Life on Utila: Day Numero Uno

It’s Utila Adventure Eve—like Christmas Eve, only without the milk and cookies—and I’m totally stoked.  All my bags are packed, my papers are set, and I’m ready to get a good, long night’s sleep.  Well, that’s what I plan to tell my grandkids one day.

Truthfully?  It’s three in the morning, even the weight of my fat ass can’t get my bag to zipper shut, my passport is under a stack of books recovering from its earlier trip through the washing machine, I have spent the last three hours putting together a makeshift bag for my freediving fin and mermaid tail using leftover canvas and safety pins, and my contact lenses are lost amongst the rubble of the nuclear war zone I call my home.  I have reached my breaking point, and there is only one thing left to do.  Call my dad crying.  (Yes, I am an only daughter.)

Thankfully, either my father has come up for sainthood in the past twenty-four hours or he can tell that I’m about five minutes from shoving half a bottle of booze, my passport, and my plane ticket into a juicer and laughing maniacally as they swirl into a cocktail of insanity, because he calmly assures me that anything I’ve left behind can be air mailed to me (without even mentioning the no doubt absurd cost of doing so) and sends me off to bed.

Expat Preppers: Yo No Habla Español, Puta

[insert drunken exclamation point standing on its head] Hola, amigos! [allow drunken question mark to join his friend] Que tal?  Mamita yo se que tu no te me va’ a quitar. (¡Duro!)  A ella le gusta la gasoline. (¡Dame mas gasoline!)

What? I live in Texas, okay?  All the Spanish I know comes from the 107.1 FM Latino Mix.  Let’s check out some of the oh so useful words I have under my belt:

limousine
babe
pussy
adrenaline
gasoline
candy
bitch

…do I even need to continue?  I can just imagine the kind of conversations I’m going to be able to have once I get to Honduras.

The Amazon Relapse

Hello, dear followers, it’s wonderful to see you.  I hope you checked in at the front desk, because they’ve been trying to make me go to rehab and I’ve finally said “yes, yes, yes”.

rehab, utila style

Okay, okay, there are no padded walls or support groups filled with beer bellies (just middle school black boys pushing each other around in my rolling teacher chair and yelling “Yo, is it ’cause I’m white?” when I shout at them to sit down in their seats), but I am as close to wearing a straight jacket as I have ever been: I have blocked myself from using Amazon.com.

Mall Fever

It’s a beautiful spring day, the sun is shining, and the sky is as blue as Caribbean waters.  A warm western breeze is blowing, ruffling the bright green leaves in the trees above, and I am doing what any good American citizen would: Getting ready to go to the mall.

The mall used to be my favorite place to go.  When I was a tween, my mom and I would spend hours hitting up every shoe store in the place.  There was never an occasion where I would leave with less than a dozen bags stuffed full of killer deals and clearance steals, along with the Abercrombie & Fitch bag I’d paid $1.00 for simply for the pleasure of owning a paper sack featuring the six pack abs of a twenty-something twink.

Since online shopping came about, however, I’ve spent less and less time at the mall.  It’s been months since I made my way past the Dillard’s makeup counter, holding a hand over my face and wishing for a gas mask as a tepid mix of fifty dollar fragrances assault my senses.  Now that I am here I find myself wondering: Why the hell did I ever enjoy this at all?

I do have a good reason for going.  See, the humidity in Honduras never drops below 80% and, considering that my wardrobe is 99.9% polyester, I’ve come to the conclusion that it would be to my own benefit to aqcuire some tank tops in a material less likely to induce heat stroke.  And where better to go when you need a few cotton shirts than your local mall?

ExPat Preppers: Farewell, Dearest Facebook

It’s Sunday night and I am soaking in the bathtub, relaxing and scrolling through Facebook.  Within a span of no more than a few minutes I am laughing, scowling, cussing, giggling, crying, and ripping out eyebrow hairs just to keep myself sane.  All the emotions are unbearably strong yet last no longer than the time it takes to scroll to the next post on the list–unless, of course, I deign to comment on one, allowing myself to be swept up in the drama.

Infinity scrolling–surely it will be the doom of mankind.

As I type my furious response to the same sort of philosophical bitching from the same exact drama llama whose flames I ducked just yesterday, my is heart pounding and my soul is on fire with the righteous indignation (how DARE she speak poorly of the latest Avenger’s movie?).  I am ready to slam my fist through the wall, my blood pressure is shooting upwards like a house with ten million balloons attached, and I have no doubt that my face is a brilliant shade of Iron Man red.  Then just as I am going to press the button to send, it hits me:

I am sitting butt naked in a bathtub, using emoticons and internet shorthand created by twelve year olds to bitch out a person using a picture of Ru Paul as their avatar.  WTF?  When did I become this utterly ridiculous?    Everybody must be ROTFL because this is LOL nuts.

Expat Preppers: Packing, The Ongoing List (One Week)

What do you take with you when you are leaving the country for a week to find your future home?  Toilet paper?  Gummy bears?  An unusually sharp toothbrush?  Oh wait, that’s my list for prison.  The lists below are my ongoing attempts to decide.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments!

Edit 19 May 2015: After remembering just how long it took to get my baggage last time I hit what passes for an airport at Roatan, I am making the executive decision to take only a carry on and a backpack.  This means leaving my beloved mermaid tail behind, but it can come back with me in August!  If I bend them the right way my fins fit in my luggage, and I don’t need much else beyond my dive gear. Less is best!

Below is what I plan to take for my one day week in June (in one suitcase and a carry-on and a backpack):

Expat Preppers: Packing, The Ongoing List (Forever)

What do you take with you when you are leaving the country quite possibly forever?  A year’s supply of tampons?  A suitcase packed with Fruity Pebbles?  Your central air-conditioning system?  The lists below are my ongoing attempts to decide.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments!

Below is the list of what I plan to take when I move permanently in August (in two suitcases and a carry-on).

17 Days, 3 Hours, and 18 Minutes, then It’s Off to the Third World!

this desk was not made for 21st century american thunder thighs.

It’s a cloudy Thursday morning as I sit behind a teensey tinsey desk obviously made in an era before Oreos and box wine made all teachers’ thighs expand like the Roman empire, staring at the school calendar like it holds the the secrets of the universe.  Seventeen school days until we are released from hell, if you don’t count the day we have to make up thanks to the fact that (just like last year and the year before that) the school system has severely underestimated Texans’ inability to drive in even .00001 millimeters of snow.

Just seventeen days until I am free.  No more hooking my computer up to my hotspot so I can surf for random crap to One Click Buy on Amazon.com without the Administrators of Death finding out.  No more hiding behind the bookshelf as Principal Asshole presses his face to the tiny window in my door, trying to decipher whether or not I am implementing the school plan of creating a “safe zone” in my classroom where all the miniature Crips can hang out together in a cluster of blue clad brotherhood and safely plan how they’re going to jump the short Hispanic kid after school behind the dilapidated ice cream stand (the same stand where you can get a free baggie of marijuana with a minimum purchase of three pounds of crack).  And I work in a special needs classroom.  God save the teachers in gen ed.  It’s sort of like the difference between working in the psychiatric ward versus the overcrowded general population at your friendly neighborhood penitentiary.  At least I have the legal right to restrain the little brats if they try to shank me with a sharpened magic marker.  All the gen ed teachers can do is hide in their built in cabinets and pray to be saved by the bell before they drop the hand sanitizer.  Okay, it’s not THAT bad, but hey, hyperbole is fun!