A Much-Needed Getaway

I am married to a very smart man. Thoughtful and considerate and tons of fun and lots of other superlatives, too, but he made a terrifically smart call on Friday. We had been sniping at each other nonstop for weeks about the calendar and our busy fall schedule, and I was on the verge of buying trashbags and shovels the next time I fought traffic after a 13 hour day and arrived home to a Christmas tree’s worth of Cabela’s boxes ordered in preparation for some upcoming hunting vacation or other. It was about to get ugly. So Seth simply called me at work Friday and asked me if I’d like to go to Puerto Rico the following week. We both had use-or-lose leave, and PR is an easy trip that didn’t even require us to dig out our passports. Not given to spontaneity of any sort, I hemmed and hawed a little bit, but Seth wouldn’t budge and before long I was in. I (barely) survived the Commander’s Cup swim meet that night, got home and threw a couple of swimsuits in a bag, and by the time the sun came up the next morning we were airborne for San Juan.

It was exactly what we had both needed, and I don’t even think we realized it until we were poolside with umbrella drinks in hand. We hadn’t had an honest-to-goodness break together in- well, maybe ever. Things had pretty much been whirlwind since we met, and the last ten months had been a breakneck, hang-on-for-your-life, roller coaster of emotion and worry and stress and competing demands. Since we’re both “head down/ do what needs to be done” people, we had neither talked about it nor given ourselves a break for the short-fused exhaustion it had no doubt caused.  

And it all just melted away. We were only absent from the real world for four days, but they were beautiful days of sleeping until obscene hours, drinking rum for lunch, ignoring our phones and email, and lying by a spectacular oceanside pool. We lazily explored the Bacardi distillery in San Juan and went for a drive through the El Yunque rainforest. One afternoon we took the ferry to Vieques Island, intending to explore it by scooter, and instead found a killer dive bar on the water and whiled away a cloudy afternoon drinking Medallas with some acquaintances we happened to run into. We didn’t horseback ride or rent ATVs or kayak or snorkel, all of which we had considered on the plane. We just… unwound. And it was wonderful.

Even coming back to the real world wasn’t so bad, although I contracted the dreaded "airplane air" cold and was knocked flat (but not before infecting my entire office, and having to hear about Seth's superior immune system, since he was not so afflicted.) I did manage to pull myself together enough to get sworn into the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which turned out to be a really nice first morning back, rush hour traffic in the District notwithstanding. Seth was still on leave, so we had a breakfast date at our neighborhood bagel place and he came with me to watch the swearing-in and listen to oral arguments before heading down to Belvoir to kick off fall bowhunting season. He also sent me dozens of flowers, which was so sweet I didn’t even mind his stalking deer until all hours of the night while I coughed myself to sleep on the couch. A smart man, indeed.

All in all, it was a beautiful week. It’s already Friday, and I’m trying to decide whether to buy a surgical mask to wear (a la Seoul) so I can go see my adorable niece after work, since the Oklahoma Walters are in town and I've been dying to see them (but not wanting to share the plague.)

Photo of the week has to be this one (because it's hysterical), of the motley DAD Crew at the swim meet. We (obviously) didn’t win, nor did we look good doing it. But I managed to not drown and pull off a cannon ball start, and beer and pizza was had by all.