At first, I was separated from my keyboard because of winter vacation activities. While I missed writing my blog, thankfully I did have fun with MG and our friends, and with my Baby Sister and BIL.

Once we returned home, it was a different story. March definitely roared in like a Lion in more than one respect. For example, I had to make the almost supreme sacrifice–put all our income tax documents and receipts together to take them to our CPA. I thought I had every tax deductible receipt accounted for and filed in our 2016 tax folder. Nope. I had to track down several receipts that were missing in action. I came to realize that if I ever tired of writing, I could have a successful career as a private investigator.

The next downer in March came in microscopic form. MG caught Influenza B and shared it with me. He’s such a generous gent. We didn’t realize we had flu until I started running a fever. At that point, we both went in to see our doctor and both tested positive for the B strain. We spent the rest of March in the living room, stretched out on couches in our PJs or sweats, resting, watching cable news or inane TV reruns–not sure which was which–and coughing up our lungs for about two weeks.

Then came the next downer for me. I coughed so hard that I sort of threw my back out. I know. It could only happen to me. It doesn’t seem possible that a person can cough hard enough to throw her back out, but it happens. It happened to me. I was in such pain whenever I moved, MG had to help me in and out of bed.

After a weekend of excruciating pain, I paid my doctor another visit. She shook her head at me and asked what kind of trouble was I in now. You see, I had a few problems before I went on winter vacation too. I was a walking ailment looking for the worst possible time to happen.

I told Dr. G that I had no idea how I hurt my back. I mentioned the constant coughing and that it hurt when I coughed even before the back pain. She said the coughing probably did it. She had me X-rayed, confirmed muscle spasms, prescribed muscle relaxant meds for my back and nebulizer treatments for my cough.

When I left the exam room, walking very slowly and painfully, the office staff told me they informed MG that I was on my way and would get to the lobby in a few hours or maybe by morning. Charming.

You may not have missed me, but I missed you. I couldn’t bear to put off writing this post any longer despite the back pain and the coughing. I guess you could say by writing the post that I’m suffering for my art. Yes, say that. I’m definitely suffering.

We started our food quest on Monday afternoon at Pompano Joe’s in Miramar Beach. Just a light lunch there: calamari with both marinara and tiki sauce for dipping, seafood gumbo, and Caesar salad. The gumbo was hot, hot, hot! Take a spoonful, bite into the saltine cracker, and gulp a swallow of ice water. That didn’t cool my mouth down much. My tongue still wanted to dial the fire department. Our waitress saw me waving my hand in front of my mouth to put out the flames. She brought us sour cream to add to the gumbo to tame it down a bit. That actually helped a lot.

Monday night found us at Dynasty, our favorite Chinese restaurant. It’s family owned and run; the second generation took over recently and there was no change in food quality or service. I had my favorite dish–orange chicken, one of the chef’s specialties. Yum!

Mid-morning on Tuesday found us at Another Broken Egg Cafe for brunch. I was already close to drooling when I ordered my all-time favorite breakfast dish, French Toast Bananas Foster. ABEC uses sweet Hawaiian bread for its French toast and tops it with a dusting of confectioners sugar, chopped pecans, sliced bananas, bananas foster sauce, and whipped cream. It is to die for. I ate every last bite. I was very genteel, however, and did not lick the plate clean.

We were so stuffed from brunch that we stopped in at Callahan’s just for a light snack Tuesday evening. Ha! Callahan’s doesn’t do light snacks. Callahan’s does overkill. My sausage, onions, and peppers hero, smothered with marinara and melted mozzarella, was enough to feed two but I ate it anyway, peeling off the top layer of bread. We were too full for dessert, so we took a hunk of Italian Cream Cake back to the hotel to munch on later. It’s still in the mini refrigerator in our hotel suite waiting for us to devour it.

We began our drive south on Saturday, February 4th, which was my birthday, and didn’t celebrate it on the road. We already had social engagements with friends in Destin set up on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. That left Wednesday night the 8th as our night out to celebrate my birthday at Tuscany Italian Bistro. Another couple joined us and we feasted first on the best calamari ever. Tender on the inside, and crispy on the outside, and tasty marinara to dip in. Delish. I ordered my favorite pasta dish, penne carbonara. Yum, yum, yum! While we were contemplating our dessert order, our waiter brought me a complementary “birthday tiramisu.” I blew out the candle and removed it before one of our friends suggested taking a photo of the birthday surprise. The Italian phrase “tanti auguri” was written on the plate in chocolate syrup. English translation: best wishes. Very delicious best wishes, I might add.

By midweek, we had checked off several restaurants on our gourmet bucket list. So far, so good.

Tomorrow evening, we will dine at the Marina Cafe on the water. I’m looking forward to my favorite menu item, a grilled Cheshire Farms pork ribeye chop with sweet tea glaze and vidalia onion bacon jam, sweet potatoes, and sautéed spinach. The first time I tasted it, I couldn’t believe it was actually a pork chop. It was juicy and tender and had the most amazing flavor. Yummy!

On Friday, we’ll join a group of friends at the Cabana Cafe for dinner and live music. MG loves their fried dill pickle appetizer, and I am partial to their sweet potato fries dusted with brown sugar. A duo called Banjorama plays pop, oldies, folk, country, jazz, and patriotic music. After a few selections, they invite “snowbirds” from the audience who are retired musicians–some from symphony orchestras in their home cities–to join them onstage and they jam the night away. Great fun.

When Saturday rolls around it will find us at McGuire’s Irish Pub. The ceiling and walls of the pub are covered with dollar bills signed by patrons and stapled on–conservatively worth a million or more. We haven’t ever had a bad meal there. My favorite item on the menu is a dessert, bread pudding with Bushmills Irish Whiskey Sauce (Homemade Daily from an Old Irish Recipe with a very strong Irish Whiskey sauce). Best bread pudding I ever had, and I am not a fan of bread pudding. That should tell you something.

Just writing about all this marvelous food has added at least two inches to my hips and waistline. If I’m not careful, the clothes I packed will no longer fit and I’ll have to shop for a new wardrobe. And you know from a previous post just how much I hate to shop.

I’ll have to diet next week when we visit my baby sister. Big problem there–she’s a terrific cook. I believe I’m doomed. ::sigh::

In my circle of family and friends, I am a well-known klutz. I spill things. I tear things. I drop things. I knock things over. I trip over things. I fall over things. I break things. After spending only one glorious week in the lovely beachfront condo, I managed a trifecta.

I tripped on a concrete block in a mall parking lot.

I fell over the concrete block in the mall parking lot.

I broke my left hip when I hit the pavement after tripping and falling over the concrete block in the mall parking lot–after which the entire Milky Way Galaxy appeared before my eyes.

Other galaxies joined the Milky Way when I was shoehorned into the front seat of my Baby Sister’s vehicle and again when I was extracted from said vehicle at the emergency medical center. My agony increased exponentially when I was informed of the break.

Two painful thoughts immediately sprang to mind: the surgery I would have to undergo to repair the hip, and all those stairs at the condo that I would not be able to climb without weeks of physical therapy.

There went all our winter vacation plans and our non-refundable, paid in advance rental fee for the condo. Bummer. We would have been better off had we remained in Michigan. I know for a fact that I would have.

The irony that surrounds this unfortunate incident? The concrete block that I tripped on and fell over in the mall parking lot, breaking my left hip, was located in a handicap parking space.

What are the odds?

This is the sunset view from the deck of our three-bedroom duplex condo rental on Florida’s Emerald Coast. Yes, we are wintering in an upscale condo right on the coast’s sugar-white sands. I shot this pic from the condo’s huge wraparound deck.

You may wonder how Macho Guy and I managed to move on up from a boring dowdy old cottage to a sexy newer and modern condo on the beach. It’s quite a story with unexpected twists and turns.

It began in January of 2015. Macho Guy and I had just barely arrived at the drab old rental cottage in Florida for our winter vacation when the very secretive rental agents we had yet to meet contacted us to see if we wanted to book it again for 2016. These peculiar agents possessed the uncanny paranormal ability to get after us about rebooking for the following year the instant we unlocked the door to our ramshackle rental.

At that point in time, MG wasn’t sure he wanted to rebook or even winter in Florida’s Panhandle again for that matter. He wasn’t pleased with the chilly and rainy panhandle winter weather nor was he happy about the state of his golf game. While the rundown cottage was pet friendly—we always take Schnoodle Dog with us—and we had rented it two years running, the place was dated and kind of shabby. The wallpaper was coyote ugly and peeling. Appliances and fixtures needed either replacement or repair. [The refrigerator was leaking water.] The TV set was old, and on a good day the cable reception was somewhere between terrible and horrible.

When we contacted the low-profile agents by phone about the needed fixes, we were told that the owner wasn’t interested in investing any additional money in upkeep. Additional money? I glanced around the place. Except for the addition of a very small writing desk (that I so appreciated), I couldn’t see where he had invested much money in upkeep.  The eerie agents, whom we never met in person and suspected they might be vampires, informed us by phone that they could only take care of one or two basic items on our list. They sent a couple of repair people out to fix them to make the crappy cottage more livable.

At that point, we learned that we lost a member of MG’s family to cancer. Grief-stricken, we loaded up the car again and travelled to the Midwest for the funeral, leaving the dilapidated cottage behind temporarily. We forgot all about responding to the two secluded rental agents’ query.

Upon returning to Florida, MG decided he wanted to rebook the ramshackle cottage after all. He sent an email to that effect to the two cloistered rental agents. The reply he received was a shocker. The tumbledown cottage was already booked for 2016—by someone else.

MG was rabid. We had worked with these two probable coven members as our rental agents for three years. Why hadn’t they notified us first before booking the crumbling cottage out from under us? Where was the consideration? Where was the loyalty? Their response was that since we made so many complaints about the condition of the decrepit cottage that January, they assumed we weren’t pleased with the accommodations and didn’t plan to rebook.  Ha. So that was it. They didn’t want to deal with legitimate complaints.

Having been rendered rickety cottage-less for the 2016 snowbird season, we sadly informed our friends that they couldn’t count on us to join them in Florida next winter. They were as devastated as we were. They even checked with their own rental agents, non-coven members all, but were unable to come up with a pet-friendly rental for us for 2016. We checked with numerous rental agents ourselves. No joy was to be had.

One afternoon, we happened by a rental agency while out for a bike ride. Lo and behold, the agency had a pet-friendly rental available for 2016! Yowza! We drove out with an agent to inspect it. It was a much nicer cottage than the ghetto model we were currently in. We liked it and put a deposit on it for next year. We went back to the cruddy cottage and celebrated our good fortune.

Our joy lasted for a mere twenty-four hours. The following morning, the new rental agent called to inform us that the much nicer cottage was unavailable. The owner forgot to inform the agency that it was no longer for rent. He was creating a complex, building a much, much nicer and larger home beside it, and planned to remodel and add the much nicer cottage to the complex as a guesthouse.

We were devastated, doomed to resume our futile search again or give up entirely and winter up north. O joy.

Hold on. The new agent called with good news. The much nicer cottage’s owner felt responsible for inconveniencing us by not removing the much nicer cottage from the rental list. By way of apology, he offered us his other property nearby and would let us rent it for the same rental fee as the much nicer cottage. Would that be acceptable?

The new rental agent drove us out to inspect the much nicer cottage owner’s other property nearby. O wow. There must be some mistake. The agent pulled into the driveway of an extremely attractive duplex—an extremely attractive beachfront duplex.

On. The. Beach.

My jaw dropped. My pulse raced. I almost soiled my undies.

Would that be acceptable? Hell, yes!!! MG and I went through the motions of inspecting the little palace anyway and pronounced the unit’s accommodations acceptable. We booked it immediately, before the owner could rethink his remarkably generous offer.

In jubilation, we returned to the confines of the seedy cottage where we notified all our friends that the crisis had been resolved in our favor. Yay! I then dashed off an email to the two coven-member rental agents who betrayed us.

I informed the coven members that there were no hard feelings because everything turned out for the best after all. With unbridled glee, I revealed that we successfully booked a duplex condo unit for 2016 with another rental agency and at the same rate the two broom riders were charging us for the derelict cottage from hell. With blissful satisfaction, I revealed that unlike the humdrum cottage, the condo was located beachfront.

It was so rewarding to have the last laugh, and so refreshing that our karma turned out to be a lady instead of a bitch.

I stand in the midst of it all and dang if I can remember where everything goes. Not at first anyway.

After two and a half months, I become so accustomed to the layout of the Florida rental cottage and where I keep everything down there that I have trouble remembering where I keep everything up here. For the first few days, home doesn’t seem like home. It’s more like a place I visited a while ago with which I am no longer familiar. It feels sort of weird having to learn my own house all over again.

Eventually, I sort everything out, finally remembering where they all go, and restore all items to their former locations. It usually doesn’t take more than a week, tops—but there are other readjustments I have to make.

Remembering where I am when I get out of bed in the middle of the night is one of them. It’s disorienting to tiptoe into a closet in the dark instead of the master bath, not to mention embarrassing.

There’s more. After two months of having to memorize and use the resort entry gate code and the cottage’s garage door code numbers, I drew a blank when I tried to remember our home’s numerical burglar alarm code. I found myself standing before the beeping alarm console in a cold sweat. The numbers I memorized—gate code, garage door code, alarm code, phone number, social security number, RWA^® membership number—all jumbled together in my brain. I squeezed my eyes shut trying to block out all but the alarm code, willing my memory to kick in and come up with the code before the siren began to wail and the Sheriff’s Deputy pulled into the driveway. The memory failed to kick in, so I went with my instincts instead and punched in a series of numbers that felt vaguely familiar. Miraculously, the beeping ceased. Be still my heart.

I faced a similar situation with our home safe. I needed to retrieve an item from the safe—my MMRWA Angel Award pin to wear to the March monthly meeting. I experienced another tabula rasa moment. What the heck is the freaking code?  I punched in variations on the numbers I was sure comprised the code. None worked. So not fair. I’m going to be late to the meeting. And it was about to go from bad to worse. If I wanted to wear my Angel pin to the meeting, and I did, I would have to grovel before Macho Guy and admit I couldn’t get into the safe. He pointed out the one little step I left out that was the code’s equivalent to Open Sesame. He muttered something about it being “time for the Home.” Dang that was humiliating.

As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, my car turned on me. I got into the Ford Edge that I hadn’t driven in months and backed out of the garage. I reached up to close the garage door with the car’s built in remote. I pressed the button. The garage door didn’t budge. The sunroof did. It opened. Oops. Wrong button. I pressed the one next to it. The garage door remained open. The sunroof didn’t. It closed. Oops again. Where the devil is the remote? Think. Think! I kept remembering where the controls were located in the Traverse. Their location in the Edge escaped me but I wasn’t about to admit it to Macho Guy. One humiliation per day was enough, thank you ever so.

In frustration, I banged my head against the steering wheel in the hope of jostling the memory loose. I was just about to admit defeat and get out to close the garage door manually when the light bulb finally flashed on over my head. I pulled the sun visor down and there was the remote button on the other side of the visor. Halleluiah!

Banging my head against the steering wheel apparently worked wonders. I’ll have to keep that in mind the next time I have a memory hiccup. Fortunately, I arrived only five minutes late at the restaurant where our group’s luncheon meeting was taking place. The way my day was going, I’m surprised I remembered how to get there.

I absolutely adore my golden oak computer desk. It is the anchor corner of my writer’s cave. It has shelves for books, nooks for electronic devices and for a wheeled computer case, slots for music CDs [Mozart, especially, for when I’m plotting], slide out under-desktop shelves for an external keyboard and track pad, drawers for files and office supplies, and a large flat surface on which to set an external monitor and spread notes out—and make a ginormous mess, prominently featuring several tall untidy stacks of papers, each representing a different work in progress. Nirvana. Sheer nirvana.

The multi-function Officejet is also tough to get along without. Its substitute, a portable HP Deskjet 400, has a very small footprint and can fit easily into my wheeled computer case along with my MacBook Pro. It does color printing but not duplex printing; it prints on one side only. It can’t scan. It can’t copy. It can’t fax. A triple threat. On the other hand, I shouldn’t whine because it beats the alternative. A baby printer is better than no printer at all.

For the last three winters, Macho Guy did his valiant best to create a semblance of office space for me in the rentals we inhabited for the two months we spent in Florida. He set up a folding, height adjustable worktable as a makeshift desk in one corner of the living area. We arranged my MacBook Pro, Deskjet, electric pencil sharpener, notepads, office supplies, and my current book-book [thank you, Merline Lovelace] on the makeshift desk in the most efficient layout. At that point, I began missing my ergonomic computer chair, which I left behind in my office back home. Kitchen chairs just don’t cut it when you sit at a computer for several hours at a time. I felt the difference in the two Bs—my butt and my back. Drat. I’m whining again.

When we arrived at our rental cottage this January, a pleasant surprise awaited. The owners replaced some of the furniture in the living area and made one very valuable addition—a desk. It wasn’t large. It wasn’t golden oak. It wasn’t even a computer desk. But it was an actual desk with three drawers and a large enough working surface for me to set out my MacBook Pro and my little baby printer. No more folding, height adjustable worktables for me.

I still have to sit on a regular straight back chair though, but Macho Guy came to the rescue. He found a fabulous seat cushion for me at Brookstone. It has a little cut out in a very strategic spot that provides maximum comfort for one’s gluteus maximus. Trust me, that cushion makes a huge difference. It enables my hind end to handle a straight back chair for the next two months. I’m darn sure I’ll be sitting pretty from now on.

Here’s the way it was supposed to go.

Macho Guy, Schnoodle Dog and I take a pleasant, comfortable drive down South in clear driving weather, in excellent health and in high spirits, to spend a warm, joy-filled and fun week at Christmas with Firstborn and family in the Carolinas. Then our happy trio drives farther south for a cheery, upbeat New Year’s celebration and week-long visit in the Sunshine State with my fab Baby Sister, my seriously cool brother-in-law and their affectionate and unbelievably needy Viszla, in their new home. After that, we drive on up to Florida’s panhandle for a sunny and warm two months’ stay in a charming rental cottage near the enchanting Emerald Coast where I would write volumes and Macho Guy would play golf (under par, of course) three days a week in gorgeous weather while I write my masterpiece.

Enter Murphy’s Law, aka the downer known as reality.

Excellent Health? Right. I caught a nasty cold a week before we were to leave for Firstborn’s place. The cold got super nasty so I finally dragged my sorry self to the doctor the day before we left. She listened to my lungs, took x-rays and put me on high-octane antibiotics and two other major chemical concoctions for my not really a super nasty cold but actually a super nasty sinus/respiratory infection. I coughed up chunks of lung (I think it was lung) and got no sleep the night before we left. I was undead the following morning but with a bit of tinted moisturizer on my face, I passed for the living.

A comfortable, pleasant drive in clear weather? Not likely. We packed our Chevy Traverse a few inches from its roof with luggage and other travel necessities, leaving no room for comfort or maneuvering, and we hit the road. Rain was coming down when we pulled out of our driveway. It rained non-stop from Michigan to the Carolinas. I dislike driving in the rain, especially if the temperature is hovering at or around freezing, which it was when we started out. Scary, especially when largely insane drivers go zooming by as if they were qualifying for the Indianapolis 500.

High spirits? Oh, please. I coughed, sneezed and snuffled from Michigan to the Carolinas. The meds didn’t seem to help at all. I was out of sorts, irritable and—to be honest—totally bitchy. As a consequence I was a mostly, if not completely, obnoxious traveling companion. My bad.

A warm, joy-filled and fun week at Christmas? Guess again. When we finally arrived at Firstborn’s, the gang kept their distance having been forewarned that I was a walking petri dish swarming with bacteria. I couldn’t hug or kiss my grandchildren, a heartbreaking disappointment. I had to keep a safe distance when playing games with them too. ::sigh::

That wasn’t the only disappointment. We were at Firstborn’s for only two days when a major ice storm knocked out power to our area of Michigan. Little Brother, who also lives in Michigan with his family, drove to our house and hooked up a generator. Macho Guy refused to impose on our neighbors and insisted on driving home solo to keep the generator operating. Firstborn and I couldn’t talk him out of it, and he wouldn’t take me with him since I was still ill. On the way to Michigan, Macho Guy began feeling the symptoms of a cold and cough. [I can’t imagine how he caught it.] The power was out for several days, so Macho Guy spent Christmas alone in Michigan while nursing a nasty cold and cough, and I spent Christmas with our son and his family down south while nursing a super nasty sinus/respiratory infection. O joy. It was our first Christmas apart since we were married. Bummer doesn’t begin to cover the ground.

Our holiday plans suffered another setback while Macho Guy was holding down the fort in Michigan. Schnoodle Dog, who normally is able to go for eight hours or more without a pit stop, chose Firstborn’s home in which to lose control of his bladder indoors—on three occasions—while chasing after the family’s two female Labradoodles, the little lech. After the third embarrassing incident, we suspected a urinary tract infection.

The day after Macho Guy returned from Michigan, literally sick and tired, we postponed the next leg of our trip in order to take Schnoodle Dog to the Labradoodles’ vet. Schnoodle Dog had a UTI test (positive) and the vet’s examination revealed an enlarged prostate. She scheduled an ultrasound for the following day. Schnoodle Dog is our four-legged child. We were so worried about him that we delayed the Florida trip until we heard the ultrasound result. Fortunately, the enlargement was benign. Whew! Unfortunately, Schnoodle Dog has to wear an incontinence wrap temporarily. (It’s less humiliating for him than a doggie diaper.) Even more unfortunately, Schnoodle Dog will have to be neutered when we return home to eliminate the prostate problem. We haven’t told him. He is deaf; he wouldn’t hear us if we did tell him, but I suspect he read the vet’s lips. He’s been very clingy and more affectionate than usual since the vet visit, so I’m sure he’s on to us.

A cheery, upbeat New Year’s celebration and weeklong visit in the Sunshine State with my fab Baby Sister? Don’t I wish. By the time we dealt with Schnoodle Dog’s health problems, we ended up spending New Year’s Eve and Day with Firstborn and family, staying much longer than we planned. Since we missed our scheduled New Year’s visit with my Baby Sister and BIL by several days, our visit to their new home was scrubbed by mutual consent. Macho Guy and I drove directly to the panhandle from Firstborn’s place; Baby Sis, my BIL and their pampered pooch drove up to the panhandle to visit with us in our rental cottage instead.

A sunny and warm two months’ stay in a charming rental cottage? Seriously? It rained the entire first week, confining the four of us to indoor activities like hanging out at the cottage during the day watching movies from our DVD collection and hanging out at local bistros with live music at night. The sun came out at last the day before Baby Sis and her hubs were due to leave. It figured.

About Macho Guy’s golf. He missed out on his first three days of golf because of the wet weather. He prowled the cottage grumbling and muttering unpleasantries to himself. Once the weather dried up, he was able to play but again prowled the cottage grumbling and muttering unpleasantries to himself because of the inconsistency of his play. Still over par, dang it.

About my writing. I got back to writing once our houseguests departed, beginning with this blog post. Tomorrow, it’s back to the masterpiece. Okay, okay, so it’s back to the manuscript. [I was just thinking positively.]

And so it all went…not exactly the way we planned. Thanks a lot, Murphy.