At Least They're Committed

The past two days have been freakin’ brutal! Well, of course they have been. I was gone for four days. What did I expect. Today I barely left my desk, in fact I didn’t except to go to the ladies room twice and quickly zap my blechy frozen lunch. I did, however, find my work keycard, which was a relief because I feared it had been confiscated against my will and without my knowledge as I was being harassed by TSA at DIA before my flight to Florida. They kept me there for

10 minutes, the female agent refusing to tell me what the problem was, other agents watching apprehensively as if any second I would pull a secret cord and blow up the entire A Concourse. Turns out, you’re not supposed to bring a spent bullet casing from a .38 caliber handgun through security in your wallet or anywhere else for that matter. Go figure.

Regardless, Vero Beach was rainy and delightful and mostly warm and my daily walks on the white, sandy beach and the broken seashells were exceptional therapy and the food — made by Ellen and the Kilted Mermaid and Mulligans — was scrumptious and it’s no wonder I quietly cried a good portion of the flight home.

The sun finally came out Saturday, the day before my departure. I might have, um, overcompensated because I did after all say I was determined to come back with some color and someone told me not to get a sunburn and since I never do what I’m told in certain circumstances, well, it will look better tomorrow. I hope. Right now I’m just flaky and my hair is uber light and it’s wildly unattractive but only one person has indicated such, everyone else has said I look healthy. Liars! I look like a middle-aged bleach blonde fresh from the tanning bed.

At any rate, there it is. I don’t get out much and that simply added to how fabulous the vacation was despite the inclement weather and it wasn’t only difficulty to come back to a huge pile of work and prep for a meeting in Springs, it was also tough last night to have to again forfeit my bed so that one of EBD’s friends could stay over, this after standing in the cold for 40 minutes waiting for the bus to go home and never really warming up and having four men around and no privacy and . . . it was tough to be home.

Upon arriving at Ellen’s quaint cottage 2 miles from the beach (it’s lovely! Cloaked in teals and blues and greens),

she showed me my spot. “This is your drawer,” she said with an air of finality. I made it my drawer and as my departure time drew near, I marked it with a pair of shorts, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner and lotion to leave evidence — for the both of us — of my pending return. And, of course, the final memento left behind: a spent bullet casing from a .38 caliber pistol.