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verushka70So I was in Playa del Carmen last week, on a family vacation in an all-inclusive resort. As far as I can tell, the main benefit to the all-inclusiveness was never having to leave the resort, and there being a bar you could swim up to in one of the pools. Being the type of tourist, however, who stays in a hostel in Amsterdam and shops for food and drink at the local supermarket so I didn't spend all my money eating out in restaurants--just the coffee-houses where they sell marijuana--the all-inclusive thing was a bit lost on me. Granted, it's nice to swim up to a bar when you're in the pool; but I could've just walked to town, spent a lot less money on a lot more liquor and food, and mixed drinks in my room and brought them down to the pool. That's what my friends and I did when we were in the Bahamas--no joke. R--- even brought the blender with that he bought while we were in Key West. (This was, of course, pre-9/11. You would not get a blender through security in carry on luggage any more...)
Sadly, this swim-up-bar pool was usually filled with obnoxious drunk idiots by the early afternoon. I don't understand what it is about alcohol that makes some people HAVE TO get rowdy and raucous. Franky I'm surprised there weren't fights between some of the men. I just don't get it: you're in sunny, balmy weather on the Gulf Coast/Caribbean of Mexico very close to Cozumel, and you're drinking frozen, blended, tropical drinks while lazing in the pool. What on earth could possess you to get all riled up? About anything??
Other than that, it was a very nice vacation with my three sisters, two brothers-in-law (one couldn't get the time off), three nephews and my mom. Homicidal tendencies didn't occur since were were all in separate rooms as family units (except my mom, one sister and I were in one room). The ocean was magnificent. My mom got to see the ruins at Tulum (I went with her; they were very cool, but small and manageable for someone who's had lung surgery and only has 80% of her previous lung capacity), which was a girlhood dream of hers I had not known about, from way before passenger airline travel (and way, WAY before Cancun and the rest of the "Mexican Riviera" were developed as tourist destinations).
She was so happy she cried, even though she had to do the walking tour pulling her portable oxygen concentrator behind her and wearing Solumbra sunproof clothing because of her radiation in the fall and winter of 2005, and very brown or sunburnt other tourists kept staring at her. I wonder if she noticed them staring at her. I noticed them on her behalf and wanted to walk up to some of these people and slap them and say, "Didn't your mother tell you it's RUDE TO STARE?!" But she didn't make any comment about it at all. Oh well. Her frailty worries me, but then her perseverance often surprises me too. She mainly cried because she'd wanted to see those ruins since she was just a kid and read about them in a National Geographic, and she never thought she would ever get there.
Myself, I bought a time share condo. Because what else is a single woman of 40 with no kids supposed to do. I actually surprised myself because I was the last person who would have done such a thing, prior to this trip. But while we were there I just thought, oh, frak it: it is what it is, this life, I might as well enjoy it.
Plus I think they were a little desperate, and I bargained hard. They were like 29 year old women trying to marry before they turn 30: willing to do almost anything. The downturn in the US economy must have ruined time-share condo sales, maybe even increased defaults on them, I dunno. They started out trying to sell me a 3 bedroom suite time-share condo for one week a year, and ended up selling me a traded-in studio time share condo for four weeks a year (one week for sure, the other three weeks either there or at another resort or can be traded in for cruises, tours, or what-have-you), for five grand less than they were originally asking, and with a lot of other stuff thrown in. So that was, um, exciting.
I'm currently still on vacation but no longer in Playa del Carmen, sadly. (And it's frakking cold in Chicago tonight, and it frakking rained, too. But way, way earlier, Saturday morning and up to mid-afternoon, it was blue skies and sunshine and a strong breeze which dried three loads of laundry on the clothesline in the back yard. So, woo-hoo--shit was accomplished.)
I am, however, plotting how to take more time off in the fall to go back to my time-share--after the rainy and hurricane season end. That is, if I have a job when I get back to work next week! I didn't have enough paid time off to take this vacation. So much of it will have been unpaid time off. But since we only have to work 72 hours in a bi-weekly period--i.e. 3 twelve-hour shifts per week, I wasn't taking TWO WEEKS off, I was actually only taking 1 paid day off and 5 unpaid days off.
But thanks to last fall's insurance settlement for my father's estate against the old man who hit him and broke both his legs, and the fact that I have no debt except a few more car payments on my lame, cheap Toyota (and now, a cheap time-share), I didn't actually need paid time off. So unpaid time off doesn't really affect my bottom line. It would if I took months of unpaid time off, but I only took two weeks.
I haven't had a real vacation like this -- like, leaving the tri-state area (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin) for more than a long weekend in... since 2004 when I went to Amsterdam while I was on unemployment for the very first time in my life after my traumatic job loss after working at the same place in two different departments for twelve years. Boy, that was a needed vacation, too. Desperately.
So shortly after I get back from Playa del Carmen, the news comes out: CBS cancelled Moonlight. I knew this would happen. It was such a doomed little show from the start. Re-cast after the first pilot was shot, three or four different writing/producing teams (two before it even premiered, then one before the WGA strike, and yet another after the strike ended). It's kind of surprising it lasted as long as it did. Wow, sixteen whole episodes.
I'd like to participate in all the insane attempts to keep Moonlight going and get it picked up by another network e.g. SciFi or CW, but I've been through this before with other shows (Forever Knight, Due South) and I am just too weary with the stupidity of TV execs to make the effort, I think. If it's not a completely dead issue Monday, maybe I'll call the numbers on some of the Moonlight comms. But it seems like an awfully long shot for it to survive CBS' cancellation.
I did miss BSG and Moonlight last Friday while I was in Mexico, but I have my Amazon Unbox subscription to Moonlight. So I had that second-to-last episode *sniff* to watch when I got back. I watched the BSG ep I missed online after I came back. Then last night I watched the season/series finale of Moonlight, and the next BSG ep.
BSG is killing me ded this season! The last couple eps after (SPOILER) Adama gives Starbuck her own ship to follow "the song" she hears to Earth have been unbelievable, imho. And now that it looks like (MORE SPOILERS) the Cylons who've banded up with the humans will have to unbox D'Anna in order to find the final five Cylons, it's only a matter of time until the Cylons on board Galactica are revealed by the unboxed D'Anna, who saw their faces. Tigh and Tory seem the most on edge about this; Tigh looked like he was freaking out.
(LOTS OF SPOILERS)And just how DID Tigh know that the huge cylon ship Adama was just about to fire on was the one Starbuck brought back, without the Demetrius there to tell Galactica who it was? It couldn't have been a Cylon communication thing, because they had to shut down its Cylon communication and processing power or it would have blown Demetrius' navigational equipment--at least, that's what Starbuck said. Yet now Adama seems to have had a bug planted in his ear by Tigh's last minute countermand against Adama not to fire on it. Hmmmm!
And Tory's become so thoroughly and despicably evil! Tyrol just seems emotionally exhausted and physically weary. I can't figure Baltar because he's been so sleazy for so long, I can't tell if he's still being his usual self-serving self, or if he's actually really CHANGED. And, wtf, he's in the president's VISIONS--visions which she shares with Starbuck AND the Cylon models who have thrown their lot in with the humans after the Cylon civil war? So I figure that Roslin must be the final fifth Cylon.
And Gaeta! OMG, his singing, his desperate attempt to maintain his sanity after his amputation. It was KILLING me. He is even more traumatized and weary than Tyrol, if that's possible. And Anders, frak! Not knowing if he should stick his hand in the goo on the Cylon ship and commune with the other Cylons, or not, hesitating and almost doing it and then NOT! Sticking by Starbuck even though he's a Cylon and he knows it!
And then there's Leoben. That frakked up Leoben/Starbuck chemistry--distrust, teetering on trust, Starbuck wanting to believe Leoben but always jumping quickly to the conclusion that he's lying, it's a trick--that distrust/trust dance between them is so bound up in how much Starbuck thinks she can actually trust herself, which would be letting Leoben in a little, then a little more, and then a little more... Kills me. Gets me every time. You just never know what's going to happen between those two.
(END SPOILERS)
So. Clearly I come in, yet again, overwhelmingly on the Escapism RULZ! side of life. It especially rules when you really escape--to a tropical vacation! Next time, I'm going to go snorkeling somewhere off Cozumel, and I'm going to skip the all-inclusive stuff and spend a lot less money buying local food and drink in the supermercado in town. Ironically, I buy a time-share in Mexico after my Mexican-American bf and I break up. Go figure.
My youngest nephew is adorable and has the most adorably infectious giggle when you play peek-a-boo with him. Complete strangers compliment my sister on him. He is that cute. And, OMG, breast feeding agrees with the little guy. He's like Mr. SuperChunk.
Fortunately, despite my never-before-experienced pre-flight jitters, anxiety and insomnia, my entire family was not wiped out by plane crash while we flew to Mexico. Well, technically, my brother and his son would've made it, because they both were still here--my brother just came back from three weeks in Italy on his honeymoon with his second wife. I'm thoroughly envious. But obviously he couldn't ask for yet more time off, even though he probably has like 92 days of sick and vacation time accumulated like Benton Fraser.
I have to say, eating as much fresh fruit daily as I was in Mexico was clearly agreeing with me--'til I got home and fell back to my usual habits. Oh well.
Sadly, this swim-up-bar pool was usually filled with obnoxious drunk idiots by the early afternoon. I don't understand what it is about alcohol that makes some people HAVE TO get rowdy and raucous. Franky I'm surprised there weren't fights between some of the men. I just don't get it: you're in sunny, balmy weather on the Gulf Coast/Caribbean of Mexico very close to Cozumel, and you're drinking frozen, blended, tropical drinks while lazing in the pool. What on earth could possess you to get all riled up? About anything??
Other than that, it was a very nice vacation with my three sisters, two brothers-in-law (one couldn't get the time off), three nephews and my mom. Homicidal tendencies didn't occur since were were all in separate rooms as family units (except my mom, one sister and I were in one room). The ocean was magnificent. My mom got to see the ruins at Tulum (I went with her; they were very cool, but small and manageable for someone who's had lung surgery and only has 80% of her previous lung capacity), which was a girlhood dream of hers I had not known about, from way before passenger airline travel (and way, WAY before Cancun and the rest of the "Mexican Riviera" were developed as tourist destinations).
She was so happy she cried, even though she had to do the walking tour pulling her portable oxygen concentrator behind her and wearing Solumbra sunproof clothing because of her radiation in the fall and winter of 2005, and very brown or sunburnt other tourists kept staring at her. I wonder if she noticed them staring at her. I noticed them on her behalf and wanted to walk up to some of these people and slap them and say, "Didn't your mother tell you it's RUDE TO STARE?!" But she didn't make any comment about it at all. Oh well. Her frailty worries me, but then her perseverance often surprises me too. She mainly cried because she'd wanted to see those ruins since she was just a kid and read about them in a National Geographic, and she never thought she would ever get there.
Myself, I bought a time share condo. Because what else is a single woman of 40 with no kids supposed to do. I actually surprised myself because I was the last person who would have done such a thing, prior to this trip. But while we were there I just thought, oh, frak it: it is what it is, this life, I might as well enjoy it.
Plus I think they were a little desperate, and I bargained hard. They were like 29 year old women trying to marry before they turn 30: willing to do almost anything. The downturn in the US economy must have ruined time-share condo sales, maybe even increased defaults on them, I dunno. They started out trying to sell me a 3 bedroom suite time-share condo for one week a year, and ended up selling me a traded-in studio time share condo for four weeks a year (one week for sure, the other three weeks either there or at another resort or can be traded in for cruises, tours, or what-have-you), for five grand less than they were originally asking, and with a lot of other stuff thrown in. So that was, um, exciting.
I'm currently still on vacation but no longer in Playa del Carmen, sadly. (And it's frakking cold in Chicago tonight, and it frakking rained, too. But way, way earlier, Saturday morning and up to mid-afternoon, it was blue skies and sunshine and a strong breeze which dried three loads of laundry on the clothesline in the back yard. So, woo-hoo--shit was accomplished.)
I am, however, plotting how to take more time off in the fall to go back to my time-share--after the rainy and hurricane season end. That is, if I have a job when I get back to work next week! I didn't have enough paid time off to take this vacation. So much of it will have been unpaid time off. But since we only have to work 72 hours in a bi-weekly period--i.e. 3 twelve-hour shifts per week, I wasn't taking TWO WEEKS off, I was actually only taking 1 paid day off and 5 unpaid days off.
But thanks to last fall's insurance settlement for my father's estate against the old man who hit him and broke both his legs, and the fact that I have no debt except a few more car payments on my lame, cheap Toyota (and now, a cheap time-share), I didn't actually need paid time off. So unpaid time off doesn't really affect my bottom line. It would if I took months of unpaid time off, but I only took two weeks.
I haven't had a real vacation like this -- like, leaving the tri-state area (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin) for more than a long weekend in... since 2004 when I went to Amsterdam while I was on unemployment for the very first time in my life after my traumatic job loss after working at the same place in two different departments for twelve years. Boy, that was a needed vacation, too. Desperately.
So shortly after I get back from Playa del Carmen, the news comes out: CBS cancelled Moonlight. I knew this would happen. It was such a doomed little show from the start. Re-cast after the first pilot was shot, three or four different writing/producing teams (two before it even premiered, then one before the WGA strike, and yet another after the strike ended). It's kind of surprising it lasted as long as it did. Wow, sixteen whole episodes.
I'd like to participate in all the insane attempts to keep Moonlight going and get it picked up by another network e.g. SciFi or CW, but I've been through this before with other shows (Forever Knight, Due South) and I am just too weary with the stupidity of TV execs to make the effort, I think. If it's not a completely dead issue Monday, maybe I'll call the numbers on some of the Moonlight comms. But it seems like an awfully long shot for it to survive CBS' cancellation.
I did miss BSG and Moonlight last Friday while I was in Mexico, but I have my Amazon Unbox subscription to Moonlight. So I had that second-to-last episode *sniff* to watch when I got back. I watched the BSG ep I missed online after I came back. Then last night I watched the season/series finale of Moonlight, and the next BSG ep.
BSG is killing me ded this season! The last couple eps after (SPOILER) Adama gives Starbuck her own ship to follow "the song" she hears to Earth have been unbelievable, imho. And now that it looks like (MORE SPOILERS) the Cylons who've banded up with the humans will have to unbox D'Anna in order to find the final five Cylons, it's only a matter of time until the Cylons on board Galactica are revealed by the unboxed D'Anna, who saw their faces. Tigh and Tory seem the most on edge about this; Tigh looked like he was freaking out.
(LOTS OF SPOILERS)And just how DID Tigh know that the huge cylon ship Adama was just about to fire on was the one Starbuck brought back, without the Demetrius there to tell Galactica who it was? It couldn't have been a Cylon communication thing, because they had to shut down its Cylon communication and processing power or it would have blown Demetrius' navigational equipment--at least, that's what Starbuck said. Yet now Adama seems to have had a bug planted in his ear by Tigh's last minute countermand against Adama not to fire on it. Hmmmm!
And Tory's become so thoroughly and despicably evil! Tyrol just seems emotionally exhausted and physically weary. I can't figure Baltar because he's been so sleazy for so long, I can't tell if he's still being his usual self-serving self, or if he's actually really CHANGED. And, wtf, he's in the president's VISIONS--visions which she shares with Starbuck AND the Cylon models who have thrown their lot in with the humans after the Cylon civil war? So I figure that Roslin must be the final fifth Cylon.
And Gaeta! OMG, his singing, his desperate attempt to maintain his sanity after his amputation. It was KILLING me. He is even more traumatized and weary than Tyrol, if that's possible. And Anders, frak! Not knowing if he should stick his hand in the goo on the Cylon ship and commune with the other Cylons, or not, hesitating and almost doing it and then NOT! Sticking by Starbuck even though he's a Cylon and he knows it!
And then there's Leoben. That frakked up Leoben/Starbuck chemistry--distrust, teetering on trust, Starbuck wanting to believe Leoben but always jumping quickly to the conclusion that he's lying, it's a trick--that distrust/trust dance between them is so bound up in how much Starbuck thinks she can actually trust herself, which would be letting Leoben in a little, then a little more, and then a little more... Kills me. Gets me every time. You just never know what's going to happen between those two.
(END SPOILERS)
So. Clearly I come in, yet again, overwhelmingly on the Escapism RULZ! side of life. It especially rules when you really escape--to a tropical vacation! Next time, I'm going to go snorkeling somewhere off Cozumel, and I'm going to skip the all-inclusive stuff and spend a lot less money buying local food and drink in the supermercado in town. Ironically, I buy a time-share in Mexico after my Mexican-American bf and I break up. Go figure.
My youngest nephew is adorable and has the most adorably infectious giggle when you play peek-a-boo with him. Complete strangers compliment my sister on him. He is that cute. And, OMG, breast feeding agrees with the little guy. He's like Mr. SuperChunk.
Fortunately, despite my never-before-experienced pre-flight jitters, anxiety and insomnia, my entire family was not wiped out by plane crash while we flew to Mexico. Well, technically, my brother and his son would've made it, because they both were still here--my brother just came back from three weeks in Italy on his honeymoon with his second wife. I'm thoroughly envious. But obviously he couldn't ask for yet more time off, even though he probably has like 92 days of sick and vacation time accumulated like Benton Fraser.
I have to say, eating as much fresh fruit daily as I was in Mexico was clearly agreeing with me--'til I got home and fell back to my usual habits. Oh well.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-18 12:50 pm (UTC)Glad Mexico was nice. We are all about the self-catered find so more ruins mode of holiday. Just keep a close eye on those time share peeps.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-18 01:27 pm (UTC)As for Moonlight, I was kind of surprised because it won a People's Choice award for best new show. I figured that would win it at least another season. CBS is just d..u..m..dumb.
BSG is a major mindfrak, no two ways about it. They mess with us and I'm always amazed at the number of twists and turns layered with pathos that they can jam into one episode.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 08:48 am (UTC)I've never had a timeshare before, so I expect a learning experience of sorts. But I'm happy to have a cheap toehold on Mexico's Caribbean coast. :-) Next time, of course, I will go into town and buy all my liquor and food there, instead of paying for the "all inclusive" thing, except maybe for a couple days/nights.
But, eh, this time around the all-inclusive was all a pre-paid family vacay, so I just went along with it! And it was kind of nice, except that I don't think most of the people there ever left the resort. Ever. Hell, some of them never left the swim-up pool until the bar closed. Which I can totally relate to, because who doesn't want (at least occasionally) to laze around in a pool drinking tropical drinks? But if you're not leaving the hotel grounds, ever, then why fly to Mexico for that, y'know? Because if you're always going to be at the hotel, then it doesn't matter what hotel it is or where, right? And I'm sure they must have places like that here in the US.
Anyway. Next time, definitely snorkeling. The one cool thing about being a fat chick is you float better in the ocean--like a cork!--compared to skinny chicks. :-)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 09:08 am (UTC)I haven't checked the Moonlight comms to see if anything has changed, but I would be very surprised if it got picked up by any other network now that CBS dropped it. But maybe the universe will surprise me. Hell, a few weeks ago, I lost my house and car keys in a manhole, and the Chicago water department actually came out and got them out of the sewer for me, which I expected to happen (1) never, or (B) months later, long after I'd made replacement copies! So that was a very pleasant surprise.
Let us not forget that CBS is the same stupid network that kept killing Due South and finally succeeded after three seasons...
My younger sister always bails from shows when they get "dark"--she did with Buffy after she died to save Dawn--so she's been hearing bits and pieces from me about BSG last season and this seasons and saying, "Oh, I'm glad I'm not watching it anymore." But I'm like, if you want to stop watching shows when they get "dark," how could you watch Battlestar Galactica in the first place? The entire premise was dark! The twelve colonies are nuked by the Cylons because genius Baltar was screwing a hot Cylon he didn't know was a Cylon, the 50K survivors jump away, abandoning those left down on the colony planets--then they're chased by Cylons who arrive every 33 minutes to exactly where they jumped. I mean, how much darker could it have gotten, yet still managed to further a multi-season story arc and not kill everyone off? I dunno, it seemed pretty dark from the outset. But then, the darker things get, the more fascinated I often am. A fundamental difference between my younger sister and I, I guess.
BSG is just so damned fascinating. That's what keeps me coming back. That and, as you point out, the pathos. Everyone's so human, so fallible; and most of the powerful characters' choices and decisions have repercussions that affect many others. Even if they only affect one or two other people... So much hinges on what they decide, but they often have to make decisions quickly and under so much pressure to make the right decision. (Look at Anders shooting Gaeta in the leg, and Gaeta having it get amputated... will Anders apologize? Yet what would Adama have said if they came back as mutineers? Or is Starbuck ultimately to blame for Anders' shooting Gaeta, since if she hadn't commited the entire Demetrius, they wouldn't have wanted to mutiny anyway?)
And when BSG gets on a multi-episode roll (which I believe it's on now), the suspense just kills me. I'm on the edge of my seat, just riveted, and always crying out loud, "Nooooo!" when the fateful words "TO BE CONTINUED" appear at the bottom of the screen!
no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 11:26 am (UTC)And, of course, there's Leoben, who is sadly underused, but still burns up the screen whenever he shows up.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 04:54 pm (UTC)Frak you said a mouthful there. I was dying to find out what was going to happen during the holiday weekend BSG hiatus.
I couldn't agree more. As Mr. Big once said on Sex And The City, abso-fucking-lutely.
What's amazing (and yet, when I think about it, not so amazing; to be expected when you consider CKR's talent) and cool is how many people have come to love Leoben and the Leoben/Kara dynamic who weren't into CKR prior to BSG! I've read a lot of variations on, "Never heard of this Callum Keith Rennie guy before BSG, but, man, he's [insert adjective here*]" (*smokin', hot, intense, etc.)
(My apologies for the late reply... the last week and a half of work fried me. 6 twelve hour night shifts in 9 days with a day off here and there, but not two days off in a row. I was offline quite a while...)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 05:11 pm (UTC)I just wish they'd use him more on BSG and less of some of the others.
Sell timeshare no upfront service fees.
Date: 2008-12-12 06:20 pm (UTC)