I am woman...

Hear me rub my sore muscles because I'm too cheap to rent a taxi.

On the plus side, I'm having those adult moments again (no, not *those*; *those* are none of your business) like I did when I navigated my own taxes FROM THE CARIBBEAN without getting audited... nevermind the fact that considering what I made last year, I don't think there is an audit pile for that group... maybe a laughing pile...

I'm often the type of person that tends to arrive for anything still pulling clothes on with wet hair, an hour late, often carrying something.

Thus, the necessity of getting all my stuff into storage "between the hours of 5 and 7" in the past, would ensure that at 6:50, I'd be dashing up the stairs begging them to hold it open long enough for me to get everything.

Chalk it up to leaving the island late... despite spending part of Tuesday getting my dive gear back from Dive Grenada, and then part of Wednesday getting the wetsuit I left at Dive Grenada back from Dive Grenada (to Phil's amusement), I had everything packed up, my luggage for the plane pretty much in order (with time to repack after I purchased a few items to take home), and ready to go.

I started hauling my (copious, good lord, where did I get all this stuff!!) belongings over to the top floor of SD3 at 5:03 and was finished before 6 PM. Booyah.

The downside to all this is that I can't feel my arms because that is a LOT of stuff and it is a lot of heavy, and since I was the last leaving the island, I had no amigos o amigas to hit up since the have all departed to various destinations.

The upside is I know my anatomy pretty well because I put a duffel bag with unpadded straps on my back like a backpack picked up a box of books and as I raised it over my head suddenly yelled "AHHHHHH MY RADIAL NERVES!!!!" Whew. Don't ever cinch your shoulders and raise something heavy over your head. It freaking hurts. Instant wrist drop.

And speaking of carrying items on your head, until you've carried a box of books on your head, you never realize quite how misshapen and pointy your head really is (or my head really is, at any rate)because it's hard to balance stuff on it. I think a phrenologist would quit if he got ahold of me... for a number of reasons, really.

I did have some help from a guy that saw me carrying an 85 lb dive bag on my back, a guitar in one hand, and a duffel in the other though... when he offered to help, I at first turned him down because he hit me at the halfway point and I said "Hoo boy; you have NO idea what you're volunteering for", but he went ahead anyway and said it'd be a good workout to hike the guitar and duffel up the stairs. Thanks, dude!

I also fared better with the dive bag than in times past... in the Philippines, the weight of that heavy bastard flipped me over backwards into the barricades at the airport and nearly took out a *surprisingly* spry elderly Filipina woman. Talk about making a scene, particularly since the bag is longer than I am so if I fall over backwards, my torso just kind of dangles from it with my butt about 3 inches from the ground and my arms hanging at 45 degree angles because I can't lower them all the way. Not dignified. This time, no turtle impressions. And padded straps, so no permanent nerve damage. Permanent back damage, perhaps, but diving and horseback riding already assure me of that for a fun future. Fortunately, I'm becoming a doc so when the inevitable happens, I'll get free surgery.

In the meantime, it allows me to pump my arms in victory and feel all powerful and such because I'm a 5'3" chickie that can do that... in the Caribbean heat no less. Needless to say, a shower was soon to follow. You know when you're so completely gnarly that you disgust yourself? It was one of those moments. Where you tell people explicitly not to hug you because you can't handle the guilt of their deaths.

Moving on to another topic entirely...

I needed an extra storage container today because my 6th term roommate left her beautiful beautiful down comforter on the island for good, which I promptly swiped because it is a thousand degrees of awesome and I want it here waiting for me (I've been sleeping under a patterned afghan, which is cool, but not wildly comfortable).

Due to this, the day seemed to start off as surly butthead day. Since a huge part of campus has left, I wasn't sure whether the buses were running on regular schedules or holiday schedules, so when the Grand Anse bus parked up at the upper bus stop, I asked the driver when he was leaving and he snapped "the same time as the other days." Rawr! I asked if it was at 1:30, since that was on the weekend/holiday schedule and he proceeded to act like I was a COMPLETE idiot, including pointing out that today was not a weekend thus no weekend schedule, at which point I began to bitchily ask him if HE read the schedule often enough to realize that the holiday and weekend schedules were one and the same, but decided it wasn't worth it and sat down.

Holy crap, dude, even if I don't know the bus schedules, answering a simple polite question should not fundamentally offend you. Damn.

So I first went back to the dive shop to get my wetsuit and fortunately they were wonderful as always... Went to Spiceland Mall to get the container and also wanted to take some pictures. Dude in electronics shop next to the entrance to IGA was highly cool and had me take his picture at the counter, so props to you for being cool, man.

But taking some pictures around the corner, the woman in the Wine Shoppe (you know it's posh when they put on the extra "pe", which I've begun pronouncing as "Shoppy" as a grammatical protest against pretentious fops) angrily informed me that I shouldn't be doing it, I needed to ask people, yadda yadda yadda.

And she wasn't anything near polite about it. I said sorry; I just wanted some pictures for my family and so people knew what kind of stuff was here, she just rabbited on about it, so I finally got snippy back and said I was desperately sorry to make students aware of the amenities already on the island and I'd make damn sure to tell them to bring their own wine. Yeesh.

So she carried on with it being a security thing. Which first of all, would have been acceptable either stated nicely or delivered by a SECURITY guard, not a snooty wine seller. I don't know if it's posted outside, and if it is, sorry, but for a first offense, I'm thinking a "Oh, actually" would be nicer than a frigging bringdown lecture.

Second of all, unless there's civic unrest in Grenada I'm unaware of, since she gave the impression of this as a terrorist thing, wtf??? Let's break this down... terrorists decide their next target is... Grenada... the smallest country in the Western Hemisphere, off the coast of a country that is ostensibly hostile to us (not that they gave any signs of it when we went there, but still) and to the best of my knowledge is not a part of the Coalition of the Willing...

So the target is Grenada. Are the terrorists going to bomb the university, with strong ties to America and perceived as full of rich American brats (despite the diversity?)? No. Are they going to bomb St. George's proper that has a lot of stuff? No. The cricket stadium? With lots of people? Oft photographed? No. The cruise ships so often docked outside? Nuh uh. Nope, it's Spiceland Mall, folks. Oh yes... cower before us. Your food courts will run red with the blood of the infidel. Frigging bite me, lady.

AND the island is out of Ting, which puzzles me. Hook me and then cut me off? Not cool, Grenada. Not cool at all. Time to go home.

On the other hand, cheese fries today took 10 minutes (!!!!!!!!!!) which has gotta be a world record, previously held at 30, getting the stuff into storage was an absolute breeze (well, short of carrying the stuff) run by a really nice woman, and everyone else was cool today, so I'm gonna bypass Evil Bus Driver and Evil Wine Seller and Ting Shortage and call it a productive day.

So, my taxi to the airport is due in 90 minutes, and then I'm off and away!!! To Puerto Rico for a lot of hours, then to Miami just long enough to sprint across their ridiculously long airport between gates, then to Raleigh, then to renting a car, then to Winston Salem, then to daddy! At some point, by way of a McDonald's or Taco Bell, not because I hate the food here or anything, but because it is intensely weird that I haven't had fast food in 4 months. I haven't even eaten at the KFC.

Meesa goin' home!