Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Working on my massive sunburn

Well, this week I've been in Sarasota visiting my parents and getting sunburned. We drove down here on the 12th in time for my birthday - 31! ack! My mom took me to get a manicure and pedicure. I like getting a pedicure, but I'm so fricking ticklish that its a little difficult. We also went out to dinner that night with my grandparents.
We brought down Milo (the cats were left to fend for themselves, a la that Travelocity - or something - commercial) so that he could meet his new girlfriend, my parents new sheltie, Kelsey. Kelsey looooooooooves Milo. She followed him around wherever he went. Brian and Milo drove home on Monday, so Kelsey is a little bummed out. She's a normal size sheltie, but since our dog is such a big one she was like half his size. They look kind of funny together. Kelsey lives here with our two cats, Wynton and Olly, neither of which are overly certain of their feelings towards the dog. Kelsey thinks that the cats tails are some sort of handle for them and he walks around with their tails in his mouth. Consequently, Wynton's normally puffy tail is now thin and ratty.

One day we saw a pair of Sandhill cranes on the golf course across the pond from my parents backyard. Brian and I sat out there to watch them, and they started walking over towards us. They got really close - we finally moved because we thought they might eat us. I got some good pictures of them though. Here are two of them.




(Well, you're just going to have to tilt your heads for now, because I don't know how to flip those. I'm on my parents computer.)

We went out on the boat to Egmont Key, which is a wildlife sanctuary. On the way over there we had three dolphins following behind the boat. I'm not kidding you, they were RIGHT OFF THE SWIM PLATFORM. By some miracle, I got some good pictures of them jumping:




After Brian left, my dad and I went kayaking in some mangrove canals at their friends house in Port Charlotte. It was fun, but we hardly saw any wildlife at all, which was surprising.

And yesterday we went to Tarpon Springs with my grandmother, where we saw some sponge diving and ate at a greek restaurant. This is a very heavily greek city that was initially populated largely by greek sponge divers. We went on a sponge diving boat ride where they had a guy go out in the old-style diving suit and get a sponge. I chatted to the guy for a bit because he was from Stevens Point, WI.

In other Wisconsin news, we went to Shaner's Pizza today, which is owned by Shane Rawley, an ex-pro baseball player who went to my high school in Racine (Horlick!). They serve the perfect Chicago pizza - not that stupid thick stuffed pizza. Oh no. I grew up in the Chicago area, and my dad before me. And I'll tell you, its CRISPY THIN CRUST CUT IN SQUARES that is the real Chicago pizza. So that was great.

Also, Easter with my grandparents was good. Its nice to be able to see them when we come down here, they live about 15 minutes away. Jim and Ed's birthday was on Saturday, but we tried to stay busy so it wasn't too bad. Jim was up on NH with his group of friends, who are just great. For his birthday they took up a collection to get his Gay Miata painted. Right now its barbie yellow, but you can see the red underneath where the paint is scratched. Yesterday we saw a hot pink Miata and I texted him to tell him that would be a good choice. I thought I was the only one who called it the Gay Miata, but his Subaru friends posted a funny funny picture:



bahahahhaah!
Coming home tonight, back to the cats! Oh, and Brian. Hee.

2 comments:

Jodi said...

That top dolphin picture is AWESOME!

Sorry about the sunburn. I feel your pain. I've had so many massive sunburns sometimes I wonder how it's possible I still have skin.

I'm with you on the pedicures. Not relaxing when you're trying really hard to not think about how much it tickles!

Lisa said...

I KNOW. Thats what I thought too. But he says 'Its fun to drive' blah blah blah. Whatev. Fun for a girl to drive.
It didn't help that it was Barbie Yellow.

BTW, Shane Rawley was waaaaaaaaaaaaay before our time. I think he was professional in the 70's-80s.