sunshine here we come

Saturday morning we leave for one of our favorite warm weather destinations - Playa del Carmen. Actually with all the snow, wind, and rain we have had lately I think anywhere with sunshine and beaches would be welcome at this point. I have to admit I am quite pleased with myself for getting this booked early last September - what foresight I have to know I will be so ready for some beach time right now. But really I am always ready for beach time so on the foresight part it really wasn't that hard to predict.

Of course January in Seattle isn't our most pleasant month of the year. The rain starts to even wear on me a bit and I long for our normal light rain instead of the downpours we have been receiving. Sam swears he is growing webbed feet but I double-checked the other evening and it wasn't so. Plus I pointed out with his love of the water this would actually be a good thing for him if it happened.

Now I just have to start my over-packing. I keep telling myself I just need a few swim suits, reef flip flops, plenty of reading material (ok I have 20 books picked out - Tanya and Carla you had better bring plenty for me to read as well as 20 isn't going to cut it), a few pairs of shorts, a couple of t-shirts, and about 10 bottles of sunscreeen. But in reality I know I will once again bring way too much stuff but I am going to try my hardest.

Of course my packing won't actually begin until Friday night - I don't leave until early Saturday morning so that should be plenty of time to frantically search for my beach attire. I certainly don't need any sleep and sometime I will most likely feel the need to head to Target since I forgot something important like only having 8 bottles of sunscreen instead of the 10 I am predicting I will need.

Hey our extremely white Seattle skin must be protected. I don't think I have actually gotten any true sun exposure since - well that was the last time I was in Playa last January. I don't think I put on a swim suit over the summer except to jump in the sound, it was never warm enough to actually lay out. Immediately the towel went over me and I was bundling up.

One of the most beauteous things about living in Seattle is that we don't have to wear swim suits - it is rarely ever hot enough.

I am looking forward to yummy Mexican food, beach time, sunshine, pool time, reading, snorkeling, fishing, and yep more sunshine. They have a beautiful marina close by and am sure we will have to visit it again so Sam can imagine his boat rocking gently in the harbor. I do share his dream of having our boat down in Playa but don't share the dream of how it would arrive.

Fortunately, since our employers won't give us unlimited paid time off we will be flying the friendly skies and not sailing there though Sam would make an argument against my use of the word fortunately. He would love to sail there but he will have to find a new first mate for that trip. I will fly in to meet him though, after all having a sailboat in Mexico does sound pretty good to me though I doubt I would ever make it back to work again.

Somehow I don't think it would be a big problem for him to find a new first mate am sure there would be plenty of volunteers. I will just remind him of how much he would miss be but in reality I am not sure he would even think of me if he was off sailing to Mexico. Well he might if a storm came up or they were sailing in heavy winds and the boat was heeled way over and then his thoughts would be ones of "so glad Kayla isn't here right now - good call on her not coming along."

I think we will just keep the picture of our sailboat in the marina there as a dream - or if he gets very serious I can use photoshop.

habla espanol?

So most of the time I feel Sam and are both pretty realistic people but then this week I realized this might not always be true. Turns out we have been a bit overly optimistic.

We are heading to Playa del Carmen this Saturday for over a week of sun, beaches, diving for Sam (more pool time for me), excellent Mexican food, and did I mention sun? We have both talked about for some time now - years to be more truthful - about our desire to learn another language.

I took Spanish in high school and college but when my professor starting only speaking Spanish in class I would show up and not even realize it was test day. Seems maybe I wasn't quite keeping up. It was the end of my formal Spanish training and I left being able to say my name, tell everyone I was fine thank you, and count.

Each time I have visited Mexico I am under the delusion I can speak a bit of Spanish and I try and use my very rusty skills on the Mexican population. I have phrases I can say but if someone actually answers my question I suddenly revert to asking them to continually repeat themselves. Finally they start just pointing and using sign language and I suddenly figure it out. See - I think to myself - I really do know some Spanish and given a bit more practice I could be fluent.

So for this trip Sam and I were going to get serious about this speaking Spanish. In theory this sounds like a great idea but the problem is we got serious on Sunday - as in Sunday the 10th 1 week before we leave.

Sam was frantically studying Spanish via the Rosetta Stone while I was using My Spanish Coach on my Nintendo DS. Now I will say I have been trying to buy the Spanish software since I got my DS just after Christmas but not sure that really would have mattered. Even if it hadn't been sold out I don't think those extra 2 weeks would have been long enough for me have conversations in Spanish, at least those that went beyond hello, my name is, and I am doing very well thank you.

So I did the pretest and I ended up on level 9 which was all about summer, raining (not a word I want to know in Spanish I expect sun not rain in Mexico), snow - even worse, and now I am on to family members. While this might be helpful if I was at a family reunion it doesn't seem especially relevant to our trip.

What I really want to know is how to bargain, read a Spanish menu, ask for directions, where the best restaurants are, and how to get to the best snorkeling. Somehow I don't think I will get to this lesson before we leave. Luckily I will have a 5 1/2 plane ride to cram even more.

As we are frantically cramming for our trip I started to have a good laugh at our expense. While it is good we have started our lessons we might be just a tad late to the game here. But then I remembered my resolution was to learn to speak Spanish but do it in a Spanish speaking country. I am pretty sure I can get someone to speak to me while I am sitting at the pool or at a restaurant. If I engage others in conversation I will just have to tell them upfront I want to learn instead of trying out my pre-canned phrases and then wishing they wouldn't speak so quickly.

Why don't I just keep learning about family members and hope I finally pass this level at least I will maybe be able to ask about their abuelas, abuelos, hijas, hijos, hermanas, and hermanos. Now if only I could understand what else they are telling me. Maybe if I keep working at it next year I will be a bit more ahead of the game. See already a reason to return before I have even left on this trip.

there is a limit

This weekend Sam needed to put the dinghy back on the davits. With all the snow we got in Seattle he took the dinghy off the back and put it in front of our boat in the slip.

Fortunately our dock mates were gone so it was a pretty easy task for him to do by himself but they have returned and now the dinghy can't get by. Since marina rules state that a dinghy needs to be stored at the dinghy dock or on the boat it was time for Sam to get it back on. Sam had gotten an exception with all of the snow as we didn't want the extra snowload to make the dinghy too heavy.

Since I needed a boat that would still zip around marinas, bays, and fulfill my need for boating speed (without leaning so much) we got a dinghy that had the largest engine we could but still stayed within the weight limit of our davits, just barely. Too much snow and this might have been a problem.

So Sam recruited me to help him move the boat so he could get the dinghy back out. I was somewhat obligated since technically the dinghy is mine though he seems to really enjoy it. It was not the nicest day outside. Think plenty of wind gusting to almost 30, rain, and cold. Since Sam would have to move the boat away from the dock and circle around while I moved the dinghy I kept waiting for him to say "lets take it for a quick spin".

Well he hadn't even mentioned it and he was now away from the dock. As he drove away to circle around I wondered how long it would be before I saw him again. After all he is now away from the dock and it might be a bit too much temptation for him to immediately return. But within just a few minutes he was heading back down for our slip.

I am sure I would have been more shocked if I hadn't realized the wind had picked up substantially in the few minutes he had been gone and the boat was heading straight to me. We hadn't really come up with a plan before he left for his return and now in heavy wind I had to somehow figure out how he wanted me to help dock.

Remember we learned from all of our docking experiences that the best way to get the boat in the slip with minimum drama is for us to have a plan before we are at the dock. Fortunately he got back in the slip without a whole lot of assistance from the first mate - or dock hand in my role of the day.

Never once did Sam mention taking the boat out for a quick sail or even a motor. Turns out even the most die hard sailor or the most passionate one still knows when port is the best and warmest place to be. Yes there are even times when Sam doesn't have the desire to go sailing or cruise around on his boat, guess I am still learning things about him.

eat more beef

I am not much of a red meat eater much to the dismay of my family. I grew up in a meat and potatoes family and didn't like either much as a kid. My meat choice is still chicken and seafood. I think when I got into cooking and starting actually cooking for Sam he wanted to go out to eat just so he could eat something other than chicken.

In fact my 5 year old nephew inherited those meat and potato genes. Ask him about his favorite food and it is meat and he doesn't mean chicken at least not the kind that doesn't come in breaded strip form. Though he asked if crab was meat and when told it was he said that was why he liked it so much.

Chicken is something that goes best with a sauce and I love sauce. I don't think I would ever eat chicken without some sort of sauce, marinade, or gravy. It is pretty much the vehicle to convey the taste to my taste buds.

For a long time I would eat steak about once a year then I discovered Chicago steak and on a business trip there I ate steak for breakfast and dinner at the same restaurant 3 days in a row. After my first bite at that restaurant I suddenly fell in love with steak and it sounded good enough to eat for 6 straight meals. Then I came back to Seattle and didn't eat much steak again. We know seafood here but steak not so much.

Unfortunately I think most restaurants don't know how to cook a good steak mainly since I want mine medium well. For some reason chefs seem to think even if I am paying they should cook the steak how they really like it and now how their patrons do. There are exceptions but these seem to be very few.

Then I discovered the meat market in Issaquah. They cut the fillets to order and they almost don't even need a sauce (though it only makes it tastier). Not only did they have steak I wanted to eat they also had apple sausage, buffalo pepperoni in both hot and mild. It was enough to make me crave a steak (finally Sam said).

This summer we had the fillets on the boat with fresh crab (lots of garlic butter), sauce for the fillets, twice baked mashed potatoes, salad, and garlic bread. I thought I had reached dining nirvana. So of course on our next trip out we had a repeat though we forgot our chief grill master, Corey, and it was taken down just a notch. Why oh why can't it be summer again on the boat - I can taste it all right now.

I had finally expanded my food horizons and then I got the bacon the guy at the meat market recommended since they know a sucker, or a red meat convert, when they see one. I am not much of a bacon person (fat is really my main issue with red meat so bacon presents a problem) but then I tried their bacon this weekend. In a word yum! In fact we had it both Saturday and Sunday for brunch.

I think I might actually be somewhat of a convert to red meat though chicken will still be our main protein source (sorry Sam). I even actually thought about cooking up the last bit of bacon this morning but then I came to my senses and realized I was already late with it being Monday and all and coming in smelling of bacon might not be my wisest choice. That really isn't a very subtle way to come into the office, though tomorrow I might make a different choice.

resolutions by Sam

So last evening during dinner together I told Sam about the resolutions I had made. At first he thought I was talking about typical resolutions but I told him this year the ones I made were ones I would love forward to and actually want to complete.

After telling him some of my resolutions he wanted to add a few of his own. Now you might notice none of mine have to do with the boat. This is an area where we spend plenty of time and if we keep the status quo we will spend most of our free time on Zig Zag.

But Sam has proposed the following and almost all have to do with the boat which shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.

Spend 100 days on the boat . . . Kayla will dock the boat by herself . . . go further north into Canada on our boat than we ever have before . . . start to figure out a way to spend an entire summer on the boat . . . play more golf this year (I think that what he really wants is a way to carry his clubs on board without taking up more room so maybe this should really say that he wants to invent a collapsible set of clubs) . . . and finally for the the non boat related resolution - to make at least a $1 off of his performance reporting website

Now I pointed out last night I did dock the boat by myself - thank you very much. But he reminded me that he didn't put any caveats on his resolution - like I do when choosing to dock the boat - very little wind, ideal conditions, I feel like it, not too many people watching, nobody on the boat but us, and Sam giving feedback before the process. Turns out he wants me to dock the boat in any circumstances without any feedback or pointers from him.

Well this might be one that I think could be worse than those typical resolutions like losing weight. That at least doesn't involve Sam's favorite toy and the possibility of me crashing into the dock or another boat. Don't worry if you see us coming in to the dock as it will still be Sam at the wheel - this is his resolution not mine.

But come to think of it he is a good salesperson as he did convince to to buy the boat in the first place. This could be his biggest sales job to date though he would really like his ultimate sales test to be me saying I will sail around the world or at least to Hawaii. But maybe that is really his plan when he says he wants me to dock the boat.

resolutions

With the beginning of 2009 - okay am a bit late here since it is 5 days in already and am not quite sure how that happened - it is time to make resolutions. Instead of the usual ones I never seen to keep or make headway with I have made the following resolutions I will enjoy and want to keep.

try out a new recipe at least once a week . . . don't pass up any opportunities to travel . . . eat more of the good chocolate . . . go out to dinner with friends or have them over at least once a week . . . take a day off at least once a quarter for no good reason . . . spend more time doing crafts with the nephews . . . take more pictures . . . shut off my cell phone occasionally . . . spend more time in the water - a pool, a lake, the ocean . . . work on my Spanish - while in a Spanish speaking country . . . book our trip to Italy . . . reach out to old friends I haven't been in contact with recently . . . try a new restaurant at least once a month . . . have a date night with Sam at least once a week . . . redecorate at least one room in my house . . . have more fires - in our fireplace and out in the firepit on the deck

These are all things I want to do and look forward to doing so 2009 might be the first time I look forward to keeping my resolutions.

Happy 2009!