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“Just sit right back
and you’ll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip…”
It’s been two weeks since our boat of life has shipwrecked in
Florida. Every day we wake up hopeful that today will be our day. But as each
day passes without news, it’s getting harder and harder to ward off fears that
our rescue ship may never come. How will we survive this?
Six days into being marooned, Trav’s company called
and advised that they were “cautiously optimistic” as big moves had been made by
both sides to try to come to an agreement. As the peace talks continued, and
the great divide lessened, we were expected to just sit tight and enjoy a "paid
vacation" in Florida until things had been resolved and the hold on our Visas
had been lifted. Easy to say when the bed you’re sleeping in at night is your
own…
As the days passed by, the only ship that was sailing was
our stuff, well on its way to the Bahamas. It’s now going to arrive before we
do and we’re stuck trying to research non climate controlled storage for a big metal crate from the
mainland. I’m honestly wondering if we’ll ever see our stuff again or what the condition will be, after sitting in the Caribbean summer heat. When we excitedly
watched them drive our sealed crate away many weeks ago, we never thought this
would be the case.
“If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the minnow would be lost,
the minnow would be lost”
It’s very difficult to relax, sleep, and have faith when your
life is in someone else’s hands and on someone else’s time-frame. Though that’s
exactly what everyone tells us we should be doing. On most days, the stress
weighs very heavy and we wonder how we can keep going on like this. On other
days, when we’re sitting on the beach, basking in the Florida sun, we are
grateful that it wasn’t much worse.
For the last 15 days there have been five stowaways- Trav,
Bob and I, and Trav’s parents. They had so graciously offered to help us with
this arduous move, having no idea what they were in for. It started over two
weeks ago, on Mother’s Day, when his family helped us clean out our apartment
on our final day in New York. The journey began the next day to Fort Lauderdale
as his parents were driving with us to
help get us to our separate flights (Bob and Trav had a friend flying them over
and I was flying the suitcases on Jet Blue). After we were well on our way,
they had planned to drive our car to Palm Beach to have it shipped to the
Bahamas. After a week’s worth of
stressful driving and strict timelines, they were going to reap their reward by
going to their condo in Daytona, to enjoy a week’s vacation and fun in the sun.
They still made it to Daytona, but with
much more "baggage" than they had expected. Every day we wake up and say “ugh,
we’re still here” and they wake up saying “ugh, they’re still here”… Joking aside, it’s only the intense ups and
downs that keep this from being a fantastic family vacation. I’m truly
enjoying our beach days, our evening
routine of cocktails and appetizers, and always trying somewhere new and on the
water for dinner. Without them, we surely would have drowned by now.
“The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle with
Gilligan, The Skipper too, The millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the
professor and Mary Ann..”
The tropical isle we have wrecked upon, called Daytona, is
unlike anything we have ever experienced. We’ve seen a sea monster, the largest
flying frog in the world, an albino lizard, and beach hawks. There’s crazy
crabs roaming the beach and the water is so crystal clear that fish of all sizes can be seen
swimming through your toes.
The people are just as interesting. We aren’t spending our days making phones out
of tin cans and writing SOS in the sand. We’re busy taking 3rd
place at Senior Trivia night, under the name “Jake From Statefarm”, killing it
when they try to stump the crowd with questions from “Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. This isn’t the land of Gingers and Maryann’s, this is the land
of $3.50 Long Islands, separate checks (everyone asks you the second you sit
down), and is ruled by Seinfelds and Costanzas.
Even the bugs come to retire here as there’s every different
kind and they do not mess around (#dma). When my 50 mosquito bites quickly became 75,
I knew I had to get serious if I was going to survive the war they were raging.
I found that not only was I the target of many species of mosquito, I was also
being “hunted” by no-seeums, also known as biting midges (my new nickname). These f**kers, are so small you can’t see
them coming, they can even fit through the holes in the screen. Though you
can’t see them, somehow they have magnificent teeth that saw into your skin so
they can then inject you with an anticoagulant to drink your blood freely. I’m
not done. They not only can smell their prey from over 50 meters, but they then
send the signal out to all of their friends once they’ve found their buffet.
It’s only the females that bite (those bitches) because they actually need
blood to fertilize their eggs…AND they are attracted to carbon dioxide. So if
you are alive, you are a target. What sick, sadistic…. Are you kidding me? At
one point, I was dressed from head to toe in clothing in the middle of a Florida
heat wave (complete with shoes and socks), drenched in every bug concoction possible
( I even had a bug wrist band around my ankle that was so big, it was like I was on
house arrest), trying to walk the dog while taking very shallow breaths. It was
like I was walking through a sleeping lion’s den, which is exactly what it was.
Misery. After a trip to Daytona’s flea market,
another “experience”, I am now equipped with everything I could possibly
need from holistic oils to straight up poison. I will win my skin back.
“So this is the tale of the castaways, They’re here for a
long, long time, They’ll have to make the best of things, It’s an uphill climb.”
See next post: #15- We Surrender, June 6th
See next post: #15- We Surrender, June 6th
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