Not even 24 hours have elapsed since I returned from Puerto Rico, but it seems like I was there months ago.
Worse yet, I fear I am already in desperate need of a vacation.
This might have something to do with my next-door neighbor, who seems to have decided that our parking lot is a great place to store his old refrigerator. This is the same neighbor who is convinced that everyone in the building should pay the sanitation fine resulting from his improper trash disposal.
Hello! It's called responsibility. ... Get some!!
Could be the letter from my insurance company letting me know that they will only pay for about 25% of my recent medical bill because I did not get prior certification. Yes, of course. Next time I will plan on getting sick.
Then there's the stack of bills that came spilling out of my mailbox like a paper bomb. The pile of bills adds up to thousands. The checks ... well, there's just one ... for $421.09.
There's also the little matter of my walking into my apartment last night after a rather rocky flight to discover that my two darling cats had managed to puke over just about every square inch of my formerly Zen-like home. The few corners here and there that had somehow escaped their regurgitation installation art were dusted in cat litter.
Let's just say it hasn't been a grand homecoming.
On the brighter side ... I am tan.
If I can get past this rather pukish finale and drift back to where I was only yesterday, I must say it was a fabulous 6 days.
La cubana took me, (yes, took me, eat your hearts out) on this holiday away from it all, and it really did take me away.
This was my first time out of the area since September 11th, and oddly, I had no idea how truly submerged in 9/11 I was until I left the continent.
Along with the palm trees and the ocean and the sand and the rum punch and the tiny little birds that eat out of your plate, there was also something else, something very vast, and very quiet and very overwhelming; the complete absence of The World Trade Center.
I'm not saying Puerto Rico didn't feel affected.
I'm just saying that as a New Yorker who has lived and breathed (literally) the disaster of 9/11 every day since that day ... going to this new place, felt a bit like going back in time.
I felt as though I were submerged in a calm, sweet slice of time, that trickled along on its own pace utterly unaffected by all the things that broke on September 11th.
Is it wrong to forget for just a little while?
I don't know.
But I did, and it felt totally awesome.
So sue me.
Now then, does anyone know how to get cat puke out of carpeting?
