From the Sunshine/Wind/Rain State

1.  So…I’m very embarrassed to say that I kinda want to see the movie “The Last Song.”  Yes, I know it has Miley Cyrus in it, and Yes, I know that it was written by Nicholas Sparks.  Get ready for the rationalization!  There’s hot guy volleyball action in it.  And it doesn’t appear to be the homo-erotic Top Gun volleyball playing…not that I didn’t like that scene in Top Gun…anything with any sort of libido can appreciate that scene.  Yes, I said anything…that sentiment is not just aimed at people.  Everyone knows volleyball players are sexy, that’s just how it goes.  Greg Kinnear, who I secretly have a crush on, is also in it.  He pretty much always puts on a good show.  Perhaps this movie will cause me to recant a little bit of my Nicholas Sparks hatred.  I’ve never read one of his books, and I’ve only caught bits and pieces of the movie “The Notebook.”  It was enough to make me vomit into my mouth.  What a sap!  Seriously, the two people at the end of the Notebook die at the same time while holding hands?  Give me a break!  Makes me wonder if Nicholas Sparks does, in fact, have a penis.  However…given that he’s sold millions of books to millions of adoring fans, and then those books go on to become movies that are cherished by millions of fans and non-fans alike, I guess maybe I shouldn’t cut him off without at least giving him a chance.  Of course, given all my disdain for him, should I actually enjoy one of his books or movies, I will never admit it.  This is a stance I’ve held for years, and if I suddenly start liking Nicholas Sparks, it’s going throw everything I’ve ever said into question, and I can’t have that.

2.  I am totally, completely, and 100% in love with manatees.  Every day when I’m not at work, I think about going to see the manatees.  When I’m at work and my patients aren’t falling out of bed or soiling themselves, I read about manatees on the internet.  Forget the beaches and the palm trees and seafood…I think one of Florida’s most redeeming qualities thus far has got to be the manatee.  I recently had the opportunity to kayak in a river that has manatees…we almost shat ourselves the first time that a group of them surfaced close to us.  I thought I was going to tip out.  Towards the end of the paddle while Simon and I were sitting very quietly in our boats, a curious little guy came up to us and started pushing our kayaks around.  It was crazy to see this light patch of water just materialize into a giant animal.  He would poke his little head out of the water so we could touch him, and he would roll onto his back so we could rub his belly.  He was the cutest!!  I wanted to take him home with me, but I think he would have been a bit too big to fit in the bathtub.  They seriously are the pugs of the water; I have no doubt in my mind that that’s why I like them so much.  I also found out that the word manatee comes from a native word meaning “breast.”  Maybe because they resemble giant boobs?  I guess there’s been talk about trying to get the manatee off the endangered species list, since their numbers appear to be coming up.  It’s good that their numbers are coming up, but it’s bad because once they’re off the list, the conservationist effort stands to lose a lot of funding in preserving their habitats.  It also means that a lot of the enforcement for boats in manatee zones will go away.  Boat collisions are one of the main causes of death for manatees, since they hang out so close to the surface of the water and don’t seem to have an instinctual fear of boats.  I hope they stay protected…interacting with that one manatee was hands down one of the greatest experiences of my life.

3.  I recently finished doing my income taxes.  What a pain in the ass that was.  I had to file in four states, and unfortunately, Turbo Tax only allows a person to do three states through their online program.  So I had to print out the return for Arkansas and fill it out by hand.  “Multiply the number in box 8 by the number in box 10, then divide that by the number in box 2, then subtract from that the number in box 14, then go to the tax table and find out which bracket you’re in, get that number and subtract that from the number in box 5…”  It was horrible!  All together it probably took me about four hours to complete the entire process.  If I was more organized and actually kept track of receipts, it would probably do my brain better to just take my stuff to a tax person and let them have at it.  But I’m not organized.  That and when I’m buying something in June, I don’t think to myself, “I should probably save this receipt so I can write it off on my taxes…next April.”  When all was said and done, I’m getting myself a pretty good tax return.  Of course, the first return to be accepted was from the state where I ended up paying in…imagine that.  Minnesota is charging me almost $200 a year just to say that it’s my permanent residence.  I think income tax should be terminated…what’s the point of it?  All it does is stress me out and makes me think the government is doing something sneaky behind our backs.  Oh wait, they probably are…and it probably has nothing to do with income taxes.  Income taxes are probably just a diversion to keep us occupied so they can do all kinds of messed up crap.  They’re probably reading this right now and putting my name down to be audited.

4.  While the Olympics were going on, I found myself envious of the professional snowboarders and skiers.  Those people have it made.  Granted, they engage in a profession where it’s very possible they could die with each run down the mountain, and they always have to do their profession in the cold, but still.  That’s a talent you either have or you don’t.  Unfortunately for me, skiing and snowboarding seems to be an area of which I have little to no talent.  It made me think about my own job, how anyone could technically be a nurse.  All you have to do is go to college and someone will teach you how to do it.  I was telling Simon this, and he said that while anyone can go to school to be a nurse, it definitely takes a certain talent to be good at it.  I think he’s right, and I see it everyday at work.  Being a nurse makes me want to avoid being a patient at all costs.  There’s a saying around the hospital that nurses make the worst patients, and I tend to agree with that.  I’m sure I would be a bit of a nightmare, mostly because I’d be scared of surrendering the nursing aspect of things to someone that I don’t know or trust.  And really, I’ve seen both nurses and doctors make mistakes, and I don’t even want to be on the receiving end of a medical mistake.

5.  So one morning after work, Simon and I had a lengthy discussion about poop.  Well, it wasn’t really much of a discussion, it was more like I was talking, and he was either agreeing or disagreeing by making sounds.  Here’s how it started…Stef: I took a monster dump at work last night.  Simon:  Uh…that’s nice.  Stef:  Did you poop at work last night?  Simon:  Why do you want to know that?  It was at this point that he left the couch we had been cohabiting to sit across the room at the computer.  Apparently to Simon, talking about either of our bowel habits is not funny in the least.  And here all this time I thought he shared my humor for all things poop (including our own)…imagine my disappointment when I found out that I’ve been disillusioned this entire time.  He actually doesn’t like hearing about bowel habits, mine in particular.  When asked if he wanted to talk about bowel habits, his response was, “I’d rather you didn’t” and “why would you even want to know about that?”  Which made me wonder…why do I want to know about that?  It’s not like I wanted the down and dirty details, I was just curious as to whether or not he had pooped at work.  Yes or no, end of story.  Well, it probably wouldn’t have been the end of the story, but had he just admitted that he had pooped at work, I probably would have quit pestering him about it.  Probably.  I may not have.  It was after work and early in the morning and I had been awake for well over 16 hours…after having worked 36 hours in three days.  With that amount of sleep deprivation, one never knows what direction I’ll take a conversation.  This particular morning the conversation led me to a startling conclusion…Simon hates hearing about me pooping about as much as I hate hearing about the Simpsons.  For those of you that didn’t already know, I can’t stand the Simpsons.  I don’t think they’re funny, and I probably never will think they’re funny.  So, in short, Simpsons=Poop when it comes to conversation material that Simon and I would rather not talk about.  I get it now.  Once I had made the Simpsons/poop connection, of course I couldn’t stop talking about it.  On and on I went, giggling maniacally.  I started firing questions at him like we were at a firing range.  “What if I thought I had to have the assistance of a butter knife to get the turd to go down, would you want to hear about that?”  Simon: “No, I wouldn’t.  I actually think poop is gross, not funny…especially your poop.”  See, I would want to hear about that, because I think any sort of manual assistance required in getting a turd down the toilet is insanely funny.  But now I know that if Simon ever had a turd that needed some assistance getting down the toilet, he would never tell me.  He would deprive me of that story.  Everyone poops, and it’s funny, and I wouldn’t think less of him for answering a few poop questions.  He could even say it was the poop of a friend and I wouldn’t care.  I just love a good poop story, is all.  I do think it’s funny that it took him three years of dating me to get the point across that he doesn’t like talking about our poop.  That’s a long time, and believe me, there was a lot of poop talking in those three years.  I believe the conversation this morning ended with him saying, “There is something wrong with you, and I don’t mean that in a funny way.”

6.  After almost two months of complaining, multiple air fresheners, and three carpet treatments, Simon and I have finally been moved to a new apartment.  Apparently the complex would rather move us than replace our carpet, which means they’re going to subject some other poor sap to the awful smell of cat pee.  And this time, it’ll probably be someone who signs a year-long lease that they can’t get out of.  The management initially wasn’t even going to allow us to switch apartments, but there was another travel nurse down here that left last week and we just moved into her apartment.  And it’s gorgeous!  Vaulted ceilings, large kitchen, big bathrooms, toilets that actually flush without the assistance of a plunger, big windows that let in lots of sunshine, and no pee smell!  Had they decided not to move us at all, I was honestly ready to go postal on these people.  I left a wonderful review of the place on Google…twice.  One for pre-move, another for post-move.  It’s not that they didn’t try, because they did…kind of.  I know they don’t want to replace the carpet because that’s expensive, but honestly…people are paying good money to live here.  It’s irresponsible and unacceptable.  What peeved me the most is that over and over again, they tried to blame the smell on my dogs.  They told me to my face that my dogs were peeing all over the apartment, and that’s why it smelled so bad.  The carpet guy stood there and challenged me about pulling up the carpet to see if the carpet pad was wet, which would mean that my dogs had, in fact, been the culprit behind the smell.  I basically told him to knock himself out…pull up all the freaking carpet and check the pad.  I guaranteed him that it would be dry, and of course it was.  What a douche.  He acted like we were personally insulting him and holding him responsible for the smell, which we weren’t.  We just wanted to live in an apartment that doesn’t smell like pee…that’s not too much to ask, right?  Ugh…between the hospital and the apartment, this has been one crappy assignment.  Fortunately there’s enough wildlife, beaches, friends, and sunshine here to keep us satisfied.  I don’t think we’ll be returning to Fort Myers in the future though.

7.  One thing we’ve found interesting about Fort Myers is that it’s a veritable radio time warp.  I think we’re in the early-to-mid 90’s.  I’ve heard Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sweet Dreams I don’t know how many times.  Not that I would listen to it, but I haven’t found a top 40 station yet.  Nor have I found an alternative radio station, or a station similar to The Current in Minneapolis.  It’s all early 90’s or classic rock.  Weird, right?  If we don’t hear either Prince, Tom Petty, or the Stones (or all three, in some cases) on the way to work, it’s a rarity.  I’ve been enjoying the classic rock station.  The 90’s stations are hit or miss.  I don’t mind a little Gin Blossoms every now and then, but I could definitely do without the Creed.  We did find a station that plays a lot of hip/hop and the occasional Lady GaGa, but that music is kinda hit or miss for me.  So far it’s been a welcome reprieve from the 90’s.

8.  Simon, our friend Ellen, and I recently made a trip to Naples to check out an art exhibit by one of our favorite glass artists, Dale Chihuly.  We saw an outdoor exhibit by him a couple years ago in Phoenix at the botanical gardens.  This exhibit was on a much smaller scale and was indoors, but it was still very cool.  The things that guy and his team do with glass are amazing.  I wanted to bring a little Chihuly home with me, but unfortunately I didn’t have my $40,000 credit card with me.  Dang.  Sharing the exhibit space with Chihuly was this other guy from France that specialized in the depiction of women cast in bronze.  There were also some men, but most of the sculptures were women.  I’m not quite sure what sort of women he was using as models, but the sculptures were not only disturbing, but as a women they were really offensive.  I found it interesting that the exhibit was called something along the lines of “the celebration of women.”  I tell you what, if I saw any of those women in real life walking down the street, I would run the other way…after staring for a beat, of course.  I’m pretty sure this dude had some sort of Mommy complex going on.  Or maybe he had been scorned by a woman and retaliated by making completely disgusting female statues.  All the sculptures had giant pendulous boobs, most of them with the nipples falling well below the belly button.  And they all had extremely large butts.  One of his drawings depicted a woman tossing her breast over her shoulder…ugh…I can’t imagine THAT is anything to be celebrated.  On some of the sculptures the boobs were so low lying that they actually looked like men, until closer inspection revealed boobs hanging around the hip area.  There were even a few where the vagina fell right between the boobs…hmmm…can’t think of a single man that would enjoy that.  Or would they?  Really…a celebration of women.  More like, “look at these fatties.”  Terrible.  I know it’s art and it’s something that I could never create, but I definitely had a hard time appreciating it for what it was.  There were two sections to the museum…one was showcasing the artifacts that the museum owned, and the other was showcasing the pieces that were for sale.  We happened to be following this little old couple around for a bit, and the woman kept making comments (rather loudly, I might add), “all the ones I want to buy are already sold.”  Really?  You’d pay $15,000 for a sculpture that looks like a couple tied off burlap bags?  Get out the wallet Grandma, there’s plenty of ugly, overpriced art to go around.  Good thing they’re already sold so you don’t have to waste your money, if in fact you actually have the money to waste on something as ugly as that.  I’m not sure for whose benefit she was making those comments, but she came across as a total cad.  

8.  I have some heartbreaking news.  The other day while Simon and I were in the car, he started reading off the ingredients in a bag of Doritos.  Come to find out that my most favorite snack in the whole world has BOTH partially hydrogenated soybean oil and MSG.  My heart is seriously breaking.  I’m aware that probably unknowingly consume both of those evil foodstuffs on a regular basis, but to knowingly eat them is something I try very hard to avoid.  Does this mean no more Doritos for me?  It might.  The thought of eating them right now kind of sickens me a little bit.  What is this damn world coming to??  If anyone has any suggestions for a nacho cheesy snack that might mimic Doritos, please let me know ASAP.  

9.  Last night I took a shot at making homemade mac and cheese.  It was part disaster, part success, and part disappointment.  For the longest time I’ve been trying to find a mac and cheese recipe that mimics the Wisconsin mac and cheese that they have at Noodles and Company.  So I found this recipe that claimed to be “almost exactly like” the recipe at Noodles.  So I gave it a shot.  Or I attempted to give it a shot.  The recipe begins by making a roux, which I have heard about, but have never done.  So there I am, melting my butter and adding my flour, the burner chugging away on high, when I realize that the flour is beginning to burn.  So I start to panic and start dumping the half and half into the pan, which causes my burning to roux to turn into big globular clumps in the pan.  As I’m freaking out, Simon comes over and helpfully says, “I don’t think you’re supposed to have the burner on that hot.”  He was lucky that one of my hands was occupied with a measuring cup full of half and half, and the other was vigorously trying to stir and de-clump the roux.  Oh, and I thought that using a spatula in place of a whisk would be all right…it was not.  So that’s how the mac and cheese began…with burning, chaos, and inappropriate cooking utensils.  I’m glad to report that the rest of the cooking process went off without a hitch.  However, I would like to sit down and have a chat with the woman that claimed that the recipe is “almost exactly like” the Noodles recipe, because clearly, it is not.  Despite three cups of half and half and three cups of shredded cheese, I could still taste the flour.  It almost had the taste of cafeteria mac and cheese, which you know is diluted with water and then thickened with flour, and doesn’t taste unlike the homemade playdoh that we had made in preschool.  Come on, you all know you made the playdoh, and that you all tasted it…I’m not the only one.  Perhaps it had a floury taste because of the disastrous roux.  I know that next time I’m going to skip the roux all together, and maybe add a titch of velveeta, and just enough cornstarch to thicken it up a bit.  That ought to do it.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

10.  In light of my recent kitchen failures, I would like to highlight a success.  I had this random recipe for peanut brittle that I had gotten out of a magazine a few months ago and had never taken the time to make it.  I love peanut brittle.  Back when Grandma had her own place and was still making Christmas goodies every year, she always made peanut brittle, and it was the best.  Currently I am living with a man that hates peanut brittle, and will only eat it when he is dire need of a sweet and there is absolutely nothing else available.  So we never have peanut brittle in the house.  Given that this recipe called for cinnamon, which all you peanut brittle people know is NOT a normal ingredient for peanut brittle, I decided to give it a shot and try it out on the hater.  He loved it!  And I have to admit, it was really good.  And for some reason it didn’t stick to our teeth at all.  Maybe because there’s no butter in it?  I haven’t the slightest idea, but I do know that one batch of the stuff didn’t last longer than 24 hours.  I think it made it just past the 15 hour mark.  Granted, the batch was little…only one cup of peanuts, but still.  Just to be clear, this is definitely not a substitute for old-fashioned peanut brittle like Grandma used to make, but it’s definitely quite a tasty little treat, if I do say so myself.

11.  The other day the pugs received a much needed bath.  For animals that don’t do a whole lot, they sure seem to get stinky in a hurry…Brie in particular.  They’re surprisingly good about the whole bathing process, which is nice because I really don’t like beating them if I don’t have to.  Anyway, after the bath we took them out on our lanai and started brushing them since they shed like the dickens right after a bath.  Each of us was going to town brushing a dog when we heard a little old lady voice from below us, “Hello?  Hello!”  So I piped up and said hello right back to her, thinking that she was being friendly.  Unfortunately the old bat was trying to get our attention to tell us that we were getting dog hair all over her patio.  Upon hearing her voice the dogs went crazy, barking and making a scene, so we couldn’t hear the rest of what she was saying.  What I kept catching was, “I’m trying to talk to you…I’d like to talk to you.”  Over and over again.  So we threw the dogs in the apartment and picked up our tufts of dog hair that were lying around.  We apologized, of course, and she kept on repeating that there was hair on her patio…which we understood the first time she had said it.  Apparently she felt the need to repeat herself.  Then we both peered through the cracks in the deck to see how much hair had fallen…and we couldn’t see any.  Not that there wasn’t any, but we had huge clumps of it on our patio, and judging from her reaction, we expected to see the same on her patio.  But there appeared to very little, if any.  We also noticed that this woman had absolutely nothing on her patio.  Not that I’m saying it’s all right for our dog hair to drift down to her patio…but she sure was making a stink about it falling on a patio that she obviously never uses.

12.  Today Simon and I found a new water sport that we’re absolutely in love with.  Paddle boarding!  It’s so much fun, and it’s a great workout.  The best part of it is, you don’t even feel like you’re getting a workout because you’re moving so slowly, which is great for me since I’m so anti-workout.  We paddle boarded for about 4 hours today, and while I was tired by the end of hour four, I didn’t feel as tired as I would have if I had paddled four hours in the kayak, or god forbid, gone running for four hours.  I don’t even know why I threw that in there…I could never run for four hours, nor would I.  But I digress…for those of you looking for a low-impact workout, but still a workout nonetheless, I definitely recommend paddle boarding.  And, you get to toodle around a body of water relatively easily, and you can see a lot more of what’s in the water than you could from a boat or a kayak.  This could be a good or a bad thing, depending on what body of water you happen to find yourself on.  We saw dolphins today while we were out on the paddle boards, which was awesome.  They didn’t come right up to us like the manatees had, but it was still cool to see them swimming and splashing around.  They didn’t seem in the least bit surprised to see people standing upright in the water either.  So, now that we’re both obsessed with paddle boarding, I think we have a few new toys to add to the ever expanding wish list.  Ha!

13.  It’s weird to think that we only have 12 more shifts to work before we head back to Minnesota for a while.  It was definitely nice to be out of the snow for the winter, and we’ve had more visitors on this assignment than any of our previous assignments.  But, now that things are warming up back home and we’ve done most of what we wanted to do down here in Florida, we’re ready to be around friends and family again for a while.  I have no idea where we’re going next.  We’d like to go back to Vermont for another job, then maybe take August off and then head to Arizona for the fall and winter.  That would be ideal, but so far since Simon and I have been traveling together, our plans never quite work out the way we thought they would, and we end up in really random places, usually with unexpectedly good results.  Arkansas, North Carolina, Vermont and even Florida were all states where I never thought I would ever work.  When I first started traveling, I had it in my head that I would only travel to cities where friends of mine were already living.  Kind of like an extended visit, if you will.  It worked out great for Colorado (Denice and David), Arizona (Dana, Chris, and Darna), and Minneapolis (all my college buddies).  The economic slump in 2009 kinda forced us to take whatever jobs were available, whether we wanted them or not.  Our last few assignments have taken us to places where we arrived not knowing anyone but each other.  And each place was a new experience filled with new friends and new adventures.  I sometimes wonder what I would be doing if I hadn’t started travel nursing.  I honestly don’t even know.  I’ve become such a different person in these last few years that it’s hard to remember what I was like before.  It seems so long ago that I had my cute little house on 2^nd St. in Rochester, living by myself in that sketchy little neighborhood.  And life was good then.  It’s even better now.  I’m excited for what happens next.  I have all kinds of ideas about where I’d like to go and what I’d like to happen to next.  Only time will tell!  In the meantime, I hope to see lots of you Minnesota people when I’m home in a few weeks.  As for you out-of-staters, perhaps I’ll have the pleasure of working at a hospital by you in the near future.  Stay tuned!

Gulf Coast Ramblings

1.  I love ice cream and Doritos.  I love them so much that I had a bowl of ice cream and half a bag of Doritos last night for supper.  It’s hard to look myself in the face this morning.  When I was in Burlington, I had this rule that I could either have one bag of Doritos or one tub of ice cream per week…not both at the same time.  It was working out pretty well.  Then I get here and all I want is ice cream and Doritos.  I have this weird thing though…in the winter I have no appetite.  In the summer, I have a huge appetite, and just want to eat at a constant.  Definitely doesn’t make me feel all that great to be falling out of my thirty layers in the winter and busting out of my swimsuit in the summer.  I wish I could blame it on PMS, but that would be a lie.

2.  The other night Simon and I went out to eat at a seafood restaurant with our friend Ellen.  We got a crab cake, calamari, and crab dip…and girly frozen drinks, of course.  I don’t know why, but the dipping sauce for the calamari tasted like dandelion.  Ellen and Simon think that I’m deranged, but it’s true.  I explained that when I was little I used to snap dandelion stems in half and lick the white stuff that came out of them.  Don’t ask me why, I was a kid…it was something that I did.  It was gross; I don’t know why I did it.  I guess I thought if I tried enough of them, the white stuff would eventually taste like milk, which I loved.  It never did.  I asked Simon and Ellen if they had ever tasted dandelion milk, and again, I got stares that made me feel as though I got caught masturbating in public.  What’s so weird about that?  Am I the only person that’s ever done that?  To be clear, I’m talking about eating dandelions, not masturbating in public.  And, had I not eaten dandelions, I never would have been able to identify the strange tasting mayo.  I don’t know what was in it…all I know is that it was gross, and that it tasted like dandelion.

3.  So here we are at our apartment.  The maintenance people have pretty much rid the apartment of the awful stink that plagued our place.  We also found out that keeping the air conditioning set to at least 70 degrees with the fan running continuously also helps.  I think part of the problem is the humidity…I think Florida just kinda stinks in general because it’s so damp and humid here all the time.  So for those of you coming to visit, you can rest easy knowing that we’ve got the stench pretty much under control.  Unfortunately, we have no control over the neighbor in the adjoining building who finds it necessary to sit around in his underpants in front of the screen door.  On a kitchen chair, no less.  It would at least be a little bit more understandable if he was on the couch or something, but no, there he is, mostly naked on his kitchen chair.  He is not cute, nor is he in good shape.  We honestly have no idea how he could possibly think that we can’t see him in there…or perhaps he doesn’t care.  And it’s not like we try to look, but when you’re walking by a ground level apartment and the windows are open and the lights are on, you just kinda look.  Trust me, that’s a not a sight we seek out.  You visitors are in for a treat…it’s a nightly showing, usually around sunset or later.

4.  I was quite disappointed recently when I learned that pugs did not make the top 10 list of dogs for 2009.  Of course all the old stand-bys were there…the labs, the goldens, the german shepherds, the yorkies, etc.  Bringing up the rear was the shitzu.  Honestly, the pugs got beat by a shitzu?  I’m calling shenanigans on that little list.  I could think of a million reasons that pugs are better than shitzus.  No, I will not list them all here, but I will divulge a few reasons why I think pugs are great.  A) you can cover them up with a blanket and they go right to sleep…kinda like a bird.  I do this all the time when they are being annoying.  B) you can place them in strange and often demeaning positions on the couch, and they’ll stay like that so you can take pictures of them, post them on Facebook, and caption them with phrases like, “look at my retarded, lazy dog.”  C) unlike some breeds, pugs are so stupid that you will never feel dumber than your dog.  D) they can hold their bladders for like 12 hours or more at a time.  One time Brie didn’t go to the bathroom for 16 hours because she was too lazy to get out of bed to go outside.  E) they are the best snugglers.  Even when you don’t want to snuggle, they force themselves upon you and make themselves comfortable…usually right about the time you have to go to the bathroom, they park themselves directly on top of your bladder.  F) you could never in your wildest dreams smell worse than a pug.  I could go on, I really could.  Basically, I think pugs are the best because they make a person feel good about themselves.  Life could always be worse…you could have been born a pug.

5.  Now that we’re in Florida, we have access to the Bob and Tom show 7 days a week.  It’s awesome.  We listen to it on the way home from work…it detracts from the horrible traffic.  I have learned a lot of things in the few short weeks we’ve been here.  I learned that red-headed people are called Rangas in Australia because their hair is similar in color to the orangutan.  Apparently a zoo in Australia was in trouble because they were promoting their new orangutan exhibit by offering free admission to all Rangas.  The redheads apparently were upset by this.  I’m not sure if it was the exploitation of being a redhead or if it was because they were being compared to giant, ugly, orange apes.  Another thing I learned was the term “curiosity delay,” which usually accompanies a traffic delay.  It’s basically the term for a traffic delay caused by an accident, only it usually occurs in traffic going the opposite direction from the accident.  I’ve always wanted to have a term for that besides rubber-necking…thanks to Bob and Tom, now I do.  I also learned that PETA was suggesting that the groundhog for Groundhog’s Day be replaced with a robot, because it’s inhumane to force the little rodent to come out of a hole in front of a crowd.  Honestly…a robot.  Do these people really have nothing better to do?  

6.  Simon and I recently had the pleasure of visiting a tourist trap here in Florida that still has me feeling not right.  The place is called The Shell Factory.  Our first clue to there being something amiss is that this place is in the middle of nowhere and not near the beach at all.  But, it was a cloudy day and we had nothing better to do, so we gave it the old college try.  We pulled into the parking lot, which was mostly deserted, and had ourselves a little look around.  We kind of got a weird feeling about the place…like it was a place where tourists disappeared.  We weren’t even sure if it was actually open, since there was not another human being in sight.  We started to wonder if the cars in the parking lot belonged to tourists that would never make home…at least not in one piece and without dental record identification (apparently we’ve been watching way too much CSI).  So we ambled across the decrepit boardwalk that separated the duck pond from the bumper boats.  Both looked sketchy and were littered with all forms of bird poop.  Oh wait, the duck pond was actually the fish pond, but we only saw one fish.  Perhaps all the fish had died from poop ingestion.  That’s my guess.  So we’re wandering around, and we made our way to the nature park, which was $10 a person and you had to walk through this tin shed of sorts to even get to the park.  It was dark and scary and eerily quiet.  We decided that it wasn’t worth disappearing forever and went to the shell factory, as it were, instead.  On the way there I made the comment to Simon, “no one knows we’re here right now…we could disappear and no one would know where to start looking.”  The shell factory…filled with stuffed African animals…complete with rhino and cape buffalo, a winter scene with grizzly bears, a Christmas room, cheesy Florida souvenirs that were most likely made from shells manufactured in China, shark babies in some sort of preservative liquid, coked-out employees, a creepy pirate room, a deserted, dark arcade that no parent should ever let their kids play in.  I seriously could go on, this place was huge.  We took pictures.  I could feel a look of incredulity and disgust on my face the entire time we were there.  The oldies music pumping through the distorted speakers did nothing to lighten the mood.  In fact, the music probably just made it worse.  It was like being written into a Stephen King book.  It was hours after leaving the place before I finally shook the creepy feeling and felt okay with the world again.  

7.  I don't know why, but I've been craving a hot dog lately.  A hot dog is not something I normally seek out, especially given Simon’s disdain for all tubed meats, but I’ve been wanting one, nonetheless.  I finally got my hot dog fix a week ago at an Italian restaurant called Taste of New York.  It was a giant Nathan's hot dog, which was delicious.  The side of hand-cut French fries was also quite good.  So now that that's done with, I can finally move on to eating something I can take a little more seriously.  Honestly though, I was a little ashamed of myself.  Who goes to an Italian restaurant and orders a hotdog?  Wait a minute, let me back up...what kind of Italian restaurant has hot dogs on the freaking menu??  Hahaha!  To be fair, the hot dog hit the spot, and no matter how strange it is for an Italian place to have hot dogs on the menu, I was thankful for it.  :)

8.  On one of the only nights in our entire assignment when Simon was working and I wasn’t, I was scared to be home alone.  Even the protection (?) of the dogs didn’t do it for me this time.  As I heard all manner of noises outside and from the neighboring apartments, I couldn’t help but think about how my trusty t-ball bat was outside in the Jeep, and of no use to me should someone try to break in.  Not that I have any reason to think that someone might break in, but you just never know.

9.  Mom will appreciate this one…the other day I was outside doing who knows what, and the sliding door was open.  The pugs came out onto the screened porch to see what I was doing, so I started to taunt them and make them bark.  Lady wanted in on that action and came running out of the apartment onto the porch, and promptly tried to jump through the screen.  Unfortunately for her, the screen was stronger than she was, and she bounced off and fell onto the ground.  I’ll have to figure out what kind of screen it is since Lady has destroyed two screen doors at my parents’ house by running right through them.  We used to have a retarded dog named Lassie that I would purposely try to make run into the screen door.  She was the dumbest dog known to man, and I got her every time.  

9.  This week has been a work-out streak for me.  I ran on the treadmill on Tuesday, went for a nice, long bike ride on Wednesday, and then went for another bike ride through a nature preserve on Sanibel on Thursday.  Oh, and we took a nice walk on the beach on Thursday too.  I’ll have to say, I’m pretty proud of myself.  This is the first time I’ve actively worked out since that one time in Burlington.  And yes, I worked out exactly one time in Burlington.  Or did I?  You know what…I don’t think I ever worked out in Burlington…I think I just thought about it, and then when I thought about the fact that the work-out facility was in the laundry room, I found that to be too much of a turn-off and hung out on the couch instead.  My bad.  I told Simon not to get used to the idea of me being this active, because it probably won’t happen all that often.  Although being here in the warm weather is much more inspiring to getting out and being active than a foot of snow and below-zero temperatures ever will be.  That and I’ve got to do something to balance out the mass quantities of ice cream and Doritos that I can’t seem to keep out of my mouth.

10.  I think my drinking tolerance is at an all-time low.  And it’s not that I drink a little and get smashed, it’s that I drink a little and get a massive headache.  My mom’s tolerance has now become my own, I’m afraid.  Aside from a couple frozen daiquiris the other night with our seafood, I haven’t really had much for alcohol since the first weekend we were here, and that left me with a headache that almost warranted a trip to the ER.  Not that I’m a booze hound or anything, but I enjoy my drinks here and there.  Lately the only time I don’t get ill from drinking is if I have one drink with a meal.  I’ve lost my appetite for beer.  Me!  Not wanting beer!  What in the world is the matter with me?  A couple weeks ago, I cheated my way through a game of UNO so that I wouldn’t have to take a shot of Rumplemintz with the rest of the game losers.  You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you start cheating at UNO just to avoid taking a drink.  Rumplemintz though?  Damn…I think I know of a few people that would cheat right along with me to avoid that stuff.  Having my mom’s tolerance might not be so bad though.  She has her margaritas at the Mexican restaurants, her half a beer at the family gatherings…she does all right.  I once watched her sip an entire lemon drop shot through the course of a meal in Denver…I swear she was drunk by dessert.  The altitude may have played a role, but I’m not 100% sure on that one.  I’ll definitely save a lot of money drinking like Mom.  

11.  I come from a long line of individuals that have this thing about feeding birds.  I don’t know why or when it started, but it’s been something that I’ve enjoyed for more years than I can remember.  When I was little, mom would always save all the stale pieces of bread in a paper bag so we could go to Rochester to feed the geese.  When we were babysat by my grandma and grandpa Long, we always made our way to Silver Lake for a little bird feeding.  Those are some of my favorite childhood memories…feeding birds…and trying not to step in their poop in the process, of course.  There was always a thorough shoe check before getting back in the car at the end of a feeding.  A little over a year ago, my family and I almost fed an entire bowl of pasta salad to a group of sea gulls when we were having dinner in La Crosse.  Simon was absolutely beside himself and physically took the bowl of pasta away from us before we could “waste” any more of it.  So engrossed were we in our feeding of birds that it was almost like we were on drugs.  So now that we live next to a lake of sorts (it’s actually a pond), there are all kinds of birds around for me to feed.  I went to the grocery store the other day and bought the cheapest bag of cat food I could find so I could feed it to the birds.  I now know better than to waste good food on birds when Simon is around.  It’s so exciting.  I honestly could probably feed the entire 3.5 pound bag to my feathery little buddies all at one time.  Doing so would probably result in some bird and turtle deaths, but at the time…what fun it would be!  So far I have been successful in limiting myself to one cup of cat food per day.  

12.  As in all cities that we move to, I always have to make sure I know where the nearest mall is, in case I find the need to buy something that I might not already have.  Or…perhaps buy more of what I already have in the off-chance that the store quits making it.  We went to the regular mall here and I was less than impressed with the majority of the clientele...it was so freaking loud and there were children tearing about everywhere.  Where were their parents?  I was also not impressed with the women spilling out of what little clothing they managed to force themselves into.  That and I had to sit behind some lazy-ass in the parking lot that had to hold up traffic so she could get that front-row parking space.  After honking at her THREE times she still didn’t budge.  What a lazy putz.  Not that that doesn’t happen everywhere, but I’ve never waited that long for someone waiting for a parking space.  That’s just rude.  That and when all of her children started filing out of the car, they were all chubby.  Perhaps parking near the back of the lot may have gotten them 15 minutes of exercise…heaven forbid!  Okay, I’m done with that.  So…the mall.  It isn't a long hallway or a loop like most malls...I would have to say that it's more serpentine in its design...you wind all over the place, feeling like you're going to get either lost or mugged around every corner.  Whoever designed it should be shot...or at least lose the privilege of designing malls...or any other dwelling that humans might inhabit.  Maybe they could make a living designing those tubes that border collies run through on those agility courses.  And there are no short-cut tunnels or hallways…you have to wander the entire, curvy thing to get from one store to the next.  That and there were more than a few stores there marketing clothing that would only fit women with obscenely large breast implants…and considerable junk in their trunk to boot.  I had never seen a mannequin with boobs bigger than her head until now.  And giant nipples too…poking right through the fabric.  Really?  Is that really necessary?  I’ll admit, I stopped and stared.

13.  And now the job…ugh, the job.  Definitely not what we thought it was going to be.  During this time of the year, the population of Fort Myers basically doubles, meaning that the patient population in the hospital usually does the same.  Simon and I are stationed on a unit that’s only open during the high-occupancy months of the year.  Since it’s not a functioning unit all the time, it’s basically neglected during the months that it’s closed, and they don’t do a whole lot to get it up to speed when they open it.  We run out of supplies constantly, and it’s a pain in the butt to go to other units to get supplies.  The nurse manager for our unit basically spends all her energy and resources on her main unit, and offers us nothing in the way of support.  Our unit is completely staffed by travelers, and we don’t have a charge nurse at night.  In most situations, not having a boss around might sound like something dreams are made of, but in this situation, it’s a nightmare.  We have no one to turn to when the going gets rough, which is often since we get all the patients that none of the other units in the hospital want…the drug addicts (complete with track marks), the developmentally delayed, the suicide watches.  Oh, and I should mention that none of us are psych nurses, yet we’re expected to properly take care of people with psych problems.  It’s been very frustrating and definitely not an ideal situation.  Luckily most of the nurses that we work with have been great, which helps a lot.  One nice thing about this hospital too is that they have a zero-tolerance policy with the doctors.  Meaning that if the doctors are rude to the nurses in any way, they can be fired…and it’s happened.  It’s crazy!  Unfortunately on one of my first nights I had the pleasure of dealing with a doctor that still thinks his shit doesn’t stink…he proceeded to ream me out for not being able to answer a question that he already knew the answer to…just to be a dick.  But other than him, all the other doctors have been so nice and approachable.  It makes for a really pleasant work environment when you’re not intimidated by those you’re working with.  

14.  The seafood…I should probably mention the seafood.  It’s divine.  I’m loving it!  I think I could go this whole assignment eating nothing but fish and seafood.  And there are a lot of hidden gems for restaurants down here if you just take the time to look for them.  We had conch fritters the other day, which are a lot like hush puppies but they have a tasty little seafood treat in them.  Oh, and I got my cholesterol checked recently so I’m good to go for mass seafood consumption.  

15.  So Simon just got back from a bike ride where he unfortunately got caught in a downpour.  Seriously, in Florida they sometimes come out of nowhere.  Anyway, so I hear the door open, and I turn around to see him running through the apartment, soaking wet…and buck naked.  WTF?  This can only mean one thing…he stripped out of his wet clothes outside, in what was most likely the full view of the neighbors.  My first thought was that he was riding his bike naked…this is what happens I have one idea in my head (Simon bicycling) and something comes along (Simon running around naked) and distracts from that.  I guess I can’t really make comments about the almost-nude neighbor anymore…at least he keeps his underpants on.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is what I live with everyday.

Fort Myers and Such

So we’ve been in Florida about a week now, and there have been some interesting developments.

1.  I spoke too soon when I said that the dogs were perfect on the trip to Florida.  They were not.  We moved into our apartment last Friday, and as is custom when arriving at the apartment for the first time, we put the dogs in the apartment first so they don’t freak out in the car.  On the way to the apartment, we stopped for a little bit so they could do their business.  They did their business.  We got into the apartment and were wandering around, checking it out.  I hadn’t even gotten through the entire apartment yet when I stepped in a pile of Cooper’s poop.  It gets better.  Not knowing that I had stepped in the poop, I proceeded to track it all over the portion of the apartment that I had not yet seen.  I came out of the second bedroom to see a pile of turds on the floor.  At the same time, Simon said, “Eww…and someone stepped in it!”  It was then that I noticed the turds that were ground into the carpet.  Great.  So I’m pissed, because at this point we have nothing to pick the poop up with.  Everything is still out in the car.  So we’re sitting there, wondering how we’re going to get the poop off the floor and out of the carpet, when Brie decided this was also the perfect time for her to crap on the floor.  I about lost it.  She got quite the spanking for that one.  Fortunately, I saw her pooping and wasn’t stupid enough to step in it.  They were locked in the bathroom for the remainder of the moving in period.

2.  The apartment is…interesting.  It’s definitely not the worst housing that we’ve had, but it’s a far cry from the best.  The washer and dryer are tiny…minuscule…able to wash one lap blanket and a towel at the same time.  Knowing that we were going to have our own washer and dryer in Florida, I hadn’t done laundry in Burlington for about three weeks before we left.  Honestly, it probably took me about 10 loads of wash to do what could have been done in about 4 or 5.  Seems like kind of a waste of electricity and water.  Oh, and the washer doesn’t have a vigorous enough spin cycle to open the Downy ball, so now I’m using dryer sheets for the first time in my life.  It’s actually rather pleasant.  No idea why I didn’t use dryer sheets before this…way easier than the Downy ball.  

3.  I still have yet to see a gator.  I wonder if there are actually any around here.  We live right next to a “lake,” and there are all kinds of birds, turtles, and fish milling about, so I’m guessing that there are no gators in our “lake.”  And I say “lake,” because that’s what it says on the website.  Anyone from Minnesota, or anywhere that has bodies of water larger than the average backyard swimming pool know that this is not a lake.  It’s a pond…at best.  There are some nice fountains to add to the over all look of the water, which is a nice touch.  I think the No Swimming sign is unnecessary…I don’t know anyone that would swim in that water.  You’d have to wander through a field of duck poop to get to it, and by that time would probably lose your excitement for swimming all together.  There is a nice sized pool with some nice looking lounge chairs, so I’m sure we’ll spend our water-related apartment activities there.  The apartment itself is average, at best.  We’re lucky in that our door and windows face the lake, and we’re at the end of a sidewalk so there aren’t people walking by all the time, which is good because we’re on the ground level.  I wish the people on the corner in the ground level apartment were more aware of the fact that they’re on the ground level and that people are walking by all the time…we’ve seen the man in there several times sitting on a kitchen chair with no shirt on.  He’s not thin.  Of our two bathrooms (more on those in a minute), one has horrible water pressure, and the other smells like a litter box.  We’ve determined that either there was a mouse problem, a cat that couldn’t quite hit the box, or some extensive water damage that was covered up by a thin layer of sawdust under the sink.  In any case, no amount of air freshener has been able to free us from the stink.  The location of the apartment kind of sucks, in that we’re sandwiched between two six-lane roads, neither of which have sidewalks along them or leading up to them.  If we want to walk the dogs, we either walk around the apartment complex or we throw them in the car and drive somewhere.  The closest dog park is 11 miles away.  The beach is about 15 miles away.  Work is 10 miles away.  Everywhere we want or need to go is about 10 miles away (except for Target…that’s only 1.5 miles away, but we always have to drive there because there are no sidewalks).  I guess you could say we’re “in the middle of everything,” while at the time being in the middle of no where.  We are, however, within walking distance of a KFC, if for some reason I ever find the desire to get The Diarrhea.  A quote about our apartment complex from a review found on the internet: “If you like to party, live like a pig and urinate in public this is the place for you.”  I haven’t seen anything to make me feel that way about this place, however we’ve only been here a week.  More to come, perhaps?

4.  The bathrooms…those of you coming to visit will love this.  So Simon and I were pretty excited about having two bathrooms, since we’ve never had two before.  We decided that one bathroom would be the peeing/showering bathroom, and the other would be the poop bathroom.  For those of you coming down here, the guest bathroom happens to be the poop bathroom…sorry about that.  We’ll poop in our own bathroom when you’re here though, unless you don’t mind us using your bathroom for that purpose.  There’s reading materials and spray in there, in case you were wondering.  The peeing bathroom is the one that smells like litterbox…it’s so freaking nasty, I can barely stand it.  The smell permeates into the little hallway that leads to our closet and to our bedroom.  Sometimes I can even smell it from the kitchen.  Gross.  Guests will be spared that.  However, the poop bathroom (and this was poor planning on our part) is the one with the terrible water pressure in the toilet.  We’ve had a few scares.  There is also a good reason why one of our first purchases at Target was a plunger.  

5.  When I first checked into this place, the woman in the office was super bubbly and friendly.  She even said that she had lived in the apartment directly above us when she first moved in here.  I thought that was cool…I always thought it was weird when people that worked at hotel complexes didn’t live there…they must get a discount, right?  So anyway, she’s telling me about how great this complex is…on and on, and I’m eating it right up.  So then the other day, Simon and I were walking to the mailbox when I see her giving a couple girls a tour of an apartment, and I hear her say, “This is the exact apartment I lived in when I first moved here!”  Wait a minute!  How many apartments has this woman actually lived in?  I find her little story about living in the apartment above mine suspect.  Or maybe the one about the other apartment suspect.  Hmmm.  She probably tells everyone that.  She probably doesn’t even live here…and quite possibly never did.  

6.  So as I was unpacking the kitchen and putting things away, I discovered that we have about 15 pint glasses here with us.  All of them are stolen from random bars…La Crosse, North Carolina, Little Rock, Burlington, Minneapolis, Denver, Boston…I may have a bit of a problem.  However, as I was looking at all of them, I was insanely proud of them.  I remember where each of them came from…they basically tell a story of where I’ve been.  I think it’s kinda cool…not that I’m saying that stealing is cool, but having all those little souvenirs and stories to along with them…that’s pretty cool.  

7.  So the other day as I was toting tampons around and being a bear about it, I pondered this thought to Simon.  Supposedly, women get periods because that’s our punishment for Eve eating the apple back in the day in the garden.  That and difficult childbirth, which I hope to never experience.  Anyway, so the point I was pondering…Adam ate the apple first, why aren’t MEN the ones that get periods?  I believe my exact question to Simon was something like, “So why don’t men get the get periods?  What’s their punishment in all of this?”  Simon’s response:  “We have to hear about it.”  Touche…

8.  My dog Brie has always been one to watch TV.  She gets very upset when there are dogs on TV, or when there are people or animals running across the screen.  She’s been known to launch herself off the couch and fly at the TV in a rage.  When said object on TV is unattainable, she paces back and forth in front of the TV with the hair on her back raised, growling the whole time.  When Simon and I were in Burlington, we had cable TV for the first time since we started travel nursing together.  It was a treat…most of the time.  We found out that Brie’s hatred of things on TV has expanded.  It not only includes dogs and people running…we found that she also hates Paula Dean, Li’l Wayne, and the Shake Weight.

9.  While we’re out on assignment, not only does our company find our apartment, but they also hire people to bring in furniture.  Usually it’s pretty nice.  The furniture that we have right now is no exception, except for the kitchen table.  It’s a glass-top table and it looks really nice…however, the table top is not connected to the legs, and there have been a few instances where I’ve been leaning up against the table and the whole tabletop almost topples to the floor.  I think I’ll be lucky if I make it to the end of the assignment without some sort of mishap.  Maybe I should shove the table into the corner so the top can’t fall off.  Or maybe I should try to be less clumsy.  I think we’d be better of just shoving the thing into the corner.

10.  I feel like I instantly acclimated myself to the climate here…either that or there’s a Floridian hidden inside me somewhere.  Hmmm…that doesn’t sound very good.  I can hear Simon right now:  “that’s what she said!”  Back on topic…so we’re down here in Florida.  It’s at least 70 degrees everyday.  Right now it’s around 80.  When we left Burlington, it was in the high 20’s.  So riddle me this…when it drops below 70 here, I’m freezing.  60 degrees and I’ve got my winter coat on.  What’s up with that?  I honestly don’t get it.  I remember one day in Burlington, the temperature got to 30 degrees after a recent cold snap.  I went out and about in a hooded sweatshirt and mittens…I didn’t even wear a coat.  And now I can’t even handle 60?  I don’t get it!  My mom says it’s because of the humidity…and maybe it is.  I just feel like a giant wiener running around in my winter coat in 60 degree weather.  I’m from Minnesota for crying out loud…I shouldn’t get cold until at least 10 below…right??

11.  So we’ve been doing some driving around Fort Myers lately, and I think I’ve figured out what it is about this town that continues to bother me.  We came from cute, quaint little Burlington, Vermont.  I felt like everything in Vermont was very quiet, local, and they were extremely proud of their state and all that it had to offer.  Fort Myers is a chain-store cesspool.  I’m so distracted by billboards while driving down the road that I’m afraid I’m going to get in an accident…I have to make a conscious effort to pay attention to where I’m going because there are so many distractions.  I don’t know if there’s anything local here.  I think the only place where anything is halfway original is down by the beaches, and even then I think the locality of it could be called into question.  And maybe it’s difficult for things to be local in Florida…I’m sure the environment here is conducive to growing only a few select things.  At least that’s what I have in my head…I really don’t have much of an explanation for why this town is the way it is.  I guess I just feel like there’s no culture here, there’s nothing that Fort Myers has that is original and its own.  It’s definitely taking a longer adjustment period than usual.  When I first moved to Burlington, I was a bit taken aback by their lack of chain stores, but I really learned to like it and most of all, appreciate it.  Hopefully with a little more time and some creative exploring, I’ll learn to appreciate what Fort Myers has to offer too.

12.  And finally, I still have yet to see a manatee.  I was looking at a picture of one the other day, and for some reason it reminded me of a pug.  Maybe because it’s round and bumbly, and doesn’t appear to have a whole lot of intelligence.  They might be very smart, I have no idea, but they just don’t look like they would be.  Kinda like pugs.  Maybe that’s why I’m so enthralled with manatees…they remind me of the stupid little dogs that I love so much.  Can’t wait to see one…I know it’ll happen before we leave!

Gator Bait

1.  Florida is headquarters for the active senior.  I honestly couldn’t tell you how many motor homes we passed on our way down here.  We basically followed them…had we left Vermont without any directions, I’m confident that the motor homes would have led us to within a few miles of our destination.  I seriously have never seen so many old people wandering around in all my life.  And they’re not the slow and frail variety…these are the old people that strap bikes to the backs of their motor homes and actually ride them when they get here.  These are old people that zoom around in BMW roadsters.  Old people that run up and down the beaches…or casually walk, holding hands with their equally cute and active little spouse.  It’s very uplifting and encouraging…that could be me and Simon someday!  At the same time that it’s uplifting, it’s also kinda sad.  No matter how active they might be, they’re still up there in years, and someday the annual trip to Florida will become a thing of the past.  They’ll be stuck in Minnesota or some odd place in the north, looking out the snowy windows of their nursing home, thinking about how they used to go to Florida every year where it was warm and sunny.  Depressing…but at the same, it’s motivation to enjoy life as much as you can, while you can.  You just never know when you’re not going to be able to do the fun stuff anymore.

2.  Easiest road trip ever.  I remember insanely dreading the drive in the days leading up to the trip.  Seriously, I felt like this was the fastest trip ever, even though it ended up being the longest.  I think it’s because we gave ourselves more than enough time to get here…we were on the road for three days total, but not three full days.  The first day we did 14 hours of driving, the second day we did 9 hours of driving, and the third day we did 3 hours of driving.  We stayed overnight in a hotel after the second day of driving, which was a dream.  It was so nice to be out of the car and into an actual bed.  We checked in before it got dark, Simon went and worked out (I stayed on the bed…no way was I going to work out!), and we basically just chilled.  We ordered some Chinese food which was awesome…the lo mein was made with spaghetti noodles.  I’ve never had it that way, but it was really good because the noodles weren’t mushy, which is the way they arrive about half the time.  The only downside is the lo mein seemed to act as some sort of bowel cleanser the next morning, which was all right, I guess…got to come out sometime!  Whatever gastric issues might have ensued, I still find myself constantly craving Chinese food…hahaha!  The only negative part of the drive was that there were a lot of cops on the road, especially in New York.  It was probably a good thing that I was pulling the trailer…I definitely drive slower when I’ve got that thing behind me.  Maybe I should just pull it around all the time.  Or not…I think we got about 10 miles to the gallon on the way down…if that.  Let’s see…we went about 1600 miles, I’ve got a 16 gallon gas tank on my Jeep, and we probably filled up about 12 times.  You do the math…I’m scared to.

3.  It was interesting to see the landscape change on the way down.  We left a land full of mountains and bare trees, only to see the land get flatter and flatter the further south we came.  It was funny…a lot of the leafy trees didn’t have leaves for the majority of the drive…then all the sudden it was like we crossed some sort of line and all the trees were green and leafed out.  The grass is kinda brownish-green, which makes everything look a little dull and sad.  I’m assuming it’s the same type of grass that they seem to have everywhere in the South…it doesn’t get green until the temperature is at least a solid 70 degrees everyday.  I think that’s so weird!  We saw our first palm trees in South Carolina, but I don’t think they were naturally supposed to be there…they only seemed to be around overpasses and rest stops and whatnot.  I really don’t think we saw palm trees in their natural state of being until we got close to south Florida.  I absolutely love palm trees.  They make me think of Phoenix, which is weird because palm trees don’t naturally grow in Phoenix, yet they’re everywhere.  They just remind me of sun and warmth and not having to wear mittens and hats.  

4.  This trip also marked the best behavior on the part of the dogs thus far.  Simon and I were very impressed.  Simon even went so far as to call Brie “cute” at one point.  I think she’s finally breaking down his shell!  Cooper didn’t stink up the car with his breath, there was no sharting…even the random toots were kept to a minimum.  I wish they would behave like that all the time.  Lady did have a piece of napkin hanging out of her bum that Simon had to pull out…that was unpleasant for all involved.  Ick.  But other than the napkin, there were no issues.

5.  Fort Myers…we haven’t seen a whole lot of it yet.  I don’t even know how to describe it.  So far it isn’t as pretty of a town as I was expecting, but like I said, we haven’t seen much of it yet.  We live off one of the major north/south roads in the city, so of course both sides of the road are crowded with stores, shops, and more billboards than I’ve ever seen in my life.  I don’t know what it is, but it just looks like kind of like organized chaos.  That and everything is painted in pastels, which looks pretty gaudy and a bit tacky.  There are power-lines everywhere.  I think what I was expecting was more like Tempe and less like Mesa, AZ (for those of you that have been there, you know what I’m talking about).  The land here is very flat which almost gives me a feeling of overexposure.  There are no hills, no mountains, nothing on the horizon at all.  I don’t know how else to explain it but to say that it feels like the sky is very high up.  I know that sounds weird, but when you have hills or mountains to break up the horizon, it seems like the sky isn’t so far away.  I think I’ll get used to it pretty quickly…it just feels weird after living in Vermont, North Carolina, and Minnesota during the past year.  But…I’m trying not to be negative.  I’m sure there are some very pretty parts of town, we just haven’t ventured out enough yet to find them.  We did go to Fort Myers beach today to wander around, which was very pretty.  The waves were so little and calm!  I think I’m going to like that.  I enjoyed battling waves when we were in North Carolina, but it did get a little scary sometimes.  I can’t wait to see Sanibel Island…I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about it.  Supposedly it’s one of the top three sea-shelling beaches in the world.  How crazy is that?  I didn’t even know they ranked beaches on a sea-shelling scale.  I’ve seen pictures of it, and the beaches almost look like they’re covered in shells rather than sand.  Can’t wait to check it out.

6.  On our way into town we were cruising along, and suddenly on the side of the road was a little pig!  Must have been a little feral guy.  In any case, he was super cute and I wanted to take him with us.  I doubt he would behave though.  Someday I want to own a mini-potbelly pig…they’re so cute!!  I’m kind of excited and intimidated for the wildlife here.  I’m super excited to see a manatee.  There are manatee excursions here that we’ve been hearing about, so we’ll probably go on a manatee trip as soon as we’re settled in.  I don’t know why, but I just love manatees.  I’m going to try to find a t-shirt with a manatee on it.  I want to see a manatee about as badly as I don’t want to see a gator.  Although, I think it would be interesting to see a gator…just not up close.  When we were out on the beach, we saw a lot of dead fish, which I thought was kinda weird.  I’ve never seen so many dead fish along a beach before.  It made me wonder if they got stuck too close to shore during the tide or what.  Or maybe it was just natural causes and they just washed up there.  Who knows?  I can honestly say though that I had no idea what any of them were.  We might have to get a fish book so I can identify the little deadies along the shore.  We saw one that looked like a mini-barracuda, one that looked like a giant angel fish, one that looked like a catfish, and another one that looked like a giant fathead minnow.  Oh, and we saw a dead horseshoe crab too.  We did see lots of birds that were alive though…pelicans, sea gulls, osprey, and some sort of falcon.

7.  Since we got to Florida a little bit early, we’re spending a few days at the La Quinta hotel, which is about a mile from where we’ll be living when our apartment is ready.  Our room has two double beds, and we’ve designated one bed the dog bed, and the other bed the people bed.  Although right now Simon is on the dog bed and Lady is on the people bed…with her head on my pillow, of course.  I swear that dog thinks she’s a human being.  And, since the dog kennel is buried under a mountain of our belongings and we don’t have the motivation to get it out, we’ve placed a blanket in the bathtub and we put the pugs in there when we go anywhere…hahaha!  They’ve already learned to excitedly run in there when I say “get in the tub!”  And people tell me you can’t train a pug.  Honestly, I think they’re just excited because they know that as long as the blanket is the tub, they’re not going to get a bath.

8.  Next to our hotel is this big open lot with a few paved paths in it.  We walked the dogs in there last night so we wouldn’t have to walk along the main road, which is six lanes wide and very noisy.  We were trying to figure out what in the world an open lot would be doing in the middle of all the shops and restaurants and such, and we finally figured out that it must have at one time been a little RV community.  There were electrical boxes periodically spaced, concrete slabs, and an overgrown shuffleboard court.  It’s really a very eerie place, and once you’re about a hundred yards from the main road you can’t even hear the traffic anymore, which gives the whole place a feeling of post-apocalyptic quiet.  There were still a few random remnants and signs of past inhabitance…a broken lawn chair, beer cans, a length of rope, some old tires.  It was all very strange and creepy.  Of course it doesn’t help that there are turkey vultures circling everywhere…makes me think of death.  Pleasant, eh?  

9.  I’ll have to note that while on the walk through the abandoned RV park, it was 60 degrees out and I was wearing my winter jacket.  I must have already acclimated myself because I felt SO cold without it.  How did I make it in the single digits in Vermont?  Right now, I have no idea.  I’ll also note that Simon was making fun of me for putting it on before the walk, but when we were about halfway into the walk, he said he wished that he had his winter jacket on too…so it’s not just me.

10.  Last but not least, yesterday Simon and I made our first trip to Target.  It was very exciting.  I got out of there for just under $80, which is about par for the course for a trip to Target for me.  That place is such a trap!!  I love it though, I really do.  Oh, and we had burgers at 5 Guys today for lunch.  They were absolutely scrumptious!

Anyway, I guess that’s about it from Florida for the moment, looking forward to having visitors in February and March.  Feel free to come visit!