Captain’s family bought their plane tickets for vacation a year ago. Captain bought my ticket a few months before. My seat was several rows away from everybody else. Captain offers,

I bought a new dress for Turks and Caicos. Online the colors looked like light pink fading to fuchsia. When the dress arrived it turned out to be light pink fading to neon. Besides the neon pink from 1990, I was in love with the dress. I had to keep it. I was already imagining all the twirls I would do on the beach.

Hello

I’m back! And I’ve yet to plan my next vacation so I should be around for awhile. Don’t worry, I will be blogging about Turks and Caicos, but first we must backtrack to the day before I left for vacation.

I was at work. I missed a call and got a message:

“We are pleased to let you know that you won Big Sister of the Year.”

I jump with joy and keep jumping for the next 24 hours. Big Sister of the Year and a Caribbean vacation? Life is good. My first thoughts are: what does it entail? And I have to let my brother know how lucky he is.

I tell my bar manager the good news. He replies,

“I’m assuming you did not win a lot of money.”

I’m assuming.

Saturday at 6am, after two hours of sleep, I meet Captain to head for the airport. I exclaim,

“Guess what?!”

“What?”

“I won Big Sister of the Year!”

“Wow! You’re the Person of the Year!”

An hour later we’re sitting in the airport, Captain asks me,

“What do you think you need to do to be Girlfriend of the Year?”

“I don’t think I have to worry about that if I’m already Person of the Year.”

I have good and bad news for you. Bad news: I probably won’t be blogging for a week. Good news: I probably won’t be blogging for a week because I’m going to Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean.

Back in December I applied for health care, only to find out that I may have to provide proof that I’m not incarcerated. Then I got a letter in the mail saying that the health insurance I have now will be extended until March 31st. Perfect. I return my attention to my unincarcerated life and don’t think anything else about it until a couple days ago when I think,

‘It’s March. I wonder what’s going on with my health care.’

I log onto the site. The same message that was there in December is still there:

“Thank you for your application. You will receive a response in a few weeks.”

I call them. An automated voice tells me,

“Press one if you’re a small business, or say business. Press two if you’re an individual, or say individual.”

I press two.

“Sorry, I’m not sure what you pressed. Do you need to change your password?”

“No. Speak to a person.”

“You can change your password online.”

“SPEAK TO A PERSON.”

“Press zero for an operator.”

I get a human being. I tell him,

“I applied for health care in December and now I’m worried because it’s almost March 31st and I haven’t heard back.”

He looks up my file.

“Yes. You did apply in December. We’re extending everyone’s insurance again until June 30th.”

Thank you.

Skiing was chillier than usual this weekend, but I never let a little pain and numbness in my feet stop me. Saturday we do a full day of skiing and even after fifteen minutes inside I still can’t feel my extremities.

I had to set my alarm for 11am today. I have a work meeting at noon. So early. I will talk to you Monday ish. I’m off to look for more martini trees. There must be more.

A guy at the bar flags down the other bartender and me. He begins,

“I don’t usually like bartenders.”

What? Who says that? Why are you sitting at the bar? You don’t have to come see us. That’s what liquor stores are for.

And who writes off a whole employment sector? ‘I don’t usually like mailmen.’

The guy-who-doesn’t-usually-like-bartenders continues,

“But you guys are funny. I like listening to you talk to each other.”

There was the most precocious thirteen-year-old at the bar the other night. He was there with his dad. He ordered the cioppino, a seafood stew for dinner. He cuts into it and hands it back to me,

How do I shave again?

I have been planning my wedding since the morning of my Bat Mitzvah. I was twelve-years old. We were already running late for the 9am start of Sabbath services. I describe my wedding dress to my mom. She says,

“Lets have the Bat Mitzvah, then we can plan your wedding.”

Fair enough.

Bat Mitzvah over. Money in the bank. I’m at Friendly’s designing my wedding dress in crayon on the back of a placemat. My mom asks,

“Does the groom have any say in all of this?”

Groom? What groom? The idea of a groom hasn’t even crossed my mind. At some point over the years I added a hypothetical groom, as well as an open bar.

Yesterday I had brunch with a friend. She mentions getting her armpits waxed. I exclaim,

“You got your armpits waxed?! Was that so painful?”

“Not as bad as a Brazilian. I’m doing it for my wedding.”

“For your wedding?”

“I don’t want to have a five-o’clock shadow.”

Just when I thought I’d planned for everything I haven’t even considered how hairy my armpits will be by the time I’m drunk and waving my arms over my head.

Have I mentioned how much I’m enjoying Olympic figure skating? Work was a little slow last night, but what did I care? I got to watch women dance around on the ice for several hours. This is how guys must feel all year long. Make a drink, watch some basketball, serve some food, watch some hockey, or some baseball or some football or some tennis. Or since we have two TVs, a combo.

I’m perfecting the art of gazing at the TV and having a conversation. I remark to a server,

“I wish I could have a figure skating outfit as a dress. They’re gorgeous.”

“I don’t think those work in real life.”

“They don’t work in real life?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They’re way too sparkly.”

Couples meet at the bar, couples propose at the bar and couples breakup at the bar. We’re your one stop.

Last night a couple starts having a fight at the bar. Normally I would give them my undivided eavesdropping attention, but the Olympics were on. Ice skating. I love it. I watched it all last night and I will re-watch it today just to see it with the music.

The other bartender comes to my end of the bar. He tells me,

“It’s getting awkward down there.”

“They’re having a fight?”

“Oh yeah.”

I walk by,

“It would be nice if for once you could remember my birthday.”

For once. Oh dear. He doesn’t say anything. They pay and leave. I return my full attention to the twizzles, a required ice dance move. Twizzle, it doesn’t have the same gravitas as a triple axel, but if the announcers are to be believed, the twizzle is to ice dancing what the triple axel is to figure skating. The other bartender snaps me out of my ice skating reverie with kit-kats and exclaims,

“Oh no. They’re coming back in.”

The fighting couple are back at the bar. Maybe they’ve reconciled? She plops down, arms folded across her chest. Nope. Still fighting. Whether he knows it or not.

They order more drinks. Why are they extending this misery? She continues,

“It would be nice to celebrate Valentine’s Day.”

I’m tempted to tell her that if her birthday isn’t getting celebrated then she can probably forget about any other holidays, except for maybe the Superbowl.

Kinda creepy.

Two young women are chatting at the bar. Two young men are a few seats over. The two women are absorbed in each other. One of the men can’t stop peering over. He tries to inject himself into their conversation from four seats away. He fails.

The men pay. The peering one gets up, marches over to the women and thrusts his phone at one of them. He orders,

“Put your number in my phone.”

“That’s a terrible way to ask someone out.”

This message was sent to me from a guest at the bar:

“Without sounding creepy cause I’m not I would really like to find out how you laugh and are happy like that all the time…”

For future reference, anything that has the preamble “without sounding creepy,” should stay unsaid. I learned this from the old man checking out the teenage girls in the hot tub. Look, don’t say anything.

And to answer the question, I don’t know. Why does your face do the weird things it does? Mine smiles a lot, especially when it’s my job. I spend many hours home alone with only intermittent smiles.

Valentine’s Day. It’s the day that we take all the four person tables out of the restaurant and fill it with tables for two. A factory line of romantic dinners.

Couples at the bar seem to be relaxed. Meanwhile I’m getting yelled at for forgetting to ring in the amuse-bouche (the two bites of food that everyone gets before their appetizer). Shouldn’t it just come out automatically, like how I don’t wait for the guest to ask for a fork?

Captain sent me super gorgeous roses. I have them on display on the back-bar because what’s the point of getting flowers for Valentine’s Day if no one sees them?

A regular gushes over my roses and adds,

“The roses in the women’s room are to die for. I’d be happy to get those for my wedding present and nothing else. They are so beautiful. Have you seen them?”

“Yes, they’re lovely.”

“Everyone is in there talking about them. They’re so nice.”

I head to the women’s room. I remove a rose and present it to the regular. Here is a rose from the bathroom. You’re welcome.

My eleven-year-old little sister tells me,

“I think my older brother has a girlfriend.”

“Oh yeah?”

“He calls her princess. Gack!”

“How do you know?”

“I went through his phone.”

“Oh. How would you feel if he went through your phone?”

“What’s there to find?”

Back to Taos. Captain and I are chatting with an older couple. The wife remarks,

I’m on the right.

Captain’s job has exiled him to North Carolina, but he’s been doing a good job of coming back to Boston. For Hanukkah he gave me hypothetical tickets to the Boston Ballet. He asks me,

“When are we going to the ballet?”

“They’re doing Cinderella in March; I’d love to see that.”

“Perfect.”

“You know the story?”

“She loses a shoe?”

“That’s part of it. Do you think you’ll be able to come back?”

“Yeah. I’ll just tell my boss I’ve been waiting all year for Cinderella.”

“Drink lots of water at least 3 days prior to departure, this helps with altitude sickness.”

I already go to the bathroom a lot. So for the three days prior to departure if I wasn’t drinking water I was going to the bathroom. I was determined to be in peak skiing condition upon arrival.

Saturday morning I got home from work at 2am, I take a nap and then Captain and I head to the airport.  I’m somewhere in between awake and asleep. I’m trying to drag my skis, my carry-on suitcase and my small personal item such as a purse or briefcase which is not small.

We get all checked in. Middle-aged men keep coming up to ask,

“Are you with the Boston Ski Club?”

“Yes.”

It turns out all these middle-aged men are on the trip. Where are the women? I’m too tired to think about this now. The men gather around to chat. I sink into a chair and stare into the sea of bellies.

I keep drinking water. We stopover in Dallas. Taco Bell is calling my name. I wolf down several tacos. BIG mistake. Before the plane has even landed in New Mexico my body is rejecting the Taco Bell. All my hydrating is for naught. I can’t keep anything down for the next 12 hours.

Two women and their husbands join the group in New Mexico. Thank goodness. Little did I know then that I wouldn’t see them again until the flight home.

We check into our condo. There’s one guy on the trip younger than me and he’s in my condo. I tell him,

“I’m really glad you’re in my condo.”

“Everybody is older huh?”

“Yeah and a guy.”

Captain is older, but we’re talking fifties and sixties for most of these guys and one 74-year-old who told airport security he was 75 so he wouldn’t have to take his shoes off. TSA didn’t card him. I’m going to try it next time.

Over the course of the week I’m determined to track down the women. Plenty of the men are married, but for one reason or another none of the women came on the trip. I ask Captain,

“Are there usually this few women on the week trips?”

“No. Only one other trip was like this.”

“Do you know why?”

“Probably because there’s no shopping. There wasn’t much shopping on that other trip either.”

Taos is the antithesis of Aspen. It has very few places to stay, eat or shop. There are no women or dogs in head to toe designer wear. There is just a lot of extreme skiing and plenty of time to sleep before doing more skiing.

The shopping is so scarce that I couldn’t even find a stuffed animal in a Taos t-shirt. I did manage to get a human size shirt. One of the guys on the trip asks,

“Where did you get that?”

“At the shop.”

“Which shop?”

“What do you mean which shop? The shop.”

“Oh, the one right here?”

“Yeah.” The one shop.

Taos wins for amazing skiing and the only ski up martini tree I’ve ever seen. That’s right. There’s a tree with a box and inside the box is a carafe full of vodka. My ski instructor took a very long swig.

The snow is animated. I didn’t do that. Google had gone rogue.

I hiked 300 yards uphill, 12,000 ft elevation and skied this. No shopping. Or not much.

I’m back; my clothes are clean and I can breath again. So let me tell you everything. Tomorrow.