The day after

The hotel rang to wake us up - they had a welcome gift for us when we go to reception. I would have preferred the gift of sleep. THEN our luggage arrived. Annette's bag had been checked by customs who decided to rip off the lock that they had the master key to rather than using their key. To the car we went and hit the local waterfalls. With the rain looking imminent we headed for the shops and found some wonderful clothes to give the kids for Christmas. Oh how their little eyes will moisten when the iPod they thought they were getting turns out to be a nice new pair of slacks. Lunch was a quick sub - Annette got the regular drink, I got the large. That was about 6 hours ago and I'm still drinking it. As a regular traveller to the States, I do wonder why my first soft drink is always a cherry pepsi. It tastes like fizzy benadryl but I keep drinking it. Come to think of it, that nagging cough has gone.
We did all the stores - Macys, Sears and the BIG KMart. And it was big. It had it's own pizza place. I must have tried on 100 pairs of jeans. I was in and out of my pants all day - it was like a Russ Meyer movie (it took this long to get a Seinfeld reference in). And so we arrived home when the radio show was interrupted by an extreme weather warning. That's when it hit - wind, lightning and torrential rain, followed by blackouts. Still we had to eat. You have undoubtedly heard of the legend of She who shuts down restaurants. So we head off in the car through monsoonal rain for a half hour drive on dark windy roads. We finally got to the restaurant and it's not there. The first day. What are the odds? Very good. We turned around drove most of the way back to eat Mexican. You can't beat a good mole - oh it's pronounced molay. So here I am in the hotel room. The power is back, Annette is snoring and it's time to explore the 120 plus tv stations. Oh and should I feel insulted when Annette says she forgot to bring air freshener? I've smelled worse.