This past few weeks have been super hectic. I'm almost glad we got another 20" of snow simply because I was able to have some real, forced downtime!
Last weekend I actually got to go on a REAL vacation ALL. BY. MYSELF! I headed to Miami for a weekend of sun, booze, and rest (I got one out of the three!) and to visit with my bestie Mandy, who currently lives there. My flight landed at noon on Friday. Mandy picked me up from the airport, with a cooler of beer, and we headed straight to the beach! Unfortunately, the sun didn't seem to want to cooperate so it was cloudy and it made absolutely no difference to me. It was still about 70 degrees warmer than it had been in MN. I really wish I could spend every afternoon laying at the beach, with a Corona. I need to make that happen. Friday night we were too tired to party so we cracked a bottle of wine and spent the evening with pizza on the 44th floor lanai overlooking Miami Bay.
Saturday we hit the outdoor mall for shopping and mojitos. Drunk shopping! I found a super cute summer purse and some hot pink chucks for Eva. The weather was cool, cloudy and windy so it wasn't a good day for the beach. Bummer. But that evening we made reservations for Mr. Chows so it was time to get dressed up (I even wore heels!) and hit the town. The only catch was, we couldn't get seated until 11:30 which made perfect sense when we were in "party mode" at 7 pm and just enjoying the buzz from the 2nd glass of wine, but became a very bad idea once 10 pm hit. By the time we got to the restaurant we were famished and three sheets to the wind. Which actually saved us some money since a house glass of Sauvignon was $25. And here were my lessons for the evening.
1) Fancy chinese restaurants do not serve breadsticks. You will be pointed and laughed at by the pretentious wait staff for being too common to understand this.
2) You do not have to pay $400 for a good chinese meal. I have had better food at P.F. Changs. Pretentious people are not privy to this. Let's keep it between us commoners.
3) At the ripe, old age of 36 I can no longer begin my Saturday morning with mimosas and expect to end my day drinking wine. Especially in 3" heels. It's one or the other.
So, by Sunday morning I was beginning to "shake". Literally, my body was shaking. I can only take so much alcohol and I was determined to fight this tooth and nail. So, it was either start the morning with a beer to stave off the hangover, or have some water and just deal with it. We chose the former and cracked open a Corona. It turned out to be a beautfiul day so we headed to South Beach where the best people watching in the America's is. Even better than the MOA or MN State Fair. We spent the afternoon sunning and then headed over to Wet Willies on the strip for Pina Coladas, beer, daiquiris and chicken wings (because nothing says bikini like 1200 calorie drinks and fried chicken). We then headed out for more shopping before returning back to Mandy's fabulous pad. By this time we were both too tired to do much of anything, but we pulled up our bootstraps for one last hurrah, since Monday was departure day, and headed out for some margaritas and mexican food.
Sadly, it was time to go by Monday. The weekend went by in a flash and next time I get away, it will be for more than a short weekend. Even though I'm sure my liver would disagree. A few days to spend with Mandy having great times and great conversation was exactly what my soul needed and it was so nice to be able to take off my "wife" and "mom" hats for a few days and just be "Andrea". Can't wait till next time!
