We had a little bit more of a plan for the second day, although we did have our Amazing Race moments. Tuesday was dolphin day. Dolphins! I had made reservations online a few weeks before, so we just needed to figure out how to get there. We were going to Dolphin Discovery on Isla Mujeres. I had heard that the island was a cool place to visit anyway, so I figured we could go early and bum around.

The Dolphin Discovery people have a ferry that runs from a place in the hotel zone, but it goes right to their facility and I think it’s like $10 or $15 per person. I figured we’d take the public ferry from Puerto Juarez, because it goes right to the town and it’s only $7 (both prices are round trip). Also, the Puerto Juarez ferry has more departure times (every half hour vs. every couple of hours) and is quicker (15 minutes vs. 45 minutes), and less time on a boat is always better for me.

The trick was figuring out to get to Puerto Juarez.

We figured we’d just take the city bus. After all, I love the bus! We knew how to get into downtown Cancun, but not how to get to the port from there. We could have taken a taxi from the hotel, but there were two problems with this. One was that a taxi would cost a lot more and the other was that we were staying at the Ritz Carlton and apparently the rate from a “luxury” hotel is about twice what drivers charge from other hotels. So, we could pay double or try to flag down a taxi on the street somewhere.

We asked the concierge about taking a bus to the port. She said it wasn’t possible. But, my tour book said that you could catch a bus from downtown Cancun. We aren’t great with directions to start with, so this did not bode well. In any case, we hopped on a bus to downtown and got off at Avenida Tulum , where the book claimed you could catch a bus to the port. Buses everywhere! The book, as usual, was completely wrong about the route number we wanted. We just looked for a bus that had “Puerto Juarez” on the front. And waited. And waited. Did I mention how hot it was?

People were yelling and motioning at us every three seconds with the “honeymooners”, “shop here”, etc. A guy ran over to us and asked if we were going to Puerto Juarez. We attemped to politely ignore him. He said that no! He didn’t want to sell us anything! He just wanted to help. And the Puerto Juarez buses didn’t come by that often so we might want to take a taxi. But that we should negotiate the rate before we got in because it should only be about $2. He then high-fived us for some reason. But he was nice, so we started walking over to find a taxi. “And then, when you come back from Puerto Juarez, stop by my shop!” He called after us. A few seconds later, he came running up: “Your bus is right there! You don’t have to take a tax after all!” And he was right. He high-fived us again and reminded us about his shop.

Here’s the thing. The ferries at the port in the hotel zone are more expensive, doesn’t leave as often, and take longer to get to Isla Mujeres. On the other hand, that port is a lot easier and quicker to get to (although since we never took it, I’m not sure if they go to the main town or just to the places at the other end of the island). It probably took us at least 45 minutes to get from our hotel to the port (20 minutes for each bus ride, plus waiting in between). It’s about a 15 minute bus ride to the first port. So, it’s probably a toss up. We went back to Isla Mujeres later in the week and we went from Puerto Juarez again. It worked out fine for us.

I’m not even positive we got off at the right port. It didn’t say Puerto Jaurez anywhere on it. But it was in the right general vicinity and the ferry came over half hour between 6am and 1am and it only took 15 minutes and it was only 35 pesos each way. So, we called it a win.

The best part about the trip was the absolutely breaktaking water. You could see all the way to the coral at the bottom. But the second best part was the home videos. We watched a little video about where the life jackets and life boats are and then, out of nowhere, they started showing home videos of people dancing, then slipping and hitting their heads really hard, or somehow losing their skirts, or falling off stages. Then, we saw some of dogs climbing over tall fences and little kids trying to walk and toppling over. It was all set to happy, fun music. Mexico’s funniest home videos! Proof that the world truly is the same everywhere.

We got to Isla Mujeres several hours before the scheduled dolphin swim. What to do now? Did I mention that we’re terrible at deciding what to do? Like if someone came up to us right on the street and said, I’ll give you a million dollars if you can decide between the two of you in the next 30 seconds what to have for dinner, well, we’d still be poor. The rich stranger could give us 30 minutes. It wouldn’t matter. It’s a wonder we don’t starve right to death.

You can rent golf carts to drive around the island. It is, after all, only five miles wide. You can walk along the beaches, hire out boats to take you snorkeling, sit at beachside cafes and drink margaritas, shop, eat lots of food. We did none of these things. We walked and walked and walked along an interior road with no view of water or beaches and that had no cafes or margaritas. We did not intend to do this, but learn from our cautionary tale of what can happen when you are unable to come up with a plan.

We stood around for a while and then consulted the book. The terrible, lying, cheating, backstabbing book. It told us that one of the big highlights of the island is the turtle sanctuary. Must see! Turtles! So, we were off to see turtles. We figured we’d take a taxi.

Before I tell this story, I want to mention that generally, I don’t expect everyone in the world to speak English. If I’m in a non-English speaking country, and people there don’t understand me, it’s my problem, not theirs. However, I also sort of think that if you work in the tourism service industry and you cater to English speakers, understanding some English might be helpful in your job. If I worked in the tourism service industry in the United States, I would want to speak at least a little of the language most tourists to my hypothetical tourist destination spoke.

And when I say “tourism service industry”, I don’t even mean all taxi drivers. When I watch The Amazing Race and the racers are in some urban location, I don’t feel bad at all for them if their taxi drivers don’t speak English. But. We were on an island that is only five miles long. It is unlikely that the taxi drivers were there for any other reason than for the tourists. And there are only so many interesting destinations on a five-mile island.

I still wouldn’t expect every taxi driver to know the English words to all of these destinations, but here’s the thing: I think that if the taxi driver has no idea what you are saying or where you want to go, he should not nod his head vigorously and motion you into the cab. This is someone saying, yes! I know exactly where you want to go! Jump in and I will take you there! When actually he’s thinking, I have no idea what you just said and I’m just going to drive around until you see the place you want and start pointing excitedly. After all, this island is only five miles long. If I drive around long enough, I’m bound to pass whatever it is you want.

So, a taxi driver saw us standing around and pulled over. We didn’t even motion him or anything. We leaned in and asked him if he knew where the turtle sanctuary was. He nodded. “Si, si!” And waved us in. We got in. He drove. And drove. And drove some more. Finally, he turned to us and started talking rapidly in Spanish. I couldn’t make out any of it. I finally realized that he wanted the name of the hotel we wanted him to take us to. I told him we weren’t going to a hotel. He looked really confused. No hotel? No. Donde? The turtle sanctuary. He asked again (in Spanish) for the name of our hotel. I looked in the book. It gave a basic location for the turtle sanctuary.

The sanctuary is on a piece of land separated from the island by Bahía de Mujeres and Laguna Makax, at Carr. Sac Bajo #5; you’ll need a taxi to get there.

Uh-huh. I said, Laguna Makax? Bajo cinco? He looked at my blankly. He motioned out towards the water. I realized he was saying, you see all that water out there, lady? That’s Laguna Makax. I have no idea what this “bajo cinco” thing is you’re talking about.

He kept driving, the whole while, muttering things in Spanish. We looked at each other. I went way back to my six years of Spanish and… could not for the life of me remember the Spanish word for turtle. That’s one fine education, I was thinking. I really am making good use of that. Finally, finally, I remembered. Tortuga? Ah, tortuga! The driver said. And off we went.

He dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. I mean, there were turtles, but a worthwhile outing that would take at least an hour? Guided tours? Gift shop? Snack bar? We found four or five small concrete pools, each with a few turtles in them. The turtles swam around. They were cute. We took a few pictures.

Five minutes later, we walked out and realized we were stuck at the desolate turtle farm with no idea how to leave. So, we started walking. We walked along the water for a while, first one way and then the other. There were these weird all-inclusive places along the water. We passed by one, which seemed to also be a hotel, where they promised you could see a shark or have your picture taken with a shark or pet a shark or something having to do with a shark. We passed. Then we went the other way and happened upon this sort of sad little place with a buffet and hammocks and things. We slyly walked through and found the entrance, which led us to a road.

Ha! A road! I remembered seeing a sign for the dolphin place, so we walked towards that. Once we found it, we realized that the sign had an arrow pointed back the direction we had come. So, we started walking the other way. And we kept walking. And walking. This was an interior road, so we got mostly a view of bushes and concrete, rather than ocean and beach. We walked for at least an hour. It was really hot for a while, but then it started raining on us, so that cooled things off a bit. Finally, a taxi passed us. We waved him over and asked him about the dolphin place. He said it was maybe 100 yards away and we should walk. Well, of course that’s when we’d see a taxi.

As we walked, I thought about how I could eat all the great food I wanted that night for dinner without guilt because of all the exercise I was getting. Eventually, we made it to Dolphin Discovery. We were very happy.

A couple of things: swimming with the dolphins is amazingly awesome and everyone should do it. The rest of Dolphin Discovery? Not quite so much with the awesome. The ferry they suggest you take comes right to their location, and they encourage you to pay $19 for the all-you-can-eat buffet, and they rave about their other activities, for instance, snorkel with the sharks.

Here’s what snorkel with the sharks is: Three sharks are in the ocean, surrounded by this plexiglass like material in a big circle. You go out in the ocean with snorkel gear, and you stand on a platform and look into the plexiglass. You can pop your head underwater and get a better view. To get the sharks to go to where the snorkelers are, staff members lower meat chunks on a rope. The sharks appear to have no interest in the meat chunks. But they do swim around in circles, not unlike goldfish in a fish bowl. The sharks are pretty, but you can also watch them for free from the pier that goes to the plexiglass cage. Also, the meat chunks are kind of gross.

You can choose from a variety of dolphin swims and I highly suggest the Royal Swim, which is what we did. It’s also the most expensive. With this package, you get to swim with the dolphins in a huge area in the ocean, whereas with other packages, you are in a very small area and not much actual swimming takes place.

I cannot tell you how much fun this was. The entire thing was about the photo opportunities, but it didn’t even matter. The dolphins were just wonderful and cute and talky and bouncy and soft.

There were eight people in our group, and we were with two trainers and four dolphins (two with each trainer). The trainers obviously were very experienced and had great rapport with the dolphins. Everything was about the happiness and safety of the dolphins (well, and about the photo opportunities, of course).

The firs thing we did was kiss the dolphins. When it was our turn, we were supposed to lean down to let the dolphin kiss our cheek as we held his chin up with our hands. The trainers stressed that we had to stay in this position for five seconds. To get the dolphins used to us? Because sudden moves would frighten the dolphins? No, so the photographer could get a good shot. After the dolphin kissed us, we kissed the dolphin back. On the lips! P. said it wasn’t kissing a dolpin on the lips, but of course he did and of course I had to buy that picture. That taking pictures and charging $10 each for them was brilliant! My dolphin didn’t want to kiss me. He kept swimming away. Finally, another dolphin swooped in and came up for a kiss. He was thinking, well, if you don’t want to kiss her, I’m always up for a kiss!

We also got to swim way out in to the water and then hold our arms out to the sides. Two dolphins came up behind us on either side and we held on to their fins and they carried us around while they swam. Another time, we had to put our feet straight down and the dolphins came in under us, each with a nose under a foot and then they pushed us in the air and swam really fast as we flew. Those dolphins are strong. And they have great communication skills to make sure they were evenly pushing each foot.

We also got to just swim around with them, and pet them, and feed them little fish, and wave at them, and listen to them talk. The funniest thing about feeding them fish is that we were in the ocean and there were fish swimming around us everywhere! And yet the dolphins paid no attention those fish and went for the snacks we gave them. I asked the trainer about that and he said that sometimes in the morning, they would come in and find that a dolphin was hunting, but mostly, they liked having their food brought to them.

I had a bit of trouble hugging the dolphin. The way this worked was that you swam out and a dolphin swam over to you and then hovered in front of you while you hugged it. The dolphin posed for a picture and then swam away. Except the dolphins didn’t want me to hug them! Everyone else did this just fine, but when my turn came, the dolphin hovered too far away. The staff made me try again. And then again. (I couldn’t very well buy a picture of me hugging the dolphin if one didn’t exist, right?) Finally, I gave up. It was fun just trying.

After it was over, they had us all watch the video they put together. During the dolphin hugging footage, they spliced in me trying to hug the dolphin in between everyone else hugging successfully. It was almost worth the $50 price tag for the DVD. But not quite.

And when we were ready to leave, we even found a taxi to bring us back to town. And we watched more little kids falling down on video on the ferry ride back. And from the ferry terminal, you can catch a bus that takes you all the way back to the hotel zone, so we didn’t have to worry about changing buses. Which was good because we were wet and tired and smelled like dolphin.

Later in the week, we went back to Isla Mujeres again, and discovered that a golf cart makes all the difference.

We went back to the room and had showers and margaritas and lots of food. That was basically the theme for the week.

My job right now reminds me a lot of third grade.

In third grade, I went to a Christian school that was organized thusly: elementary school in one room; middle and high school in another. Long tables lined the walls, and we all sat at them, facing the wall, with dividers between each of us — in sort of mini-cubicles. You might wonder how we could see the teacher this way, but that wasn’t a problem because there really were no teachers. There were aids and maybe a head teacher-kind of person in charge (oh, I see from the Web site, these are called Learning Center Supervisors). We weren’t allowed to look around, but if we had a question, we could put this little American flag in a holder above our heads (not at all unlike a mailbox flag).

I’m not sure what questions the aids could have answered though. They didn’t really teach us anything. The entire curriculum was the ACE program (Accelerated Christian Education), which is apparently still around today. All of our education came from PACEs, which were workbooks that we read. We had to complete a certain number of workbooks for each subject (history, math, science, whatever) each quarter. At various points in each workbook, you had to take a quiz. You then raised your flag and when given permission, would go to the grading station and grade your quiz against the answer key.

No, I am totally serious. We taught ourselves by reading the workbooks and then we graded our own tests.

I did awesome at this school. I always was an overachiever and this setup gave me the perfect opportunity. It’s not that I was self-motivated and wanted to better myself or anything crazy like that. I wanted everyone around me to think I was smart, wonderful, and perfect. It was all about validation. You could do as many PACEs as you wanted. In two years, I was a grade ahead!

This environment didn’t work so well for my stepsister. It’s not that she wasn’t as smart as I was, she just didn’t care as much what people thought of her. No one was making her do a bunch of work? Well, then she wasn’t going to. The other problem was this was not at all her learning style. And what do you do if you get stuck and need some help? Turn to the Learning Center Supervisor?

I was always getting these awards for most PACEs completed and crap like that, but that school was also the only school where I ever got into trouble — spanked with a wooden paddle kind of trouble. Did I mention the paddle had holes in it? It was all because we had to grade our own tests. Damn tests. Damn math. I was learning long multiplication and long division. Row after row of numbers. It never ended. I would be so relieved when I finished a quiz. But then I still had to grade it. More row after row of numbers. I would compare my answers to the key and eventually, my eyes would just glaze over. Surely I got them all right. Right? I would run out of patience and just give myself 100%.

I didn’t intend to cheat. It’s not that at all. I was just so bored. I didn’t want to grade my test anymore. Well, apparently someone actually looked at the quizzes, although if they did, I don’t know why they didn’t just grade them in the first place rather than making us do it. They saw I gave myself 100% even though I had answers wrong (apparently). So, I got a warning, demerits, something.

And then after the next workbook section, I had another math quiz. You would think that I would have learned from the first time, but seriously, so many numbers! So freaking boring.

I got a lot more demerits.

I think it was the third time they caught me that I was finally sent to the principal’s office for the spanking. I cried. Before it even happened, I mean. I was never in trouble! Not me! The idea that people might think I was no longer perfect was worse than the actual punishment. That part only stung for a minute.

Near the end of fourth grade, we moved again, and my parents got the brilliant idea of home schooling. We moved so much anyway, why deal with school! So, we kept getting PACEs from the school, and sent them in when we finished them. For some reason, this only lasted until the end of fifth grade. I think my mom got tired of trying to convince my sisters to do their work. The suckiest part was that when I went back to public school in sixth grade, I basically had to sit through the stuff I had already learned, since I had gotten a year ahead.

It’s kind of amazing to me that this program is still around. I mean, I guess it works a bit like distance learning, or online tutorials, and that style of learning works great for me. But you completely miss out on classroom interaction — both with the teacher and other students. You can’t ask questions or get clarification or get help if you just don’t understand the material. Your only source of information is the workbook. One of the subjects in the core curriculum is apparently creative writing. How does that work exactly?

Anyway, my job right now doesn’t feature a mini-cubicle and I don’t have to raise my flag to ask to go to the bathroom, but it is very work-at-your-own-pace. I take a look at all the projects out there, find something that is interesting to me and then work on it. I research technologies and learn about them on my own and then I come up with the best ways to document them for the target audience. If I needed supervision or guided tasks, I would never be able to do this job.

So, I guess my experiences in third grade have really paid off. Well, not that part where I was on the basketball team. I still suck at sports.

I worried that we planned too much for the trip. It’s vacation. You don’t want to be tied to some schedule. You want to relax and just do whatever you feel like. As it turned out, we should have planned even more. I forgot, I guess, that it was us involved in this vacation thing. “Do whatever you feel like” tends to go like this:

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“No, you can’t answer my question with a question. You have to answer it with an answer.”

“Whatever. It’s up to you. I want you to have fun.”

“Don’t put all that responsibility on me! I’ll have fun if I don’t have to choose!”

“I’m good with anything.”

“So am I.”

And then we sit in the hotel room and watch The Simpsons dubbed in Spanish.

On the first day, we didn’t have anything planned. I figured we’d wander around, get our bearings, relax, have tequila. And it did work out that way, but we were not without our moments of indecision.

We checked our tour book (which ended up being crap, by the way, but at least it had maps) and decided to check out downtown Cancun — the real Cancun. By which I do not mean the one featured in that MTV movie, but the actual Cancun where people live. Because what we realized right away about Cancun is that it’s exactly like Vegas. It’s a strip of extravagent hotels, surrounded by theme restaurants, and tourists are meant to stay within its borders and never even notice they’re in a foreign country. (Well, depending on how “foreign” one considers Outback Steakhouse, The Rain Forest Cafe, and Senor Frog’s.)

We decided to take the city bus. Turns out, learning how to ride the bus came in very handy throughout our trip as we ended up taking it everywhere. It works like this: You find a bus stop (helpfully noted by a sign with a picture of a bus on it and a number, which signifies the stop). You watch as the buses fly by you and you look for one that says it’s going to the place you want to go. These places are indicated in huge letters on the windshield. For instance, if you want to go downtown, you look for a bus that says “downtown.” If you want to go back to your hotel, look for “hotels”. And, well, if you want to go to Wal-Mart, just look for the bus that says, yes, “Wal-Mart.” I am not kidding.

When we were there, a bus ride was six and a half pesos. The exchange rate was hovering around 11, but if had American dollars, you had to make due with the easier-to-calculate rate of 10 and pay 65 cents. If you have to transfer to another bus, you pay another six and a half pesos. We heard a woman asking how she could get a transfer. “I don’t think this driver gives transfers” came a reply from another tourist on the bus. She looked like she was feeling ripped off.

From the curb, you wave at the driver who you want to stop. You get on, give your money to the driver, take the ticket, and then you hold on. The holding on part is important. Many tourists felt as though the driver should wait until they tucked their change back into their wallets, and put it in their backpacks, wandered down the aisle looking for a good seat, and finally sat down before driving on. The driver doesn’t do this. The driver guns it. If you’re not holding on, you fall over.

If you need change, don’t hold up the line. Step aside and let other people on. If you are in a group of eight and one person is paying for everyone, the non-payers should not congregate at the front of the bus and block anyone else from getting on. They should go find seats. And hold on. The holding on part seemed to take the longest for people to get.

P. seemed amazed that at everything I get scared of, I seemed to have no fear of the bus with its high-speed maneuvers and abrupt stops and starts and weaving in and out of traffic. I just figured the bus drivers knew what they were doing. And then one day, we walked out of our hotel and down the road to the bus stop and saw a bus, completely totaled, having apparently run into and completely sheared off a light pole. The front was smashed in, windshield shattered, and one tire was folded under the bus. We just waited for the next bus to come. They come about every three minutes.

The other important thing about riding the bus is that you have to know where you’re getting off. In the hotel zone, this is easy. Every stop has a map, helpfully numbered with the stop of each hotel and restaurant. So, you have to pay attention to where you are and what stop you just passed. When your stop is coming up, just stand up and start making your way to the front (holding on, of course). Otherwise, if no one is at that stop waiting to get on, the driver will just speed on by. And you might end up like the tourists on one of our buses who yelled out: “El stopo el buso!” Which is of course, Spanish for “I am a huge American idiot and my aim in life is to make every other American on this bus pretend to be Canadian for the rest of the trip.”

If you’re not in the hotel zone, or you are but are still confused, you can always ask the bus driver. Despite their apparent hurry, they seem to have no problem answering questions, telling you before you get on if it’s the right bus, telling you which stop you want, actually stopping at the place you’ve said you want to go.

Anyway, we learned all of this our first day getting into downtown Cancun. Once there, we weren’t quite sure what to do. We didn’t want to go to Wal-Mart.

We ended up at Market 28, which appears to be a local flea market, but is actually just another tourist trap with exactly the same very limited selection as every other store geared for tourists, at amazingly high prices. One problem is that the handicrafts aren’t made locally. They’re made in other parts of Mexico and then shipped to Cancun where most of the tourists are. You end up paying more for cups and shirts and various trinkets than you would at home. And unless you find something you really love, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend a lot of money to go somewhere far away, buy say, a set of four shot glasses, and then trudge them home when you could go to oh, Cost Plus, and buy the same glasses for half the price. It would be fine if you could find something unique that you really liked, but that proved difficult.

We wandered into a tequila store. The guy told us about the tequilas he liked, we tasted a few, then bought two bottles. One was a tequila almond liqueur that was really interesting. We were told you could drink it over ice or in something like apple juice. We also got an anejo tequila that we hadn’t seen locally. The trouble with buying tequila there was that 90% of the brands were ones we can buy locally. And they were more expensive in Cancun. Maybe Washington just has a killer tequila selection and we haven’t appreciated how good we have it. Anyway, we spent $80 on tequila and figured we’d gotten the important shopping done.

Then, we stopped by a taco stand and I got this really great taco with beef and potatoes inside. And then we tried to figure out how to find the bus again. Which was really difficult since we had not yet figured out the system. I probably haven’t relayed the frenetic atmosphere, what with all shop keepers yelling at us to come in, and the timeshare people asking us “honeymooners” if we wanted to take any trips, and all the dogs, oh the dogs, running around everywhere, and the cars weaving around the streets, and the music blaring (oddly, mostly not Mexican music, but American easy listening 80’s hits), and horns blaring, and the heat and humidity (that caused us to remind each other quite often how stinky the other was getting) and more “come in honeymooners!” and “do you want your hair braided?” and so on like that. It was crazy! And really fun.

We headed back to the hotel and didn’t do much of anything for the rest of the afternoon. We went out to the beach and swam with the jellyfish. Probably that is not the best idea actually. The jellyfish were tiny, maybe quarter-size, nearly black. They gathered together in groups, forming black holes, floating on the surface of the water. We swam around them. Ridiculous, I know. You’re on vacation. Nothing can go wrong! Fortunately, we did not get stung.

The water is fabulous: so warm, so clear. P. said, “this is just like the wave pool at a water park! We could have stayed home and gone there!” But only of course it couldn’t be more different.

That night, we went to La Distilleria. They give tours on Monday and Wednesday nights. It’s best to make reservations, which we did at some point on Monday afternoon. They brought us each one of their house drinks, which was really good. It was various fruit juices and tequila (of course). Pepe, the “tequilier”, took us on a private tour, and told us all about the history of tequila, how it was discovered (originally, Mayans fermented the leaves of the agave plant, rather than the heart), how it’s made, and how to drink it.

We learned that the tequila-making process is not unlike the wine-making process, down to aging in oak barrels. At the end of the tour, we had a tequila tasting. We tasted three tequilas: a blanco, a reposado, and an anejo. We got both lime with salt and the traditional sangrita.

After the tasting, we headed over for dinner. We had margaritas, which were excellent. Along with chips and salsa, they give you a mix of black and pinto beans, seasoned with red onions, tomatoes, jalapeno, cilantro, and lime juice. We tried making some when we got home. It was good, but not quite as good as they make it. Dinner was delicious. We stuffed ourselves full. We took the bus back to our hotel and managed to get off at the right stop (which was only two stops down).

“I love the bus!” I said to P.

“I think you just had a lot of tequila, honey.” He patted me on the head.

“Yes! But I still love the bus.”

All of this was transcribed from my journal. I wrote it last week while we were in Mexico. I kept getting distracted by tequila and pretty sparkling water, so these transcriptions don’t paint much of a complete picture.

(May 1, on the plane on the way to Mexico)

I quit my job and I’m on my way to Mexico.

Well, technically both things are true, but I guess it’s not as dramatic as all that. The job thing involved a two-week notice and a new job and a lot of soul searching about work and career and life but I’m pushing all that aside right now, because mostly I’m thinking about how I’m on my way to Mexico.

P. is looking very cute, sleeping next to me, with a blanket all the way up to his chin. The flight attendant just came by with freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies and milk. And I’m feeling only slightly freaked out to be 30,000 feet in the air with no visible means of support other than this supposed “physics”, mostly due to the magic of Xanax.

Sometimes, you want a completely relaxing vacation, with as little hassle as possible, even if it costs a little more. So, we’re flying first class, staying at the Ritz Carlton, and I’m not going to worry about my weight the entire trip.

(Present day aside: Sometimes the best laid plans of buying relaxation are thwarted by incompetent airline employees and being stranded overnight and ending up in coach on the return flight after all on an entirely different and later day. But that came much later, after much relaxation was had.)

Just days before we left, my knee just about entirely stopped working. I couldn’t walk on it, put weight on it, extend it. I cried. How would I hike through the jungle while hopping? Doctors think I need an MRI; something might be torn. They’re not sure. But I’ll worry about all that after the trip. For now, I have a massive brace, pain medicine, and instructions to ice a lot and take a lot of Advil. It’s helping.

I can now mostly walk on it OK as long as I’m careful not to extend my leg all the way or put a bunch of weight on my knee. The brace helps with both of these things. I didn’t anticipate the other pains though: my throbbing right hip, unhappy about taking on all the weight of walking, my knotted left calf, which has been taking up the slack for the knee. But I can walk so I’ll take what I can get, even if it’s a little painful.

(Present day aside: My knee continued to get better throughout the trip. We scheduled the most strenuous activities for the second half of the week. I somehow left my brace behind on a tour van, but I could walk OK by then. Never underestimate the power of ice. Hopefully I’ll have time to go back to the doctor next week.)

(Sometime Monday, sitting on the balcony)

We got in Sunday night and looked for someone holding a sign with my name on it. A very official-looking woman asked us to step over to booth #5 to check out travel voucher and contact our driver. Ah, the airport with its cute time share people.

The hotel is, of course, very relaxing. The driver (who was indeed holding a sign just outside) took us right to the door, someone else took our luggage, and someone else gave us a tour of the hotel and showed us to our room where yet another staff member had our check-in paperwork.

Our room overlooks the ocean, with a wide balcony that spans both our living room and bedroom. We have two bathrooms. But the best part is the view of the light green ocean.

We went down to the casual restaurant for dinner. They were doing a special barbeque, so we got margaritas and feasted on ribs, chicken, sausage, and fish. I asked for flour tortillas and they brought us some warm, homemade. We also had baked potatoes and corn and bread and four different sauces. We don’t even remember falling asleep.

(Written sometime Thursday, May 5.)

Things that scare me: heights, closed in spaces, monkeys. Things I did on Wednesday: flew through the air across a ravine on a zip line, rapelled into a cavern, crawled into a cave, down into a cenote — an underground frew water pool, surrounded by stalactites and stalagmites, watched spider monkeys swing in the trees over my head as I hiked through the jungle.

And that was all before lunch.

Friday, May 6, relaxing on the beach.)

We rented a sort-of beach chair/cabana hybrid with an adjustable canopy. The water is light turquoise and is so clear you can see all the way to the white sand at the bottom. We floated in the waves, although we had to dodge the legions of tiny jellyfish amassing armies around us.

It’s hot. The pelicans fly over the water and then dive head first to land. Every so often we see a parasailer go by. Yesterday, as we were getting on the boat to go scuba diving, two girls bobbled their way into a parasailing boat, carefully making sure they didn’t spill their huge mugs of beer. One of our scuba instructors said that they must not have heard about the guy who parasailed into a building the week before.

The vendors walk along the beach selling jewelry, huge conch shells (that are available in huge piles on the beaches of Isla Mujeres, just a short ferry ride away), sunglasses. The large hotel sign at the entrance to the beach says: It is not recommended to swim after consuming alcoholic beverages. It is not recommended to purchase merchandise from beach vendors. Prices on everything, even the beach vendors, are very expensive, much more expensive than you’ll find on the Pacific side of Mexico. Vendors set up shot on the side of the road, beside ruins, likely tourist places. You can’t bargain a t-shirt down below $15. Margaritas start at $10. It is not a cheap place to visit.

But it’s very peaceful to lay here on the beach.

I should be cleaning right now. I did empty the dishwasher and throw a load of laundry into the washing machine so that’s, er, sort of like cleaning, right? I have a long way to go. Things got a little messy around here. Life has been like this:

Step 1: Spend all my free time looking for another job, preparing writing samples and researching companies and going on interviews and being stressed out and whining to P. that no one will ever hire me and being dramatic and generally flailing about.

Step 2: Have a phone interview with a company I really like. Don’t hear anything back for two weeks. Interview with another company and get offered a job during the interview. Mostly like the job, but have a few worries. Ultimately accept the job.

Step 3: Hear back from the company I really like who wants to fly me to the headquarters for more interviews (although the job would be local). Freak out. Tell the recruiter about the other job and say that although you would normally not pressure the recruiter in this way, would need things to be resolved super quick for this to work out.

Step 4: Fly down to headquarters, interview all day, fly back same night. Am told that offer is imminent. Freak out some more about already accepted job. Eventually get and accept new offer only days before supposed to start at other job. Go through awful process of rescinding acceptance.

Step 5: Meanwhile, try to get tons of stuff wrapped up at old job. Then spend one week at headquarters of new job training.

Step 6: Start working at new job in local office, learning all new stuff, liking it! At same time, helping P. get condo ready to put on the market.

Step 7: Apartment woefully neglected entire time.

Step 8: Go to Mexico! Spend wonderful week of getting lots of clothes really dirty.

Step 9: Arrive home, go straight to conference, meet out-of-town friend. Really dirty laundry sits in suitcases for days. Closet is ransacked as frantically grab random clothes suitable for conference. Meet with real estate agents about condo offer.

Step 10: Back to work; no time for laundry.

Step 11: Finally the weekend! Spend all day looking at houses.

So, now it’s Saturday night. I had a really big nap with the cats. We’re going to be gone all day tomorrow, so now would be a really good time to get to cleaning, because once Monday comes, it’ll be work and house hunting all week.

But honestly, I’m a little exhausted.

My cats are absolutely fine. In fact, they are currently curled up on either side of me, both leaning on my legs just a little, purring, nodding off, every so often licking my arm. The one cat keep looking up at my laptop screen. Maybe he knows I’m writing about him. The other cat has his head tucked under one paw. I scratch his ears and he stretches out, paws out in space.

Sunday night, I didn’t think the cats were absolutely fine. The last couple of weeks have mostly been really wonderful, with vacation and ocean and beaches and dophins and food and tequila. But I had one terrible moment.

It was late, about 11 PM, and we had just gone through immigration and had our passports stamped, and waited for our luggage, and gone through customs, where we were waived through and no one even looked to see how many bottles of tequila we had actually brought back. And we knew, by then, that our delayed flight and sitting on the runway waiting, waiting had caused us to miss the last flight of the night out of Seattle and we were stuck in Houston until the next morning and we were a little grumpy, but what can you do and it was Mother’s Day so I thought I’d call my mom since it was the first time my cell phone had service in a week.

I couldn’t get a signal and so P. waited inside the airport with our (without question) too many bags while I walked out into the night, looking for reception, weaving around all the other digrunted travelers who were standing around with piles of luggage, clogging the sidewalk. I finally walked to the corner, went around an orange barricade near the street, and that was the best the signal was going to get, even though it faded in and out with silence and static. I could see P. through the glass inside. He waved at me while I talked to my mom.

After the call, I saw that I had voice mail messages, and figured I’d listen to them. Maybe it was real estate agent saying there was an offer on P.’s condo. (There was, but I never got to that message.)

A friend of mine was going to stop in and check on the cats several times while we were gone — refill their food, water, litter, give them a little love. She had a key and done this for me many times before. The first message was from her. From the previous Monday. A full seven days before. She said that her key didn’t work. And she couldn’t get in. And could I call her to figure out what to do.

Complete and utter terror filled my heart.

The signal cut in and out as I listened to the next message from her. I caught that the apartment management wouldn’t let her in. I heard that the locks had been changed. To call her back. Or my cats were going to die. That’s what I heard through the static on the phone.

P. saw me from inside the airport, flailing about, sobbing, sure that I had killed my cats. It was too late to do anything about it now. I ran through the sea of people, tears streaming down my face. I ran inside to P. and collapsed on the ground. He was frantic.

“What is it? What happened?” He sunk down to the floor where I was, grabbed my arms.

“I killed my cats.”

“Tell me what happened.”

I told him. He kept repeating to me in a low voice that my cats were fine, my cats were fine. Cats are resilient. Even if alone for a week, they would be OK. I left food and water for several days. They could drink out of the toilet. They might not be happy, but they would be fine. No, no, no. I killed them. I left them alone to die.

I was absolutely horrified and scared and all I wanted to do was rush home to them and I was stuck halfway across the country with no way to get back and I felt helpless. So helpless.

I realized that I must have made the key my friend had before the complex changed the locks. She had a useless key. And how could I not have remembered. I assumed that’s what was in her final voice mail message. She couldn’t get in because the locks had been changed.

P. called her. I didn’t want to hear the conversation. I just knew she was going to say that she tried and tried, but there was nothing she could do. I finally made myself listen. I heard snippets.

“So, they’re OK? They got more water? Oh OK. Thank you so much. No. I don’t think you can talk to her right now. She’s really freaked out.”

He leaned over to me, put his hand on mine.

“They’re OK. They’re OK.”

I tried to stop hyperventilating. I didn’t quite believe him. I took the phone. She said that she tried everything to get in, called people she thought had keys, considered how she might climb up to my balcony and break a window, almost called her brother with a record to see if he could pick the lock, finally convinced the apartment management that the cats needed some attention.

On Thursday, finally management sent maintenance over to use the master key to open the door. Their key didn’t work for some reason I can only attribute to the chain reaction of things going wrong just because they can. The maintenance guy had to change the lock on the door in order to open it. They still wouldn’t let her in, but the maintenance guy went in and my friend stressed the importance of lots of bowls of water. He probably didn’t change the litter though.

I breathed. I still had to wait through the night and the flight and the waiting for our luggage and the ride on the shuttle van to our car and the drive home before I could see for myself that the cats were OK. We didn’t get back until around noon on Monday and P. really needed to get to work, but he went over to my apartment with me so that I didn’t have to go in alone. We stopped by the apartment office to get the new keys.

The guy in the office looked confused as he handed me the new keys and asked, “why did your locks get changed?”

I looked at him, still worried, thinking about the cats, about how close I finally was to checking on them. I just sighed. “It’s a long story.”

As we got to my door, I saw a note on it. “This is a notice of our intent to enter your apartment for the welfare of your pets.”

And the cats were fine. P. went in first and they came running up, meowing, demanding attention, food, water, and honestly, would fresh litter be too much to ask for?

It was three days before I was ready to listen to my messages again. I just didn’t want to relive that fear, that absolute certainty that I had doomed my cats and that it was far too late and there was nothing I could do. I had forsaken them. This time I heard the entire message.

Apartment management changed to locks to get in. Call her later to find out the details. She convinced them to do it by telling them if they didn’t, my cats were going to die.

An entirely different message than I had heard the first time, but with so many of the same words.

The cats are fine. I want to stay like this, with them both curled up around me, for just a little while longer.