8:30 am
Seriously: how do the people who live down here stand this weather? I thought New Jersey was the humidity capitol of the world, but really, I step outside into the Florida morning and my glasses fog up. Not that it's hot -- it wasn't yet, when I was out walking around and sniffing out a Starbucks just an hour ago -- but neither was it sunny. Just breezy and incredibly sticky. So what did I do?
I went for a walk on the beach, which is just across the street from this posh hotel we're in. (Pictures, perhaps, after I'm home and back to a speedier connection.) Doesn't that sound lovely, a morning walk on the beach? Oh wait, I forgot:
- I hate sand
- I don't go in the water
- Possibly the only thing that I hate more than sand at the beach is getting my feet dirty and/or wet
Right. So I went with my camera, and with my sneakers on (with low tennis socks; I didn't look like the absolute Yankee tourist geek [unlike my Uncle Sol, who once went to a nude beach wearing black knee socks, madras shorts, and binoculars]) while the girls were still sleeping in. I wanted some nice pictures, maybe pick up a shell or a bit of sea glass.
The beach is what the girls in Clueless called a Monet: beautiful from far away, but close up, nothing special. Not that it isn't nice, just nothing special. Lot of clean sand, broad but not too broad a beach, lovely rolling surf. That's about it. Not much for the kind of beach person I am. But I walked, I snapped, I picked up. I was very careful to see how far the surf was coming in, especially when I squatted down to get a nice picture of some seaweed or something.
This is when the surf rolled in over my shoes.
Arrghhhh! My feet are wet, and sandy, and wet! Oh, the humanity!
Then, of course, I remember Cousin E's warning from last night, which she only said about a dozen times: "If you go in the ocean, you have to be very careful about the sea lice."
Finally, I asked her son, P, what that was; was it like sand flies?
Oh no, he tells me, they're jellyfish eggs. You're okay as long as you shower right after you come out of the ocean. The problem, he says, is that they get caught in your clothes, that is, between your bathing suit and your skin. And then you start to itch, get a rash, etc.
So, what, do I now have sand lice in my shoes??!! The only pair of walking around shoes I have brought with me to Florida?
I must immediatly return to the room and wash out my shoes! What will I do? What will I ...
Wait, wasn't I going to drive down the couple of miles from the hotel to Starbucks for that vital first-of-the-morning tall vanilla latte, extra vanilla please? I mean, I've got to get my priorities straight, right?
Starbucks. Shoes. Diaries. Okay, I'm all right now.
The girls are waking up now. We'll spend a couple of hours at the hotel pool -- no sand there -- and then off to lunch at the club with the ever-growing family. Cousin's flight is arriving as we speak, and Sibs should be here within the next few hours.
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I'm watching The Golden Girls (yes)
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So ... - 12.19.2006
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