It was quite a year for us in 2005 … so beware: In consequence this post is LONG. :)

I did a lot of traveling, sometimes with Alex and sometimes without. We started the year in Michigan, where Alex spent time with some of his family, I spent time with some of my friends, and he and I both spent time with my parents. Once we returned, Alex had surgery to remove his adenoids and get tubes in his ears; the surgery was successful, but his recovery from it was difficult for both of us. Thus the news late last year that one of the tubes had fallen out and is now blocking his hearing in that ear was understandably unwelcome. Now he complains frequently of buzzing in his ears, and I suspect that the situation may be affecting both his behavior and his health, all of which is just as it was last time, so we will probably have to repeat the surgery on that ear.

We went back to Michigan for my spring break, as Alex was supposed to see some of his family again at that time, but as it happened we only saw my parents again. (I also got to attend a Brad Paisley concert with my friend Estella in Saginaw.) Alex stayed with my folks while I flew to Phoenix; then they drove Alex down to Nashville to join me on my way back to Florida a few days later.

In April I went to a graduate student conference at the largest Baptist university in the world, Baylor, in Waco, Texas. This time Alex stayed with my parents at the beachfront condo that they had rented in St. Augustine, Fla., for that month. Besides the conference itself, highlights of my trip included a visit to the Dr. Pepper Museum and a near miss with Crawford. :-P

Alex loved spending weekends with Grandma and Grandpa at the beach while Mommy finished her first year of graduate school. They did get me to visit long enough to see my Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Ken for one weekend, though, and I did set foot on the beach one cool and windy morning as well. Then Alex, my parents, and I all headed back to Gainesville to effect my tenth move in less than seven years, as the owner of the apartment complex where Alex and I had been living was planning to rebuild it. (I have yet to see any work taking place on that property, though.)

After that Alex and I followed my folks back to Michigan for another failed attempt at parenting time with his father; Alex did get to spend a few hours with his paternal grandparents anyway. Fortunately our time up there coincided with SEMMantics, the Regional Gathering of Southeast Michigan Mensa, which I had attended the previous year, thus saving the trip from being little more than the equivalent of flushing away money. In fact, this time I was helping to run some of the events at the RG, which thereby helped to attract some of my friends (some of whom I’d met in person before and some of whom I hadn’t) to attend it.

Then, a week later, I went back to Arizona, this time with Alex; we stayed there for just under two weeks (during which time I got to attend a Maroon 5 concert) before Alex and I flew back to Florida to begin unpacking into our new apartment (a task that I still haven’t completely finished). At the same time, I was packing for the Broward Mensa RG that was taking place in Ft. Lauderdale over Memorial Day weekend; my second cousin Jennifer from Daytona Beach accompanied us to help me with Alex during the RG. There I met even more friends whom I’d never seen in person before and also made some new ones. The trip was marred by car trouble, though, as one of those friends, our roommate Lydia, totaled her car in an accident at the beginning of the weekend; then my just-repaired air conditioning failed again for the long, hot drive back up the state at the end of it.

My next trip was a spontaneous visit to New England in June. Alex got to be with Jennifer again, and I got to meet a number of Mensan friends in that area face-to-face for the first time; to tour Providence, Rhode Island, and a submarine in Groton, Connecticut; and to make a quick trip to Salem, Mass., and go up in a small plane over Boston with my GenX Mensan pilot friend Ben. Definitely one of the highlights of the year for me.

Once back from that trip, the hectic six-week summer session began. I was only teaching one course, but that entailed being in the classroom for an hour and a half a day five days a week and grading much of the rest of the time; fortunately my only concurrent schoolwork was an independent study which I’d started earlier in the summer and which I had until the end of the fall term to finish. It turned out to be my best term of teaching so far. I also managed to make a quick escape in the middle to attend most of the Annual Gathering of American Mensa, which in 2005 took place in New Orleans, Louisiana, thus giving me an opportunity to experience that city as an adult for the first time before Hurricane Katrina raged through it. I still treasure the half-dozen strings of beads hanging from the rearview mirror in my car as a memento.

Meanwhile, I learned that Alex has astigmatism in both eyes – particularly the right one – which, uncorrected, was causing his eyes to cross and his right eye to go lazy. Glasses quickly corrected the crossing, and then daily patching of the left eye corrected the lazy right one; now he only has to wear his glasses all the time and keep the left eye patched intermittently for maintenance.

As soon as the summer term ended, I was occupied with helping to run the New Grad Student/Teaching Assistant Orientation here at the University of Florida and studying for my spontaneous second attempt at the GRE. (My first attempt was as an undergrad in 2003.) I bought a study book, read it, and got a good night’s sleep the night before – and it was a resounding success. I got the same result, after significantly more work, on my second attempt at the GRE Literature in English Subject Test in November as well; I am happy to say that I have no reason to ever take either of them again.

In September I turned 25; with no one coming to visit, I decided to ask my local friends to celebrate with me – and they surely did. My birthday was on a Saturday so, after a Feminist Reading Group meeting where we discussed an excerpt from Judith Halberstam’s Female Masculinity, I dropped Alex off at O2B Kids, and then a bunch of my friends, most of them from the FRG, met me at Las Margaritas for dinner and, of course, margaritas. Several of them had gifts and/or cards for me; others paid for my meal and later my ticket to the fun movie Corpse Bride and my Coldstone Creamery birthday cake flavored ice cream so that I didn’t have to spend a cent all night. I got a lot of other cards, e-mails, phone calls, and e-cards too, so I felt really loved all day. That made my 25^th really special for me. Thanks to everyone who contributed to it, especially Maryam, Denise, Andrea, Melissa, Joanna, and Dennis.

In the beginning of October, Alex and I made a quick trip to Michigan to say goodbye to Camp Gordonwood, as discussed in my last blog entry. In fact, if you’re interested, you can find journal entries about and photos here from most of the events discussed above. As I got busier later in the year, I didn’t have the time to write such entries, so my discussions of the events below are more detailed to make up for it. I have posted some photos from them as well.

October 6-8 was Oktoberfest, the Tampa Bay RG in Clearwater – the first RG that I attended with Alex alone. As such, it was an interesting experience. I started the weekend hanging out with GenXers that I knew from other Gatherings and ended it hanging out with other parents. We had great fun, though, eating German food (and in my case, tasting German wines); doing kids’ activities, including participating in a Pumpkin Decorating Contest; having dinner out with another GenXer and her daughter; and watching and singing along to part of The Sound of Music. At the end of the weekend, Alex won a trophy for the pumpkin that he decorated (because his idea for those five eyes in a row actually turned out to be pretty scary; see the relevant photo album for a look). Ultimately, what was probably the best part, though, was the one-on-one time that Alex and I got to spend together, alone in our hotel room at night, away from all of the distractions and frustrating habits and patterns of home. After it was over, we got to meet with my Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Ken for a little while over dinner as they were on their way downstate; by then, Alex and I were sick of each other. :-P

At the end of October I presented part of my thesis at the UF English Graduate Organization Conference; the real highlight of that event, though, was the keynote speech by Judith Halberstam. Of course I got her to sign my copy of one of her books when she was done. Then it was off to another conference at the Annual Meeting of the Florida College English Association in Daytona Beach; there I presented my paper on Zora Neale Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee, which I’ll be presenting again at the national CEA conference this spring. As usual, my parents came down to Florida to visit with Alex while I was involved with the conference (and, of course, in order to enable me to go), and then once it was done we had dinner with some of our family who live in Daytona Beach before Mom and Dad flew back home again.

Then it was time for Alex’s fourth birthday party, which he’d been thinking about for almost a year by that time (which is why I felt that I had to give him one). Dennis and I decided on a Pirate Party at O2B Kids – expensive, but worth every penny in the enjoyment that we were able to get out of it instead of having to do all of the planning and managing of the party. Six other kids showed up, most of them with parents and/or younger siblings in tow, to enjoy climbing on the “Big Toy,” donning pirate costumes for a balloon swordfight, running an obstacle course, “walking the plank” off a big trampoline into a foam-filled pit, and then eating pizza and a custom Coldstone Creamery pirate birthday cake (yellow with chocolate ice cream with embedded M&Ms, blue frosting, and real pirate toys on top, all at Alex’s request), both of which were delivered directly to O2B Kids with little effort on our parts. The center even provided the plates, napkins, cups, plasticware, lemonade, candles, balloons, and party favors; served everyone the food; made a list of all of the gifts during the unwrapping; and brought them right out to the trunk of the car to go home! The theme of the party was ideal only because of Alex’s eye patch and because he was a pirate for Halloween – actually the Wiggles’s Captain Feathersword – not because he had any particular affinity for pirates. He sure does now, though, since most of the presents that he got from family and the other kids at that party were pirate-related: books, games, toys. Arg. ;-)

Alex and I spent Thanksgiving in Michigan with my parents and my grandmother this year – and we actually got to see snow up there! We had a wonderful time, eating and talking and being together. I also enjoyed the Day After Thanksgiving Sales, where I bought a bunch of toys and clothes for Alex for Christmas, and the viewing of the new Pride and Prejudice that Mom, Grandma, and I took in. Alex got to visit with his paternal grandparents for several hours too.

Alex and I ended the year in Arizona, where we spent the holidays in very traditional fashion, decorating a tree, making a gingerbread house (that we’re still eating!) and Christmas cookies, dressing up for meals, paying a visit to Santa, and doing stockings and presents. Then we got to spend a couple of days in Las Vegas, seeing the Fremont Experience – new even for me – visiting my grandma, and touring the Hoover Dam on the way back. I also got to visit with a lot of GenXers on several different occasions, including a trip to the Phoenix Zoo and a New Year’s Eve gathering at a speakeasy in Scottsdale followed by a halfhearted game of “I Never” into the wee hours.

Now back home, Alex began pre-kindergarten this month. He now weighs in at over forty pounds and is VERY energetic and talkative. He’s also very sweet and loving and endearingly polite, which usually makes the other characteristics bearable. His deep interest in trains persists, as does his enjoyment of movies and books. Now that he’s old enough, he also likes playing games and putting together puzzles, and he wants to be a better artist and to play the drums. To my great displeasure, his favorite foods are pizza, cheeseburgers, French fries, macaroni and cheese, PB&J, grilled cheese sandwiches, sweets, and ketchup. The enculturation of American society is unavoidable, I suppose.

Nevertheless, I, on the other hand, am no longer even buying red meat, poultry, or fatty, cheesy foods like pizza from the grocery store for myself, nor do I purchase junk food. Last summer I started an exercise program as well. It included walking, weight training, and cardio, and it really helped me eliminate some of my chronic pain. Unfortunately, I got too busy to continue with it in the fall and had to take a break from it in order to meet my other obligations. That was a difficult and frustrating decision to make. Still, it did help me meet my goal of losing 5-10 pounds; I plan to get back into it very soon.

This being my last term toward my Master’s degree, I’m only taking one course – “Advanced Feminist Theory” – and teaching one – “Introduction to Argument and Persuasion” – while finishing my thesis. I’m really enjoying the freedom that that schedule has given me to engage with my coursework, my teaching, and my research as I haven’t been able to do up to now. Unfortunately, I still don’t feel that I have the time to do everything that I’d like to do with my thesis, the basis of which is a discussion of the negative representations of mothers of sons in popular American movies. For instance, I continue to edit the monthly newsletter of the Gainesville Area Mensa, which I did throughout last year, in the summer taking up the editorship of the quarterly newsletter of the national Generation X Special Interest Group as well. As the year progressed, the latter became more and more enjoyable for me, while remaining much more manageable than the former as well, so I plan to distance myself from any kind of leadership role in GAM within the next couple of months, especially since there’s a possibility that I’ll be moving away again soon.

The year ahead will also bring, for Alex, a Day Out with Thomas in March; for me, the CEA conference in San Antonio, Tex., in April and the Association for Research on Mothering conference in Toronto in May; and hopefully, for both of us, the Mensa World Gathering in Orlando in August … but even before that, I must endure the ever-torturous wait to hear back on my just-completed Ph.D. program applications. I am also tentatively pursuing summer employment, as until I know what I’m doing in the fall, I really can’t plan anything past the end of this term.

If I have one resolution for the new year, though, it’s to be even more careful with my money than I usually am, as the noose of living on a stipend as a single parent has further tightened. I still feel the draw of family, friends, and Mensa events all over the country, but we won’t be flying to Michigan as much (or to Arizona at all) anymore, and now that no one’s likely to be perusing my curriculum vitae very closely until I’m applying for a job in four or five years, I’ll be attending less conferences each year as well.

In the meantime, Alex and I enjoyed a visit to the circus a couple of weeks ago – Alex rode an elephant! – and a visit from my parents the following weekend. On Friday the preschoolers are taking a field trip to the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire (just like the Renaissance Festival where I worked as a high school kid in Michigan), and I, in a completely uncharacteristic move for me, volunteered to be one of the chaperones. I should get in for free anyway. :-P

Here’s hoping that you, your loved ones, mine, and I all have a healthy and prosperous year.

Love and blessings,

Jessica and Alex

No Go the Bogeyman, the book that I recently finished, includes an except from an Icelandic lullaby that addresses the child as a "black-eyed pig" and comments that "Parents often disparage their offspring, long after the lullaby stage, out of some unaccountable worry that praise will somehow do them damage" (222). My first instinct was to suspect that we have outgrown that tradition in this technology-rich culture, in which both relatively good health care and education are widespread and commonplace - and perhaps we have, although that may not be such a good thing, since now we're producing a generation of children with a hefty sense of entitlement (see http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/01/60minutes/main646890.shtml). Then I thought of what my grandma used to do every time that she said something good about my son: she added the phrase, "God bless 'im." When I asked her why, she said that it was to ask God's protection in case someone ever tried to put a curse on him out of jealousy of his looks/intelligence/health/whatever. My mom says that Grandma did the same thing for Mom and her sisters when they were little.

People do resent those less fortunate than themselves ... and a little modesty wouldn't hurt any of us either. Sometimes the old ways are good ways, even if it's for a different reason than the original one.

I had a wonderful time on my spontaneous little vacation over the past week. It started on Wednesday, June 15, when I drove with my son to my cousin Troy's house in Daytona Beach, where I had hired his daughter Jennifer to babysit while I was gone. We stayed up past 11 that night, waiting for Troy and, as it happened, my uncle Jerry to get there so that I could see them before I left. By the time Alex and I actually got to sleep, it was probably midnight.

I got up at 3:30 the next morning to drive to Orlando to catch my 6:30 a.m. flight to Philadelphia. I had an energy soda on the way to the airport to ensure alertness, which worked - but then I couldn't sleep on the airplanes, so I was exhausted by the end of the day.

In Philly I got a wrap sandwich for brunch before boarding my next flight to Providence, where two Rhode Island Mensans, Barbara and Geraldine, met up with me to show me the city. I'd never been to Rhode Island before and was excited to check it off my list. It would be a day of wonderful sights and tastes - despite the large sandwich that I'd eaten just an hour or so before.

They started me with a snack - fresh, juicy ripe-picked local strawberries and bottled water - and then drove me to Providence (since the airport is actually in Warwick, RI), where we drove up and down the streets, looking at all the old houses - some built as long ago as 1763 (as one would expect, since that was the year before Brown University was founded there). Then we went to the beach on the (presumably relatively) "low rent" side of town, from which we could see the more expensive houses across the water. There were a couple of restaurants there, one with tables under an awning right next to the sand, where they ordered me some authentic local cuisine: a stuffy (half of a clam shell stuffed with what I can only describe as clam stuffing), a clam cake (which resembled a hush puppy with a chunk of clam meat in the middle), and some New England clam chowder. The food was incredible. I was amazed at how tender the clams were compared to the ones that I'd had before. I ate as much as I could, despite the fact that I was not really hungry, and then we threw the rest to the fat little sparrows and oversized sea gulls waiting on the other side of the fence.

Next we drove to the other side of the beach that we'd seen from near the restaurant to check out the huge old houses on the water. Outside of the cities, all of New England that I saw looked that way: Enormous old-style houses, almost all of them in excellent condition, surrounded by lots of big green trees.

In the afternoon we visited the State Capitol building, a big white marble structure with a gold statue of the Independent Man on top. Inside we looked at the artwork on the inside of the rotunda, with the words Literature, Justice, Education, and Commerce in Latin; the meeting rooms for the State House and Senate; and some of the statues and paintings in the halls, including a portrait of Barbara's great uncle, who apparently served a couple of terms as State Governor.

We also visited the Rhode Island School of Design museum, where we enjoyed its fabulous collection of paintings, an Egyptian casket and the mummy that had been inside of it (creepy!), and a big wooden Buddha - the largest Japanese statue in the U.S. - in a room of its own.

We were driving through a cemetary when Dennis called to say that he had left work and was on his way. Barbara was kind enough to drive me over the border into Massachusetts to shorten his drive. The SIGHT program really is a beautiful thing.

Dennis was still in a hotel that night. We went there first so that I could shower and change, and then he took me to dinner at a nearby restaurant where I had bacon-wrapped scallops, soup, and, after all that, only a little penne primavera with cream sauce, the rest of which we forgot in the car when we had to run back into the hotel in a sudden downpour. That night we enjoyed the warm indoor pool and hot tub at the hotel. We even had them to ourselves for a while since they'd been closed during the storm.

The next morning we moved all of his and my stuff to the corporate apartment that his company had arranged for him, and while he went to work, I read a book and waited for my good friend Ben, whom I'd never actually met face-to-face before, to arrive from Boston. When he got there, he had on a jacket with his name on it, but I recognized him anyway from photographs and immediately gave him a hug. Then we sat and chatted for a little while until the cable guy arrived to set up Dennis's high speed Internet (and, thanks to my persistence, cable television, which he otherwise wouldn't've gotten until the next week).

At that point Ben started getting a series of phone calls relating to the work that he does for the Civil Air Patrol, so I took advantage of the new Internet connection until he was done, and then we chatted a little longer and finally left. My mom would ask me later if Ben and Eliot (whom I met the next day), both of whom I had described to her as "good friends" even though I'd never "actually" met them, turned out in person as I had expected them to be from our online interactions ... and they were. I feel that because I had exchanged e-mails directly with each of them over the previous year, their real "voices" seemed familiar to me, and I instantly felt comfortable with them. That was a very very good thing on Friday and Monday, too, since Ben and I would spend hours in the car together. Even though we got a late start on Friday, he drove me all the way to his hometown of Newton, Massachusetts, where we visited an incredible ice cream shop that offered a $225 ice cream sundae that could serve a party - and I do mean party - of 200 or more and also had a $35 sundae of unspecified size on its "regular" menu, just under the "regular" $8 sundaes that "only" contained three scoops of ice cream. Ben thought that we could have sandwiches first, but I refused to waste stomach space on real food in such an ice cream shop. As it was I couldn't finish my three scoops of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream with hot fudge and banana slices over a rich chocolate brownie....

Next we drove through Boston, where Ben pointed out a number of universities and other sites of interest, and into Salem, infamous as the locale of the seventeenth-century American witch trials. I immediately realized that a number of the street names were familiar: Proctor St, Williams St, Putnam St, Warren St, Hathorne St, Osborne St, Brown St. We parked and walked around for an hour or so, first stopping in the Visitor's Center, where, while Ben took another phone call, I perused the exhibits. There were intricate model ships - like most of the rest of New England that I got to explore, this area too had a maritime connection - pamphlets on the local Underground Railroad activity, and a display about the house that claims to be the model for Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables - a claim that I, in my studies, have heard seriously questioned.

Before we left I found myself another funny T-shirt for my collection - the prize of the afternoon. It depicts several people standing and looking up at a rather shocked fellow whom they have accidentally levitated. The caption reads, "Oops. A bewitching time, Salem, Massachusetts." :)

Back at Dennis's place, the three of us hung out for a little while before Ben left, and then I changed clothes again for dinner. This time we attempted to find a town, in which attempt we at least partially succeeded. In the only settlement seemingly within miles on the road that we took, there were two restaurants. The first, an upscale steakhouse, promised a 45-minute wait. The second, an Italian place, promised only fifteen minutes, which turned into forty-five before we actually got to a table, but they got us to stay there. Clever, eh?

We spent the wait time at the bar, where Dennis was enchanted by the lighthearted atmosphere and made plans to return on his own. The bread with seasoned olive oil and the dinner - gnocchi for him, portabello risotto for me - were incredible. I couldn't stop eating mine, even when I was past full, because it just tasted so good. Finally we went home, exhausted but happy. That night I beat Dennis in a game of cribbage - easily. ;)

Dennis woke me up fairly early on Saturday morning to start the drive to Connecticut. He spent a few of his Navy years in Norwich, living in a converted nail factory a short distance from an enchanting little waterfall (for photos, see http://www.moonsmusings.com/photos/water1.html, http://www.moonsmusings.com/photos/water2.html, and http://www.moonsmusings.com/photos/train.html). We walked around for a little while then quickly left town, since there was some kind of festival there, so parking was nonexistent.

Next Dennis drove me around New London and Groton, pointing out a number of sites along the Thames River between them, before taking me to the charmingly pleasant little town of Mystic, where we watched the bridge being raised to allow through some medium-sized boats, had some chocolates from a candy shop, and wandered all over a slightly amusingly named store, "Mystical Toys," before finding something that my son didn't already have: a plastic battery-powered racing sailboat that propels itself in water. (He loves it - when it's not full of water and sinking to the bottom anyway. A reason not to use it in a swimming pool.)

We were late getting to the Amtrak station in New London, where Eliot's train from New York City was due at 12:26 p.m. - but his train was late, as was the group from Boston coming to meet us by car, so it was OK. Allison, Jill, and "Jill's husband" (who turned out to be named Jeff), three other GenX Mensans, arrived right before Eliot's train, and then Eliot himself came through the door. We'd made it over the first hurdle in our attempt at "herding cats."

We greeted each other and immediately started talking and laughing, but soon we stopped to determine where we were going to go for lunch, which felt very important, as none of us had eaten breakfast. Eliot had found a little seafood place on the water ahead of time, so we all headed back to our cars - the Boston group had a lot farther to go - and made our way out there. By the time that we got our food, it was sprinkling, so, even though Eliot promised that it wouldn't rain that day - and he was right, in the end - we sat at a sheltered picnic table in view of the rows of boats moored in the water next to us. I had a marvelous lobster bisque - talk about a seafood weekend - even though the menu offered Rhode Island-style clam chowder, my ignorance of which drove home for Eliot my hopeless landlubberness. Yep. ;)

Our next stop was the Submarine Force Museum and USS Nautilus (see http://www.ussnautilus.org/), where Dennis, who's actually lived on submarines, served as my personal tour guide while we all wandered around. Highlights for me included the tour of the sub, which seemed insanely cramped inside, an impression not much altered by the slightly disturbingly unnatural positions of the limbs of some of the mannequin sailors on board, and our brief visit to the museum's periscope room, where the other Mensans were all hogging the viewing stations. Dennis whispered to me that I should just push them all out of my way, so I said, apparently quite commandingly, "Get the hell out of my way!" - and they did!

By this time, we were all talking and joking like old friends. We stopped in the museum gift shop, where a couple of us bought some things, and then we all retired to Applebee's for a few more hours - yes, hours - of drinking and eating and getting to know each other ... uh, remarkably well. That time is definitely in the running for my favorite part of the weekend. At around a quarter to eight we all said our goodbyes, and Dennis and I took Eliot back to the train station and then headed home.

We tried to watch "Guys and Dolls" that night, but Dennis couldn't keep his eyes open, so instead we watched it Sunday morning, after I got off the phone from my lengthy Father's Day conversation with my dad. Dennis made me breakfast, and then we went shopping for the ultra-healthy vegetarian meal that I was planning to prepare that evening. When we got back I convinced him to take me to Six Flags New England to test my ability to enjoy rollercoasters, which I hadn't tried in five years and which I worried that my pregnancy might have eradicated for me. He had just been there the weekend before and purchased himself a season pass, so he agreed, and off we went. We arrived at 4 p.m. to beautiful weather and insane crowds - a concert was taking place there that night - but still managed to go on a lot of the rides, thanks to the FASTLANE system, which actually made our entire day more fun, since we didn't have to stand in any long lines. In fact, our longest wait may have been for the clerk at the pizza place to realize that the kind that we had ordered was indeed on hand a long three feet away.

Oh yeah, and I can definitely still enjoy rollercoasters. :)

It's a good thing, too, since the next day Ben arrived to take me up in a small plane, and he treated me to the maneuvers that he had promised to use on Dennis to try to get him to "lose his stomach." New England has got to be one of the best places in the country to fly. It was a delightful day with a blue sky and some soft white clouds, with the view going misty a couple of miles away, and all of the trees and bodies of water on the ground - stunning. It was great fun flying with Ben too. He made everything seem so effortless - but not so much so that I was crazy enough to take him up on his offer to try to "fly" the plane for even a second.

On the way back we got more ice cream, this time in the form of milkshakes at Friendly's (another first for me). Mine was really three milkshakes, though, since one was in a glass and two more glassfuls were in the metal mixing cup, so cold that it hardened enough to come out in a dramatic plop that only miraculously didn't get all in my hair or on my clothes when I tried to pour it. I drank it all, thus redeeming my reputation as a good eater, which the ice cream incident on Friday had threatened. I had also eaten an entire sub, which Ben had described as unusually well-stuffed, before we went up in the plane.

And I still had dinner ahead of me. I prepared my Sunday night meal - linguine with spinach leaves and golden raisins in a white wine sauce - on Monday night instead, letting Dennis off the hook until Christmastime, when he's going to prepare me a few of his epicurean delights to make up for it. While eating it all we watched "Reservoir Dogs" and then talked for a while before Dennis went to bed slightly early - I stayed up a little longer to pack - since we had to wake up at four in the morning to get me to the airport for another early flight.

Back in the heat and humidity of Florida - so hot that I burned my finger putting on my seatbelt once I got to my car - it poured for much of my drive back to Daytona Beach, the entire time that I was there - Jennifer was doing our laundry and Alex was watching a movie and playing with the big dog while the other kids were playing with the poker set that Troy had gotten for Father's Day when I arrived - and most of the drive home. I felt wonderfully relaxed nevertheless, though. It was a great idea for me to take this last fun-filled vacation before having to go back to the endless work and stress of teaching and school next week. Thanks to everyone who contributed to it. :)

Alex and I rolled out of Gainesville at 9 a.m., an hour later than planned, on Friday, May 27, 2005. Our first stop was Daytona Beach, where, after attempting to navigate with MapQuest's inverted directions (left = right; right = left), which would bite our roommate Lydia in the butt later (see below), we picked up my freshly eighteen-year-old cousin Jennifer, who was to help me with Alex so that I could act my age from time to time that weekend. She kept finding ways to insert the word "adult" into conversation ... but then she asked me to stop at her fifteen-year-old boyfriend's house so that she could say goodbye before we left town.

After a stop at the drugstore for provisions (chocolate milk, soda, candy bars, wheat bread), we were finally on our way down I-95 by noon. The day before, I had paid $600 to get my A/C working again in my car, and with all the traffic jams that we encountered due to accidents and construction, we were glad to have it - on the way down anyway (see below). Alex had to go to the bathroom half an hour away from the hotel, which turned into a three-year-old temper tantrum incident. Then the hotel turned out to be half a mile away and on the opposite side of the median from where MapQuest insinuated that it would be (see above). Fortunately we did not experience the same consequences of that, ah, misrepresentation that Lydia did. When she arrived at the hotel later that evening, she totaled her car while attempting to rectify those MapQuest directions with reality.

We finally got into the hotel at about 4:30 p.m. Needless to say, I did not find it as funny as I otherwise would/should have that part of my title appeared on my name tag as "Interim Deputy LocSex of the Gainesville-Area Mensa." Some white-out did the job while we unloaded the car, and then I changed my "talk nerdy to me" T-shirt for "i'm part of the problem" and headed to Adult Hospitality, where a few small glasses of a sweet German white wine got me relaxed and ready to have some fun. In fact, I enjoyed myself so much that I stayed in Hospitality meeting my fellow RGers and chatting about politics inside and outside of Mensa until after 9, when someone came in and mentioned to me that the other GenXers were poolside having chocolate. "Bye!"

I got downstairs to see a gorgeous pool with a sizable group of good-looking young men and a few good-looking young women laughing about the mess that the wind had made of the chocolate. (Actually, it succeeded quite nicely in coating the strawberries without anyone having to exert any effort in that direction.) Gail pointed out a moth crawling along the cement and offered $20 to whoever would dip it in chocolate and eat it. Matt took her up on the offer, which is documented in the photo album. I ... was horrified.

At 10, Jennifer was falling asleep, so we went upstairs and put Alex to bed. Then I changed back into my "talk nerdy to me" T-shirt, since the chocolate had marked the other one (a sign of GenX membership that night). I went back to the pool and passed out GenX business cards (before losing the rest of the stack) and encouraged everyone to join me in the Fluxx Tournament upstairs. Fluxx is a game that I had just learned in Phoenix a couple of weeks earlier in which the rules, the goal, and hence even the strategy are forever changing. Sweet. Six hands, some amazingly thorough Monopoly advice, and most of a bottle of red wine later, I went to bed. It was after 2 a.m.

Alex and I managed to get up in time for breakfast on Saturday - we let our sleep-deprived cousin try to catch up - but spent so long eating that we only managed to get out and do something at 11 a.m., when we watched the Water Bottle Jockeying race in the pool. Three "jockeys" mounted empty five-gallon water jugs and attempted to propel themselves to the other side, without falling off, before anyone else. Also documented in the photo album.

After that it was already lunchtime, so we picked at our food and then went up to the Games Room, where I tied for third (out of eight) in the 20th century Trivial Pursuit Tournament while Alex slept in his stroller. It was around this time when I started to lose my voice, which I wouldn't find again until a week or so later. Must've been doing too much laughing. ;)

At 3 we went down to test our sexual knowledge, but Alex woke up shortly afterward, so Jennifer had to take him out. All that I can say is that I'll never think about watermelon the same way again.

I stayed in the same room to learn about the Native Americans of the Southeast (and, of course, add to my professional reading list) before getting ready for dinner. Saturday night was the GenX Pub Crawl, which started with dinner at a fabulous restaurant called Max's Grille. Set prices - $8 apiece - for both dinner - things like sirloin steak and the mahi burger with avocado and mango habanero, which I got - and drinks, which come 3 for 1. I had a Key Lime martini, a Cosmo, and an Almond Joy martini - and then I finished someone else's third drink too. Something tall with orange juice. Everything was VERY good.

After that we walked to the Water Taxi, which was five dollars for the whole night (even though we only used it once) and was absolutely FABULOUS. It is literally a taxi on the water - a boat that travels from place to place in Ft. Lauderdale - and it provides some excellent views of the city. Some of the houses along the water in particular were ... wow.

At Lulu's Bait Shack I went drink for drink with Doug from Arizona, which makes me a brave/crazy girl - but I stopped after five, so at least I'm not a total idiot too. Then my friends helped me to some water and a chair, where I alternated spilling my water, resting, and giving back massages (see photo album) until it was time to head back to the parking garage. The ensuing madness of various people getting taxis back at various times from various places and then, in some cases, leaving without the people with whom they came was trying for Lisa, our hostess, who had been so sweet as to plan all of the GenX events and shepherd the rest of us through them up to this point - but she didn't simply leave the thoughtless adults to fend for themselves, as others might have, instead making sure that everyone was safe and accounted for until we all got back to the hotel. It's good to have friends that you can trust to be there for you - even when you don't know that you need them. Another nice thing about Mensa.

I didn't go to bed yet, though: Instead I got some chocolate brownies from Hospitality and went to Games, where I ended up playing a card game about famous people (and did about as well personally as I am at remembering its name, although my team won in the end). It turned out that Doug, who played on my team, along with his brother on the other team, has also lived in Flint, which sparked some conversation about my hometown that only distance from it could have made so enjoyable. Saturday night was a lot of fun.

On Sunday I woke up in time for Fictionary, a game about inventing definitions for esoteric words and trying to identify the real ones. I didn't win, but I didn't lose either, and since once again it was the first time that I ever played, I was proud of myself. I loved being able to spend a lot of time in Games at this RG, which I didn't get to do at SEMMantics (because I was so busy with the planning for and execution of other events).

Sunday's lunch was hotdogs, after which we all three of us took a nap. Then I went back down to Games, where Matt - whom I'd seen in Games all weekend but not actually joined in anything until now - taught me Cribbage - and I won my first game. :)

Then we had lasagna for dinner, which was REALLY good - and that's saying something coming from an Italian. After dinner was the Trash Bowl and then Gail's Sinfully Suite (see photo album). Alex probably ate more of a piece of the rich chocolate cake than anyone else. Then Jennifer took him to bed, and we all talked and joked and laughed amongst ourselves, me giving more backrubs, while we waited for the Trash Bowl to end and free up the rest of the GenXers to join us. Then Evil Jason (the Water Bottle Jockeying winner from my pictures) brought up some games. Scruples initiated more discussion and laughter until we switched to "I Never" and got to know each other better and better right up until half a dozen or so of us went down to enjoy the hot tub and the bathtub-warm pool - and the security guards came to chase us out.

I had intended to stay up with the others and go back downstairs after sunrise, but in the end I was just too tired (see photo album) - and I missed my son, so I went to bed. In the morning we woke up just in time for brunch and then got locked out of our room - the curtains pushed the bar closed from the inside while we were all out - so the hotel had to send a man with a neat little jimmie to open it. In the meantime, Crystal stopped by and suggested that we try climbing over from the balcony next door, if ours had been unlocked. I never had time to ask her for the rest of THAT story....

After we got back in, finished packing, and checked out, it was time for the Awards ceremony. I wore my "be weird" T-shirt on Saturday and everyone's favorite, "School prepares you for the real world ... which also sucks," on Sunday, but I still lost the Wit T-shirt Contest by two votes. I'll win a Mensa award yet, I tell ya....

Someone was sweet enough to print out detailed maps to the Florida Turnpike for our return trip so that we could avoid the construction on I-95 ... which turned out to be a verrry verrry good thing since the A/C didn't work on the way back up. It was 97 outside and probably 110 in when we stopped for ice cream and ice water at a Dairy Queen an hour south of Daytona. (Jennifer and I didn't actually finish our ice cream, though, since as soon as we'd recovered a little I noticed that each packed a 1010-calorie, 37-fat-grams punch that NO ONE can afford in one day.) After that Alex managed to nap until we were on our way to Gainesville, where it was much cooler than further south, especially after it rained. All in all, though, it was completely worth it for the fun that I had this weekend.

Thanks to Lisa and RVC Maggie Truelove for some of the pictures in my album.