Monday, June 15, 2009

Fever Dreams


Good god, y'all it's hot. I know I talk about the heat too much but listen- trying not to would be like trying not to mention the fact that your mouth is burning a bit after you popped an entire habanero pepper in your mouth and chomped down on it.
I think it was a hundred degrees today and I am not kidding.
Yesterday, after Lily got tired of blackberry picking, I stayed on and finally Mr. Moon came and fetched me with a glass of ice water and it's a good thing. I'd gone woozy in the heat and was picking berries in a stupor and had one last slug of water I was saving like some demented person crossing the desert. I'd determined I was going to pick every fucking berry I had room in my jug to pick. I didn't even hear his truck pull up which he is still remarking over but in my defense, besides the heat-coma I was in, there is a large and noisy AC unit (I think that's what it is) right next to where I was picking because there's a cell phone tower.
Whatever.
This heat will make you sag like an old hippie-woman's titties. It'll make you blind and deaf. It'll make you think you can stay out in it despite the fact that you've soaked through your overalls, tank-top and hat. It'll make you think you're the strongest person on earth until you keel over, panting like a woman in the throes of labor, hallucinating that you've fallen into hell and you can hear the flames frying your fat, stupid ass.
It can quite literally kill you.
And here I am, trying to figure out a vacation for the end of July and into August. Not a vacation in Switzerland or even North Carolina where the temperatures might be a little more...temperate. Nah, I'm planning a vacation in Cozumel, Mexico which is even closer to the equator that we are here.
Am I insane?
Yes. Yes I am. I am quite frankly insane.
But in a good way!
So I've spent most of today looking online for deals in Mexico. It's funny. Although we have stayed in Cozumel in at least six different places, we never know where to stay. There is the concern of the budget, of course. You can spend anywhere from hundreds and hundreds a night at an all-inclusive beachfront resort (which I wouldn't stay at if you paid me) to $35 a night in a humble downtown hotel. We have stayed in some lovely places and we have stayed in some funky ones. And frankly, I don't want to go to Mexico to feel like I'm in the USA. I don't need a damn water park or freaking entertainment or fiesta-buffet night.
I just want a room with a bathroom and an AC. Well, that and a balcony where I can watch the sunset over the Caribbean. That sunset is my highpoint of every day in Cozumel.
Last time we went, we stayed at a little place right downtown across the street from the water where we had stayed several times before. Reasonable rates, close to everything, etc. But, since the last time we'd been there, they'd built a GODDAM PIER FOR THE CRUISESHIPS right in front of the hotel. And can I just say that I hate cruise ships and I hate the pod people who get off them, clutching their approved maps in their hands, wearing matching his-and-her Corona beachwear, feeling really brave if they get a coca-cola at a restaurant.
STOP IT!
And the ships are so big they block the view of the sun, not to mention the sunset.
So. Forget precious little Vista del Mar.
And it's always something in Mexico. Don't get me wrong- I'm not bitching. I'm just saying. For instance- I have found a nice little place a bit north of town for a very reasonable rate with balconies, on the beach but...
(And there's always a but)
The only king-sized beds they have are not ocean view.
I would ask why but the answer would be the ubiquitous quien sabe? (who knows?) and that's that.
In all the other rooms, there are two double beds. Okay, not a problem except that Mr. Moon is six-foot, nine inches tall and a double bed is like six feet long. See the problem? He CAN sleep on one, but he has to sleep diagonally and that means that really, I have to sleep in the other bed unless I want to curl up like a pill bug in the corner he's not using.
Okay, okay, okay. We've been married for twenty-four years and eight months, but still- I would like to sleep with my husband when we go on a romantic vacation. Not two feet away but in the same bed.
Well.
And, perhaps even worse, there is no mini-fridge in these rooms! What? No mini-fridge? Where do you keep your beer? And your yogurt drinks (Mexico has a startling array of delicious yogurt drinks for sale in the supermarkets) and your jugo de pina? I really like my pineapple juice to be cold. And also, your leftovers from dinner? So yes, we could go down to the store and buy a cooler but that's all messy and you have to buy ice, too at the Mini-Super.
Okay, okay. I am making fun of myself. This is all so not important.
What's important is that we are actually going to go to Cozumel. And I still can't believe it.
Sure. It's a hassle to plan a vacation. Airfare is crazy. We can fly out of Tallahassee and get there in four hours for 582 dollars roundtrip apiece or we can spend a fourteen hour layover in Mexico City on our way back and spend about 300 dollars apiece.
Decisions, decisions.
And I don't have a bathing suit! And I need to lose ten pounds! Immediately!
And poor Mr. Moon is trying to do eighteen thousand other things at the moment and I call him and say, "We can stay at this place for $70 a night, tax included but it has double beds and no refrigerator, or this other place and spend $99 a night, not tax included but it has a KITCHEN (not that I plan to cook, my darlings) and if we leave out of Orlando the air-fare will be half as much but we'll have to leave at one-thirty in the morning to get there in time AND pay long-term parking," and he's like...
"AUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH!"

So anyway, be prepared for some heat-addled crazy vacation-planning here at blessourhearts and I'll try to throw the chickens in there at some point for your amusement and edification.
And the bottom line is this: in just a few weeks, I'll be sitting at a table at Plaza Leza, ordering a tiny, deadly margarita and I'll be wearing a white dress and the ceiling fans will be spinning above me and the children of Cozumel will be walking by, looking like tiny adults and maybe the musicians will be out, men I've been listening to for twenty-one years, and I'll ask them to play the Cozumel song and they will probably inwardly groan and then play it as if they'd never played it before and I'll listen to the words about the beautiful island of Cozumel where I've left my heart. I will cry and then I'll order some chilis rellanos because that's what I always do my first night and Mr. Moon and I will walk around the plaza, hand-in-hand, noticing the changes, delighting at the things we recognize and the store vendors will try to get us into their shops and we'll say, "No, gracious."
And it will be hot. And the sea will be crashing into the sea wall and there will be a breeze because there is always a breeze in Cozumel and there will be so many smiles.
And wherever it is that we go to lay our heads, it will be fine. And however much it has cost us to get there and have a place to stay, it will have been worth it.
Because when I am in Cozumel, I am the Queen of Mr. Moon's heart. I am Maria Luna and he is Sr. Luna and he is as tall as the moon and the Mayans laugh at him softly behind their hands because he stretches up to the sky and they are small people, brown and beautiful and their ancestors invented zero and worshiped this island and they worship it too.
As do I.
I can't believe I'm going. I'm thinking this is all a fever-addled dream.
But Mr. Moon says we are, so I think we are. He never lies to me, that man.
I can't wait to hold his hand and walk through the night-time streets of Cozumel, wearing white and crying softly because I am there, really there, and I never thought I would be again.

17 comments:

  1. Hooray for vacations! I'm glad you get to take such an amazing trip. I too get attached to places I visit, and want to go back again and again. There are new places I want to go too, but my heart yearns for the ones I've left. So many wonderful places in the world...

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  2. Oh I'm happy for you, that location sounds dreamy

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  3. I am so excited for you mamma, I know you will have a great time. I do not even have to worry that you might decide to stay this time because I know you will be back to help me with kicker bean. Sorry you have to go when it is so hot, next time tell me before I get pregnant so we can plan better. I had a great time yesterday, and i love my new pillow. Thanks for everything. Love you much.

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  4. Sounds like a good dream to me. :)

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  5. You make me homesick for Cozumel, a place I've never been.

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  6. Six foot nine!!!! Damn.

    My husband is a whole foot shorter than that...


    You do not need to lose ten pounds, you need to buy a nice new swimsuit, that fits you, an is not from Goodwill!

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  7. Good show~

    Dang, the last time ya'll went I house sat and that was a LONG time ago. I cannot remember for the life of me which house it was. It had to be Edenfield... didn't it?

    Anyway, fun fun fun!
    xo

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  8. So sweet that Mr. Moon is taking you away to a place that means so much to you. You can bask in the dry breezy heat with your margarita and your feet up. Lovely.
    I suspect you are ALWAYS the Queen of Mr. Moon's heart.

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  9. Lora- Mr. Moon had to drag me there the first time and now I think he sort of wished he hadn't.

    Maggie May- It is, honey. It is.

    Lily- I had such a good time with you and unless I can figure out a way to get you down to Mexico, I'll be coming back.

    Ginger- I think so too but then again, there is this heat cooking my brains.

    Mwa- I think you would like it.

    Ms. Jo- Yep. He's a tall one. And I don't buy swimsuits from Goodwill! Never! I just don't buy them anywhere...

    Petit Fleur- No. We actually went three years ago, too.

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  10. Michelle- Maybe I am but in Cozumel, he shows it. Nothing else to do!

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  11. Did I stay with Jesse? I can't remember. Damn I'm old!

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  12. My Dear Ms. Moon,
    This paragraph is genius: This heat will make you sag like an old hippie-woman's titties. It'll make you blind and deaf. It'll make you think you can stay out in it despite the fact that you've soaked through your overalls, tank-top and hat. It'll make you think you're the strongest person on earth until you keel over, panting like a woman in the throes of labor, hallucinating that you've fallen into hell and you can hear the flames frying your fat, stupid ass.

    I loved it!

    And don't laugh, but I always cry when I get back down home to Savannah, GA. Always.

    Love,

    SB

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  13. I'm happy for you and I can smell Cozumel from here, all jugo de pina and cruise ship tourists (poor dears) and the way you can pour out your story is just like the way my mind works, but can never get that many words out fast enough. I better start practising.

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  14. I am living vicarously through you so keep planning out loud...please.

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  15. Ms. Fleur- I think you stayed with Lily and Jessie. That was at least ten years ago. Long, long time ago.

    Ms. Bastard- I would never laugh. I always cry when I get to Cozumel and sometimes I almost cry when I just get back home to Lloyd from the grocery store. I need to go to Savannah.

    Aden- Well, I do practice a lot.

    Kori- Okay!

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  16. The heat is deadly. It's making me one grumpy bitch these days.

    Cozemel is to you what Florence is to me. The way you describe it I fully understand. In fact, in reading your words about the your Plaza, I am picturing my Piazza and crying softly on the inside.

    I mourn Florence when I am not there. Which has been 8 years. Oh, to go back.

    I am so happy for you.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.