Saturday, August 21st
Wow! The feedback I’ve been getting has been really awesome! Thank you so much everybody! Before we begin, you’ll notice a new feature to the blog today: the addition of pictures! Please go back to Thursday and Friday’s blog as well to check out those pictures. (***PICTURES WILL BE ADDED SOMETIME THIS AFTERNOON****) There’s a few of me in my snorkeling gear!
Digression: This is a very exciting time in my life. Since January, I’ve been working at a law firm in Hamden. At the time I started, I was seriously considering law school. It took me roughly two weeks after working in law to decide that law wasn’t for me. The law firm I worked at specialized in personal injury, probably the most exciting kind of law too! I found it rather boring, but didn’t have another job to go to and at least I was collecting a paycheck so I decided to stick with it. It was frustrating because I really couldn’t see the direction my career was headed while working at the firm. The longer I worked there, the more frustrated I became (not because of the people, but because the nature of the work was not something I wanted to continue in).
Ever since I started coaching in April, I knew it was teaching I wanted. I love being around people rather than starring at a computer. There is a better opportunity to mold children’s lives in teaching than there is in law, and that’s why I wanted to be in the education field. As luck would have it (finally some good luck for yours truly!) I applied for a job at my favorite high school of all time, Notre Dame of West Haven. To make a long story short, starting tomorrow, I am the Assistant Director of Admissions at the high school I graduated from! Finally, I can see the direction in my career. I’ll go back to school, get my teaching certificate and, hopefully, continue to move up at Notre Dame, all while making positive impacts on the students and facility. Wish me luck. Now, back to Bermuda!
No wakeup call was scheduled for Saturday. Thank God, because we needed the sleep! Don’t worry, however, because you readers know that my luck on the island has been, well let’s just say, rather salty (pun intended). At 9:00, housekeeping knocks on the door. This is a joke, right? We don’t answer, so they knock again. I start yelling back, “We’re in here, sleeping, please go away.” “Oh, OK,” the maid responds. So much for sleeping late! Fifteen minutes, we were out of bed and getting ready for breakfast.
On this morning, Justin and I were actually the first to the restaurant. The others joined forces with us a few minutes later and it was time to chow down. Anyone want to take a guess on what I had for breakfast? Nice try guys (and gals), I actually had three bowls of fruit, not just one, as well as an egg white omelet, blueberry yogurt, a slice of wheat bread (with butter) and a bowl of cereal. As you can read, I absolutely love fruit. I could have had another bowl of fruit, but I decided to be nice and save some for other people. The hardest part was that there was a freshly cut-up bowl of watermelon that I couldn’t take over to my table! If I was home, it would have taken me approximately 6 minutes and 32 seconds to polish that bowl off. Talk about making sacrifices!
During our conversation at breakfast (and sparked by our games on the putting green yesterday) Carlos and Justin really wanted to go golfing at the 18-hole, par-three golf course that was basically attached to the beach. They actually asked the hotel receptionist about prices when we got back on Friday night, and for the amount of money it was per person, I thought they were crazy. I think it was like $70 a person, plus $55 for the golf cart. That didn’t include the cost of renting three sets of clubs and shoes either! Anyhow, at breakfast, Justin, Carlos and Rob decided they still wanted to go for it. Lucky me!
The dress code on the course needed to be appropriate attire, khaki shorts with a polo. I never knew of anyone who went on vacation and didn’t pack a polo, but sure enough, Carlos didn’t. Not only did he not pack a polo, but he didn’t pack any socks either! In order for Carlos to go golfing, he had to borrow a pair of Justin’s socks and one of the five polo shirts that I packed.
Now, keep in mind, Bermuda is very hot. After reading my last blog, you know how much Carlos sweats so I wasn’t actually volunteering to give him an extra polo. He wanted to wear one of Justin’s (that Justin already wore), but Justin opened his mouth that I had a bunch of extras. I couldn’t exactly say no to the guy who has paid for everything on this vacation so far. I gave into Carlos’ plea and gave away my least favorite of the bunch, expecting it to be just like someone soaked it in the ocean when I got it back (full of sweat).
After we finished eating breakfast and getting ready for the beach, we hitched a taxi to the sister hotel across the island (same one we went to on Thursday). We didn’t feel like waiting for the ferry, especially since this was our last day, and we wanted to get to our destination as quickly as possible. Around 11:15, the taxi pulled up to the hotel. Justin, Rob, and Carlos went inside the lobby to get a tee-time, while Cindy, Caitlin and myself waited for a trolley to take us to the beach.
This is the part of where not having cell phones really stinks. After we stepped out of the taxi and left the three wanna-be-golfers, we had no way of knowing when their tee-time was scheduled for. I enjoyed my time of the beach with Caitlin and Cindy (we swam a little and tanned), but two hours after we got to the beach, Caitlin and Cindy were asking me what was taking them so long. Hold on, let me just call them up and see! I explained to them that golf takes a long time, and when you have three golfers as bad as the three of them, it might take even longer!
From 2:30 on, I spent looking at the entrance of the beach, expecting the three golfers to arrive at anytime. We were far down from the entrance so I wanted them to be able to find us. Plus the longer I waited for them to come, the more I couldn’t wait for them to get back because I was starting to get stir crazy. Cindy was passed out snoring (just made the snoring part up because it adds to the story) and nerdy Caitlin would not put down her book. I had absolutely nothing to do but count the grains of sand. I couldn’t even babe hunt because there wasn’t any!
Around 3:30, the golfers returned, their faces red as tomatoes. Los was practically taking of his shirt as he was walking to the water. He couldn’t wait to get in. I asked him about my shirt and he said that I don’t even want it back. (My shirt was disgusting! I honestly could have rung out the sweat from it, but I didn’t want to touch it so I put it in a plastic bag.) Great! One minute after they got to the beach, the three golfers plus myself were in the water.
The same Amberjacks (sic) that were swimming around us on Thursday had returned. Again, we tried to catch them to no avail. After staying in the water for about a half-hour, we all got out and returned to tanning, and that’s when I started the game! Have you ever played the “I went to the store game”? I told you, I was going stir crazy, and even though they had returned, I wanted to punish them for leaving me!
The store game is as follows: Someone starts it off saying, “I went to the store to buy” and it has to be something that starts with the letter “a”. The next person would say, “I went to the store to buy some” (whatever the “a” item was) and something that starts with a “b”, and so on. For example, I started with, “I went to the store to buy some asparagus.” Carlos followed with, “I went to the store to buy some asparagus and bonito.” Do you honestly think three, heat-exhausted golfers really wanted to play this game after being out in the sun without sun-screen (those guys forgot to put it on before they golfed) for over three hours? No, they didn’t. All they wanted to do was relax, but I wasn’t going to let them after the left me for three hours!
And, so on the store game went. Here was the list of our items: Asparagus, Bonito, Candles, Diapers, Eggplant, Fish, Gingers, Hors d’ourves, Ice, Jack-o’-lanterns, Kale, Licorice, Maui-maui (which is the answer I gave that was supposed to be mahi-mahi), Nutterbutters, Opium, Pickles, Quinoa (type of salad), Radishes, Sangria, Tamales, Ugandan goats, Vinegar (Rob gave this answer out of respect for my jellyfish sting), Watercress, Xylophones, Yams, Zip-lock bags (Los cleverly gave this answer and then added, “To put all that stuff in”). Not bad that I can remember those items five days later!
After we finished the store game, Caitlin, Rob, and Justin swam over to some rocks and jumped off them into the water below. They wanted me to go, and even if I did, my fear of heights would have prevented me from jumping, as it almost did to Caitlin. I decided to be the photographer and take photos of them jumping. They weren’t even sure if it was safe to jump, but in the words of Rob, here’s what happened on top of the rocks: “I get to the top and I’m like I’ll check it out to see if it’s safe to jump. I look over to my left before I finish my sentence and Justin is already jumping!”
After they finished jumping, we met up with Carlos in the water. The Amberjacks (sic) were swimming near us again and Los came up with an amazing discovery. He started chomping his fingers near the top of the water and the fish thought that Carlos was feeding them so they were surrounding him. It was pretty neat. Of course, the rest of us had to try it and it worked. We got an apple from our bag and actually did feed the fish. For some reason, they wouldn’t eat the skin of the apple, but they ate the apple itself. We were swarmed by over 50 of the fish. The closest we came to catching one was touching their fin. (If anyone can find out what kind of fish they were, it would be cool. To narrow it down, they were not Amberjacks. They had an eye in their fin, which made it impossible to catch them.)
After we got done with the feeding frenzy, it was time to leave the beach and catch the 6:15 ferry. We got back to the hotel around 7:00, showered and got ready for a wild night ahead. Around 8:00, Cindy, Carlos, Caitlin and Rob came down to our room to pregame a little before dinner. Wine and dark and stormys all around! (Justin and I don’t drink wine and the dark and stormys were too sweet, so were severely behind in the pregaming. ) We left for dinner at The Pickled Onion (which I called The Pickled Pepper) around 8:40 for our dinner reservations at 9:00.
We got to The Onion around 9:00 and the beer began to flow. We were just B.S.ing about random things. By this time, the alcohol started to get the best of everyone, so anything we talked about seemed interesting. Liam, our waiter, a fine Irishmen, came over to take our order and I ordered the Ha-Cha-Cha Chicken. It was chicken strips over rice with peppers and onions.
In between adult beverages, we made sure to stay hydrated with water. My glass of water was running low, so Liam came over to fill it up. I held the glass in between Justin and I so Liam didn’t have to reach across the table to fill it up. As Liam was filling up the glass, a little of the water spilled onto Justin’s shoulder. In his Irish accent, Liam goes, “It bounced off his bloody lemon (he didn’t say bloody but it sounds cooler)!” I was hysterical at this point because it was a quick, on-you-feet excuse. “It bounced off his bloody lemon!”
Before dinner, Los ordered Patron shots all around and a Buttery Nipple for Cindy. Not a good idea Los! We took our $11.50 shots and winced. Los wanted to do another shot of Patron but I convinced him to do a Nutty Irishmen instead. Keep in mind, I had a Nutty Irishmen once in my life and out of respect for Liam, we had to do it. I had no clue what was in it and it took a lot of convincing for Los to agree to take it, but he reluctantly agreed. When we got our Nutty Irishmen, Los saw the murky brown color and was ready to kill me. Shots up, but I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t take mine just yet. Los finished his and starts yelling at me, telling me how fowl that shot just was. I told him I had yet to take my shot and he was more than welcome to have it. He just screams, “NOOOOOOOOO”, and continues to carry on about what nastiness he just drank. After I finished laughing, I was able to take mine and found it rather tasty (I’m sure just to piss Los off)!
Our table was in the middle of the dance floor and it was close to 11:00 so we had to move to the bar so they could clear our table. After a few more Buttery Nipple shots for Cindy and beers for us, we navigated over to a table at the bar and were taking in the music. These two creepy guys just stood near us the whole time, constantly eyeing Cindy and Caitlin (according to Los). Anyhow, one of the creepy guys drops his drink by Cindy, bends down to pick it up, touches Cindy’s arm and says, “Did I spill any on you?” Los answers for Cindy and goes, “You spilled it on me you [expletive]!” The creepy guy leans in and says to Carlos, “What did you just say?” (At this point, I’m like wow. When the guy leans in and asks Carlos what he said, I was 100% convinced Los wouldn’t repeat what he has just said. It was NOT a racially derogatory comment. The guy was white.) Sure enough, Los goes, “You spilled it on me you [expletive]!” The creepy guy backed away, stunned that Los had the cajones to say it to his face. I could not believe Los said it again! I know if it was me, I would have cowarded, but not Los. Los has never been a shy one!
At this point, I was in awe and was thinking, “Wow Los, you’re amazing!” Anyhow, I didn’t want things to escalate, so I got up from my seat, stood behind Los with my arms crossed, and acted as his bodyguard. The guys were so scared of me that nothing further happened. Little did the creepers know, the minute trouble started, I would have run faster than a mouse being chased by a cat! Los told us the reason he reacted the way he did was because he was sick and tired of the two creepers eyeing the two loves of his life so he had to stick up for them.
The creepers backed off after the incident and as they were leaving the bar, Los starts doing the DX, Suck It chop to his foes! At this point, the creepers are doing everything they can to get to Los, but are being held back by bystanders. Los wasn’t done, as he slowly dropped his pants and mooned the two creepers. The creepers finally broke through the grasps of the bystanders and got to Los. Los gave both of them atomic wedgies and dropped then both with Sweet Chin Music! The bar was going crazy at this point and they wanted more. Los causally walked away, grabbed the microphone the band was using to sing, and told everyone at the bar that if they hit on Cindy and Caitlin again, they would get it worse than the two creepers!
We left the bar and people kept coming up to us asking for Los’s autograph. He refused to give it out for less than $5. When one guy refused to pay the fee, Los grabbed a loose piece of limestone and some string he found laying of the street, tied the limestone to the guys ankle, and dropped-kicked him into the ocean! Amazing!
During the entire 20 minute walk home, we were swarmed by people worse than we were by the fish earlier in the day. Los got writer’s cramp halfway through the walk and had Justin and myself forge his signature. He warned people that if they didn’t pay for his forged signature after all this time of annoying him on his walk home, then he would hit them all harder than Ray Lewis does to a vulnerable quarterback! When it was all said and done and we got back to the hotel, the proceeds collected from Los’s autographs were well over $7,000! Yes my loyal readers, we were swarmed by that many people. Way to go Los!
Now that you heard an embellished ending to our Saturday night, let me tell you how it really ended. There was no further incident after the second expletive. The six of us got up from our table and headed to the dance floor to dance the night away. We stayed at The Onion till around 12:00 before leaving for the night.
Around 1:30, Justin and I were awakened to loud knocking on our patio door. I kept yelling, “Who is it?,” but no one answered. They knocked again and Justin finally got out of bed to see who it was. It was two naked people with their derrieres pressed firmly against the glass (according to Justin)! Honestly, this really did happen. We never did figure out who they were because when Justin went to go get towels for the naked ones to cover up, by the time he returned to the door, the skinny dippers vanished into the night!
I’ll be back at it sometime later this week to wrap everything else up. Please continue to make this website a regular for you! I promise to continue adding content as much as I possibly can! There is a lot more on target for later this week! Please check back in!
Thanks again for following me,
-Matt-
Tulsa Golden Hurricane vs. East Carolina Pirates