The Getaway

Okay, here we go:

I told SuperFiancee that she should write the vacation entry on her blog and everyone would be happier, because she'd do a much better job of it than I will. But she disagrees with me and I am but her slave of love, soooooo...

Above, you see Super Adorable Kid AKA The Baby (she'll always be The Baby to us, although, you know, she's turning 7 in January and really isn't a baby anymore) who, for once in her life, doesn't seem thrilled to be having her picture taken. Holding her is SuperFiancee, of course, and in the background, Super Dependable Teen, neither of whom are ever thrilled to have their pictures taken, despite the fact that both are very very lovely specimens of femininity indeed. This was Saturday, and we were at the beach. Don't ask me which beach, I don't know. I just got in the car when I was told to and went where they drove me.

Okay. So I surprised myself by having a really good time at the beach. I'd never been to an actual ocean beach before and I was startled to discover that it really is very different from a beach at a lake... the whole sense of the thing is much grander, and the surf is much bigger and more powerful, and I had a really fabulous time wading into it with the two older Super Kids and letting it pound against me. I even got to carry The Baby out into it, once we convinced her she'd be okay, and she had a great time, too.

Speaking of The Baby, here she is brandishing a plastic shovel and wearing my shirt! I only set it down for a second. But it was breezy and she was a little chilly. Looks better on her than it ever did on me, anyway. In the background are her two older sisters, but you can't see them that well. Which is your loss.

While we were there I got a frankly insane amount of sunburn, because it was cloudy and I really didn't feel like putting on suntan lotion after The Baby stole my shirt and I figured it would be okay . Bad mistake. Ouchie.

Also while we were at the beach, I noticed an astonishing lack of seagulls and commented on it to my mother, who silently handed me a potato chip and then abjured me to toss it outward onto the sand. I did, and HOLY FUCK! INSTANT BIRDS! There were many more than this picture indicates. Had Tippi Hedren appeared alongside them, I'd have run screaming for cover.


Then, after the beach, we drove to St. Augustine, where Super Drama Teen lounged stunningly against this fountain with a big fat ponytailed guy in the background. Wait! Could that be Our Hero, Highlander? Alas, it is. That should dispell any lingering sexual fantasies all the feminist fangirls who keep shuttling over to this blog from When Fangirls Attack have doubtless been having about me, and it's just as well, because I'm very very taken, and happy to be so, too.

While we were in St. Augustine, we saw the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse In America! Super Adorable Kid wanted to find some way inside it so she could romp about, but we felt the ancient structure most likely would not well withstand the sudden acceleration of entropy that The Baby can inflict on her surrounding environment when she's a mind to. So we firmly nixed that plan.

And yes, there's big fat Highlander again, with Super Drama Teen, Super Dependable Teen, and Super Adorable Kid on one side, and The Mother of Highlander and her husband Carl on the other side. They're grinning like loons, but nobody who voluntarily hangs around with me for extended periods can accurately be described as sane.


Also at St. Augustine there was this really cool old graveyard, which I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed to find entirely zombie free. I don't know why I expected zombies, but somehow, it's always seemed to me that Florida and the living dead should just go hand in hand. Instead of rotting corpses, though, you get to look at Super Adorable Kid again. It's a win/win all the way around.

Then there was this fort. It's, like, historical or something. I don't know. I was wearing these sandals for the first time and they were really killing my feet, so I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention.

That was all on Saturday. Sunday was this big family party and we watched the Bucs lose again, but not by much, and if Reggie Bush hadn't had that total fluke kick off return, then... well, never mind. Monday, though, we all went HERE --



--where the beautiful SuperFiancee and I posed in front of some parrots, who were doubtless wondering "what kind of mind control powers does that fat geek have, that he's got a hot babe like that putting her arm around him?"





Then, inside the park, there were some crocodiles. Also Florida panthers, whom we caught doing the horizontal bop together (we took pictures, but they didn't come out, which is just as well, because my readers probably aren't ready for panther porn). Also llamas, and bears, and snakes, and pot bellied pigs lying in their own filth, and a couple of cool trips on glass bottomed boats.




Oh, yeah, and then the kids decided to stick their arms in an alligator's mouth. It was educational, so I just let them.





So, that's Saturday and Monday. We drove down all day Thursday, drove back all day Tuesday. Sunday was the Bucs game. Friday we just lazed around and didn't do much... visited with various members of my family, played some Magic, ate like hogs (my mom made this fabulous glazed ham). What other highlights am I failing to recount? Well, let's see -- okay. My cousin Christian walked into my mom's living room and found me and SuperFiancee and my nephew Kolton sitting around playing Magic. He said "You guys play this?" We admitted to the vice. He bolted out. Twenty minutes later, he was back, with a stack of Third Edition Magic Starter sets (the kind with two 60 card starter decks in them, a rule book, a little velvet bag, and a bunch of glass beads meant for counting life points with) and two Ice Age starter decks. "Here," he said, "we've had these laying around the house for years." Score! My cousin Christian is deeply weird, but I will now have to remember him in my will just for that.

Then, later on, I found out my brother Paul, who doesn't even play Magic, had intercepted Christian outside and stolen -- STOLEN!!! -- one of the Starter sets and a pack of Ice Age, for some fucking housemate of his I've never even met. NO WAY!!! So I offered him my JLA/Avengers set for them, and he coughed them up immediately. So my first stop the day after we got back was Great Escape, where I bought another JLA/Avengers set and sent Paul my old one. But first I pulled the covers off four old crappy comics (a couple of BATMAN ANNUALS and two DEATHBLOW BY-BLOW issues) and slipped them on over the JLA/Avengers covers, just to give Paul a cardiac event when he opened the envelope. Steal MY goddam Magic cards, would he...?

Oh, yeah, we had a really good time playing with my newest nephew, Paul's 18 month old son, Baby Ben. And I'm doubtless leaving out more stuff... I mean, there was a campfire and we made s'mores, too, and my cousin Heather was there with her new husband, and... yeah, I'm leaving a lot of stuff out... oh, I totally kicked ass at Scene It Monday night after we got back from Silver Springs, too... but SuperFiancee will have to fill you in on all that stuff, and post pictures of Baby Ben, too.