlink.net
Subject: Parrot rental

Dear Sir/Madam,  

I am e-mailing to enquire about renting a parrot from Serengeti Ranch. I will be attending a Halloween party soon, and as I will be going as a pirate I think it would be a nice touch to have a live parrot as part of my costume. I have been assured by a friend who once rented an otter from you that your business is the best. I’d like to have a parrot that can speak, and, preferably, one that is toilet trained. Do you think you’d be able to help me with this request?

Friday night I went along with my friend from work, Alecia, to Little Havana for the opening of an art exhibition at the Tower Theater. On the way I thought we might die because we had to drive through one of the worst storms I’ve seen in a while. There was lightning popping not far off in the distance, reaching from the ground up into the grey-green clouds, and as we headed into it the lightning was on all sides of us. I’m not usually bothered by storms, but this one was kinda scary! Thankfully it let up by the time we got to Miami.

I’d never been to an art gallery opening before so I didn’t really know what to expect. To be fair, this was a pretty low-key kind of thing, but it was fun to do something new. There were a few really nice pieces, but then there were several going for around $25,000 that nobody could pay me to hang in my house. The champagne was nice, as was the bruschetta, but I can’t say the same for the caviar. To my credit, I never thought the day would come that caviar would willingly pass my lips, but, given the opportunity, I felt like I owed it to myself to try it. One bite later, the rest was in the garbage. So much for high class.

After we left the show we were driving back to I-95 along Calle Ocho, which is one of the neatest places ever. I’ve never been anywhere in the States before that made me feel like I was in another country other than there! Literally every single storefront has all Spanish signs, there are cafes with to-go windows right on the sidewalk and even the CVS has ‘Farmacia’ in glowing red lights in lieu of English. It was so cool. I saw a fun-looking restaurant as we drove by that I feel compelled to go to, so I’m sure I’ll be back again soon.

On the way home it was dark and the same storm we’d driven through a couple of hours earlier had blown off to the north-east. One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen is a lightning storm far off over the ocean. It was so amazing to see the huge tower of clouds illuminated from within by such violent cracks of electricity, and yet it looked so peaceful from afar.

After the storm the night before and all the other horrible weather it seems we’ve had lately, I was so thrilled when I woke up Saturday morning and the weather was gorgeous. I didn’t take any chances, so I put on my swimsuit threw some stuff in a bag and left for the beach. Adriana (another girl who just started at work) met me there and we stayed for hours. It was a little hot, but the water felt nice. I’m looking forward to November/December so I can finally see why it is all these old people feel the need to spend their winters down here. It should be nice!

Adriana had just moved down here from Massachusetts and had never been further south than the Aventura Mall, so we decided we should make a day of it and head down to South Beach. We were feeling self-indulgent, so Adriana called her roommate, Hilary (another new Citrite!), and we all went to get pedicures and iced coffee before we drove down. We got to Miami by about 7:15 and narrowly avoided getting caught in a mob of traffic due to people clogging the streets to get to a Shakira concert. It was nuts! South Beach was tame by comparison.

We parked and got out to head to the beach for a bit, and on our way there I saw the most interesting homeless person I have ever seen. Previously, the most entertaining homeless man I’d seen was in London when I saw a guy in Leicester Square trying to play an orange road cone as if it were a musical instrument. But this guy, he won based on costume alone. He was dirty, painfully thin and propped up in a wheel chair…okay, so this part is sad and not at all funny…but he was dressed head-to-toe as Santa Claus. He had the boots, the red pants, a red and white-trimmed coat and it was topped off with a red hat with a little white bobble on the end. He even had festive decorations dangling from the arms of his wheel chair. A bushy white beard was the only thing left wanting, but his own dark unshaven face sufficed enough for him it seemed. It all would have been pathetic enough to make me want to cry if the guy hadn’t been engaged in loud crazy talk with some other passerby.

For dinner we stopped at a place called Fox Cafe just in time to take advantage of the 50% off food deal that was running until 8:00. The food was just okay, as could be expected, but the fun part was sitting at a table on the sidewalk and watching all the people coming and going. The best part of all was the drinks. I can’t believe that I’d never had a mojito before! I feel like I’ve been missing out all this time. Unfortunately, the drinks were not half off. At $11 a pop it’s a good thing I liked it so much.

After dinner we walked around a bit and, to our surprise, most of the big shops were still open on Collins Ave. So we took a little shopping break, which is a dangerous thing to do when the price tags are as much as they are and we’d been sampling mojitos. I was good though, and refrained from snatching up the houndstooth fur-trim coat that I tried on as a joke and absolutely fell in love with. At that moment I hated the fact I live in South Florida….I couldn’t justify buying it for a weekend in Philadelphia and two weeks in England. Ohh, I loved it.

We walked around a bit more checking out different places before we went back to Ocean Drive. Once we got there these guys stopped us to ask if we knew where some club was. It was really obvious they didn’t speak very good English and had no idea what they were doing. Adriana asked them where they were from and they said Italy. As it happens, Adriana’s family is Italian and she speaks it fluently. Lucky enough for these guys, but maybe not so much for us. I think they were so excited to have someone understand them that they didn’t want to be left on their own so soon, because they asked if they could come with us. We were having a great time just the girls, but nobody wanted to be rude. As we were walking down to the Clevelander one of the guys was trying to talk to me and it was just painful. And the only Italian I know is ‘do you want to get something to eat?’, so that wasn’t exactly helpful. When we got to the bar they didn’t have their passports so they couldn’t go in, which disappointed nobody but them.

The Clevelander was kinda cool because it’s open air and there were lots of people there, but it definitely wasn’t my usual type of place. There was horrendous cheese music playing between live music sets and lots of tourists dancing around making fools of themselves. Definitely not a locals place, definitely not very classy, but it was at least fun to watch everyone else. Plus, there were lots of TVs around showing the Florida v. Tennessee game and I was able to see the game-winning touchdown and the dreams of every snaggle-toothed, hillbilly Volunteer shattered.

I don’t know what it was about that night, but after we’d found a table and ordered some drinks we were harassed by yet more Italians. This one guy was pretty funny though. He obviously thought he was so smooth, and then he started telling a story about his friend who is a helicopter pilot: “My friend, he flies helicopters. You know, chopters.”

I was so tired by the time we left and made it back to Ft. Lauderdale. I was sure I’d sleep all night long and well into the morning, but after four hours I was up and that was that. I bided my time til the West Ham game started. I was so excited about being able to see it live on the official WHUTV Web site that I’d paid ₤4.99 to subscribe to. You can imagine my dismay when the game started and all I had was audio commentary–no video. The next hour was a scramble to find any illegal streaming site I could get that might be showing it, but no such luck…nobody had it. I eventually gave up trying to use the program I’d downloaded whose interface and all links were in Chinese after trying to guess at which links were which and coming up with random Chinese TV channels, none of which were showing the game. The one bonus was that, in my desperation, I searched on my cable box to see if by some miracle it was being shown on any of the Spanish language channels. And to my complete and utter shock, Fox Soccer Channel, the same Fox Soccer Channel that my cable company said they couldn’t offer me no matter what I was willing to pay, came up as a result in my search! Unbelievingly, I selected the channel…and it worked! I get it! Hooray! So today I was able to see the game, albeit a day later, even though the result was still disappointingly the same.

After the game I headed down to Aventura to get a replacement pair of pants for my staple Express slacks that I’d accidentally bleached when I was doing laundry a few days back. I thought I could cover the spot on my charcoal pants with a Sharpie marker and a deft hand, but no dice. New ones had to be bought. And so too did multiple other items. I think I might have to stop going to Aventura though, because every time I do and I spend more than is strictly necessary, my freakin car breaks down! On the way home yesterday my air conditioning broke…again! I’m so upset. They better say the work is still covered by warranty or I’ll sic Kelly on them with a #2 pencil.

I thought I’d get this post out of the way before I go on my very first business trip and the backlog of content gets any longer. I always envisioned going on a business trip would be all business class flights, champagne and brief cases and some cool destination. I hadn’t imagined a road trip in a van with four guys on the way to Orlando. But, I’m excited about it nonetheless! I get to go on a recruiting trip to UCF for the Career Expo on Wednesday. I basically get to stand around, talk to people about the job and look at resumes to decide if they go in the red folder, the blue folder or the green folder. And if it’s the green folder, should they get a smiley face or not? These are tough decisions people. We leave tomorrow afternoon and will get there by the evening, when I’ll meet up with Britt and Kel for dinner. Should be fun! Then Wednesday’s the career fair and Thursdays are interviews. Work’s going great and I’m really enjoying it, but this will also be a nice change from the hectic past couple of weeks.

It was a fun weekend hanging out in Miami, but next time I think I will have to be more careful with my bag. Nothing went missing from it, thank goodness, but this morning when I was looking for something in it I pulled out about 15 cards for clubs and bars that people must have been slipping in when I wans’t looking! I could hardly believe it. The first one I was thinking, “hmm, don’t remember taking this off anyone,” and as I kept pulling them out of my bag like a clown scarf out of a top hat it just got to be ridiculous! Not a very good marketing tactic, I must say.

Jim Bollocks says my posts are too long for a dyslexic like him to read and I think this one is probably worse in that respect than most. So thus ends it.