Wow, the Knitting Virgin is one year old. I can't believe so much time has passed. I can't believe I'm still in this dungeon that caused the stress that required this blog to save my sanity... Time flies! (I know I sound like an old Grandma, tough crap!) What began as a way to keep myself from screaming in person (screaming in type is so much more socially accepted) has now become a wonderful part of my life. Thanks to all the friends I've made in blogland and to my non-knitting friends that read to keep up with my little life stories as well!
Reading back over some of the old posts, I realized I was much more fun to read when I was more bitter. Maybe I should get all pissy again! Here's a few of my fave's...
Momma toughs up Joey & Beth
old guy prayer from the good OLD days
Master of my donut domain & the bike/chubby roller blading man incident"
Yes, I'm an idiot and can't reference back to the archived post as I can only get to the entire month. Sorry.
Florida Stories Part 2: (sorry, long post follows)
The last day of our WONDERFUL trip I decided to take the kids to Marco Island. It was the PRETTIEST beach I've ever seen...white sand, beautiful shells, and EVERYTHING was alive. The beach by the Pier in Naples, FL had people fishing a ways off shore, but really nothing was wiggling around near me. I'm one of those people who likes to be out in nature, but doesn't actually like anything in nature to touch me. I like the IDEA of nature, just on my own terms.
Apparently the undisturbed natural scene is a real draw for others. Beautiful beach, pretty waters, the kids and I parked our stuff under the umbrella and headed in. EVERY FREAKING thing was MOVING around us in the water. Freaked me out. majorly. Minnows nibbling at our toes, crabs and other creepy things in shells moved when you stepped on them. Yes, my feet touched icky things without my approval. The kids loved it. They ran around with their sand buckets trying to catch minnows and other weird long skinny snake-looking fishes and had a blast. I toughed up and decided not to pass my insecurites along to the kids. I caught a couple of fish for the kids in the bucket, they were so impressed. Then I saw this big string of seaweed floating nearby and grabbed it up to further impress my children with being able to see nature up close & personal. It was not seaweed. It was alive. It did not like being picked up. I think it was a snook? Some freaky eel/snake looking fish that did some major flip in my hands. I screamed, all the people nearby screamed, the beach was almost cleared as the dolphins were swimming in as well and someone thought I saw a shark. It was quite the scene. yup, just call me nature-girl.
We saw dolphins, some guy near me asked if I wanted to hold a live sea dollar. I looked and decided, not so much. It was covered in hairs and very strange. I guess the pretty sea-dollar shell thing is INSIDE the animal. I always thought some little critter went inside the shell. Live & learn. Everywhere you stepped, things MOVED under your toes. I had the kids float on their boogy boards so they didn't get bit by anything. I got stung on the bottom of one of my feet right in the middle of my arch by something and did not scream, was tough and only cussed under my breath. We even had a manatee (freaky sea cow looking thing) swim up and people went out to swim along. I passed on that little adventure as I'd had enough of nature by then.
THROUGH all of this there was this little older guy watching us in the water. You know me, I never overreact, so I was thinking PEDOPHILE. We moved a ways down the beach, he followed. We went up for a break under the umbrella, he came up and said
"hello...you verra verra bootiful woman" yup, I'm sexual dynamite. I said, "thank you, but I'm married" and gave Joey a look that said "SHUT UP NOW!!!!!!" He smiled, said "no speak English, you speak Italia?" "No, Married, Sorry", turned my back on him thinking he'd get the picture. Apparently not. For the next TWO HOURS this little guy followed us around, staying about 3 feet from me, just staring at me. Quite unnerving. When I was picking up shells, he'd come, bring me some shells, bow low, smile and more "verra verra bootiful" crap. We sat and ate lunch with this guy just standing nearby. I'm not kidding, TWO HOURS of him following us around. I was considering asking some nice man nearby to ask the guy to leave for me, when Italian man comes up and says "if you married, where you husband?" I pointed at the hotel and said, "he doesn't like me talking with other men, he gets very angry" I even made an angry manly face. He stood around a while longer and finally left. creepy. Yes, I'm a single mother with my children in a strange land. Let me go off with an old guy that doesn't speak English and end up on cnn news. yeah. that makes sense. Cripes. We ended up having the time of our lives even WITH the critters, fish and old guys.
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