owl V. dove

Oh so much to say. First, my darling co-worker is a huge DMB fan and is going to see him at the concert tonight. She just turned 25. Although I believe myself when I say I never want to repeat my 20s, I am a little jealous. 25 was like the best time of my life.

This weekend we are headed to inaugurate Anne and Nick's son into our biannual trout fishing camp weekend. The girls cook and make mojitos. The boys fish. There's some bike riding and frisbee throwing involved. It's all and all, a really good time.

I'm very looking forward to it. This week is already a productive one and that makes me smile. House is cleaned. Laundry done. Re-perfected my buttermilk biscuit recipe last night. Try to make Hubs happy. Fun times with reading The Color Purple. Such a good book. I knew Alice Walker would get me just as well as Toni Morrison. I just didn't know how well.

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So St Lucia was wonderful. After flying a billion miles and hours, we land in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and lunch at the beautiful Ritz Carlton on Isla Verde. We only have a few hours so we take a long lunch, a few drinks, some beach air then back on the plane to arrive to champagne and new friends in St Lucia.

We had access to the most beautiful beach, gardens, and ocean I have ever seen. I will post pics soon for those who haven't already seen them on FB.

We decided on St Lucia for the diving there and were never disappointed. We dove and swam next to leatherbacks (sea turtles), played with puffer fish (hilarious albeit a bit scary since they are poisonous), swam among thousand year old coral reefs, squid that wouldn't ink, night dove into a world of conch, moray eels and sea snakes, prehistorically sized crab and spiny lobster (Caribbean lobster), as well as the terrifying finale of navigating a mine field of very large, very poisonous and painful if touched, sea urchin (all the monsters come out to play at night), armed only with an underwater torch.

It was then I decided that while I'm young, I will only take trips where we can dive. I have never been so free. It feels like flying on the moon and there's only you and there's nothing else.

The only thing I missed was an octopus. But I'll find mine one day. It's my only diving goal. Maybe if I'd had a rhinestone bluefin to reel him in as bait...