Vacation from Unemployment
03/28/2005 08:10 a.m.
Alright, who's bright idea was this anyway???

I'm going to Florida at the end of the week and I would be looking forward to it except that the entire state will be infested with blasted college kids. And I'll be stuck in a car for two days with one of my girlfriends who was supposed to be getting married yesterday except that her fiance was gay and so the engagement was a parless failure. And the other girl riding with us is recently divorced because her military husband decided he was gay a little late in the game, and this will be her first time away from her toddler. And we'll be listening to sermon tapes for most of the drive. Oh yes. I said sermon tapes. (Of Bob Russell from Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY. He's actually a really good preacher.)

This whole thing came about when one of our girlfriends who is in the Army got shipped home from Afghanistan to attend bomb technician schooling. We all try to be really supportive of her since she's always deployed on insanely dangerous missions and she was our token Jewish friend in high school. We do little things like send her Hanukah cards and kosher cookies and stuff. Well, she was supposed to graduate bomb school last fall and we were going to drive down for her graduation at Eglin AFB in Florida to meet her new boyfriend and chill out on the beach. The problem is, she flunked a test, essentially "blew herself up" during a detonation test and so she had to take her last semester over again which pushed her graduation back to next week. Right smack dab in the middle of Spring Break 2005. And so it is.

The good news about her having to be held back is that she got put into a class of Navy Seals. So guess who gets to go snorkeling with the Navy Seals next week?? THAT I am definately looking forward to. It's probably like one of those once in a lifetime opportunities. I wonder if they have military issue Speedos....hmmmm...

So I had to go shopping for clothes since last year's summer clothes wouldn't even come close to fitting me. At this time last year I was a healthy size 9. Well, that's awfully optimistic. We'll say in all honesty that I was a slim 12. This year for reasons that are too numerous and medically complicated to explain right now (but bear in mind they are legitimate excuses) I am a depressive size 16. Oh yes, blame the medication, or the restricted physical activity, but this was the year of the 40 pound weight gain. Well, that's another optimistic estimate, but you get the point.

Anyway, I bought some new clothes even though I was downsized and have been unemployed for a couple of weeks, so I shouldn't be spending money on clothes. But one of the outfits I'm especially pleased with because, for the first time in 8 or 9 months, it actually makes me feel sexy. (I gave up most of my sexy clothes even before the weight gain on account of being baptized and embracing Christian modesty with a sigh of relief quite frankly) I know I probably still look like a sheet white beached whale no matter what clothes I'm wearing, but at least I don't feel completely unattractive. Besides, we'll be hanging out with Navy Seals in top shape and the primes of their lives, so any body comparisons would be completely skewed and unfair. So I really shouldn't worry about it, right?

The sad part is that the girls and I were talking the other day deciding what books to pack. And it suddenly struck me that I'm one of those old ladies who goes to the beach wearing printed floral pants with a camera slung around her neck and READS A BOOK when I should be in the Spring Breaker age bracket. But the amazing thing is that I don't find this fact all that depressing. I'm perfectly comfortable with the image of myself as a prematurely overweight snowbird. I would much rather spend my day on the beach reading chick lit in the shade (I'm on a medication that prohibits prolonged exposure to direct sunlight) than wretching up last night's trough of tequila and securing my mid-40s date with a melanoma.

Anyway, it's all awfully like an episode of Sex in the City where the girls go to The Hamptons for a week. I'll be sure so take lots of pictures and post an update.
I am currently Safe
I am listening to Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffet