"Wastin' away again in Margaritaville"*

Time to make you all a little jealous: the hubby and I are off to St. Lucia tomorrow morning. I thought the title lyric was particularly fitting because the resort we're staying at, Rendezvous, is all-inclusive with a swim-up bar and everything. Plus, the hubby and I (and a bunch of other crazy, young fools) went to a Jimmy Buffett concert for our first date.

In honor of getting out of snowy New England, here's some pictures from the last time I took an island vacation, which was to the incomparable French Polynesia.

*Jimmy Buffett

"I make mad films, okay, I don't make films, but if I did they'd have a samurai"*

I'm honored to have been given the Lesa's Bald Faced Liar "Creative Writer" Blogger Award! Thanks to Donna McDine for recognizing my special talents as a liar...I mean writer. Check out her blog and website.

Here are the rules that I must follow:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link to them.
2. Add the award to your blog.
3. Tell six outrageous lies about yourself and One Truth.
4. Nominate six creative liars...I mean writers and post links to them.
5. Let your nominees know they have been nominated.

Okay, so I'm not very good at following directions, so I'm going to tell six almost truths and one absolute truth. Can you figure out the one absolute truth? (Check out the comments for the answer.)

1. I once ran a marathon in Alaska on a whim.
2. My favorite food is pepperoni pizza.
3. I read 65 novels last year.
4. I've been playing soccer for over 20 years.
5. My favorite Harry Potter book is the Prisoner of Azkaban.
6. I've never been on TV.
7. I got married at a haunted restaurant in Windsor, CT.

And here's my nominees:

Kimberly Sabatini at http://kimberlysabatini.blogspot.com/

Debbie Mumford at http://debbiemumford.com/blog/

Rena Jones at http://renajjones.blogspot.com/

Anna Staniszewski at http://www.annastan.com/blog/

Marcia Hoehne at http://marciahoehne.blogspot.com/

Lisha Cauthen at http://lishacauthen.wordpress.com/

Okay, off to let my nominees know!

*Barenaked Ladies

"Let me crash upon your shore"*

Today the hubby and I were sitting on a bench at the beach (the same beach at which I did my listening exercise). We had just stood up to continue our walk when a woman hopped out of her running vehicle and said, "Excuse me." I had my hood on, so I didn't even hear her, but the hubby did. We stopped and she said, "I'm looking for Anchor Beach."

I gestured to the beach and around the corner and said, "I believe this whole stretch is Anchor Beach." (Apparently she didn't believe me because as soon as we turned the corner, we saw her asking someone else!)

It seemed weird that she was looking for a specific beach in the middle of winter, but we soon found out the real reason she was there. We rounded another corner and a news truck and a bunch of people were milling around. Cones and police tape had been set up and signs were posted.

At first I couldn't figure out why all those people were there. I turned to my husband and quietly asked, "Do you see anything?" Just as I asked, I realized the rock I was looking at wasn't just a rock. A baby seal was laying on it. He was so well camouflaged that he was hard to see. Can you see him lying there on the rock? (Scroll down to the bottom of the post for a hint.)

At first he looked dead, but as we watched and listened we found out that he was just basking in the sun and wasn't hurt or anything. He was young but old enough to be out on his own. Our little visitor made the local news! Here he is.

I was so happy to have this little surprise spotting today that I did my own banana pose! (Okay, here he is one more time...this time I've circled him!)


*Enya

"Time to be a ghost"*

Let's start with a bit of a digression: links to three contests. One is to win R.J. Anderson's book Knife over at Cindy Pon's blog. A second contest is a book giveaway at the Class of 2k10 blog. The last is for a MG/YA agent contest over at Guide to Literary Agents. And now back to our regularly scheduled post!

The other night the hubby yelled to me from the living room, "You've gotta come see this!" I had just gotten out of the shower and was still in my towel, but it sounded urgent, so I dutifully obeyed. He pointed at the TV and asked, "Do you recognize this place?"

Without hesitation I said, "It's where we got married." I was thinking that it was pretty cool that the Nutmeg Restaurant was on TV...that is until I realized that it was being featured on an A&E show called Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal. Then I started thinking Okay, that's kind of freaky.

Check out this video to see the episode of Psychic Kids (you might notice the above chandelier in it). The restaurant doesn't come in until the 9:28 mark, and the 11:22 mark is when things really start to get scary. The "loft" is where the girl says she feels a ghostly presence and that was where my bridesmaids and I got dressed before the wedding.

When I thought about it, I remembered we did have a bit of a ghostly experience in the loft. We tried to open the window and all of a sudden it fell out of the track. By all laws of physics, the window should've gone crashing to the ground, but it didn't. Something caught it and it teetered there, jutting out a weird angle. Here's one of the guys from the restaurant trying to put the window back in place.


Come to think of it, my whole wedding seemed kind of cursed. We had originally booked a boat on the Connecticut River, but six months before the date, I got a piece of certified mail with the deposit check (at least I got my money back) and note that said the docking site had been bought out and we'd have to find a new place to have our wedding. That was no easy task, considering we had already booked the D.J. and photographer and couldn't really change the date. (In wedding time, six months is like two days!)

Luckily the Nutmeg Restaurant was available, so we booked it right up. Then a few days before the date we found out the wedding planner there was "let go." That meant the main person we had been working with to plan our entire wedding was not going to be working there on the wedding day. It also poured for 13 (gotta love lucky 13) straight days leading up to the wedding. It poured so hard that the hotel we stayed at the night before had massive leaking. And that was just the big things, never mind the million little snafus that happened.

Oh, and I just remembered that my sister accidentally left her dress in the loft after the wedding. The hubby and I went back the next day to try and find dress and to pick up a few other things that had been forgotten. The dress was no where to be seen! (There was a wedding after ours, and it's possible someone from that wedding took it, but now that I know about the ghost, I'm blaming it on him.)

Turns out the actual wedding was awesome. The ceremony was personal (and brief), the food was delicious, and the dance floor was packed most of the day. The sun even came out in the afternoon. I guess it wasn't so bad having a haunted wedding site.

*Tori Amos