When my alarm went off Monday morning, it just wasn’t a good scene. I was that kind of tired where you feel like punching somebody. You know, because you are so tired. And that seems like the only logical solution.

I somehow made it out of the bed and into the shower, into my clothes and into the car so J could get me to the station for the 6:53 train to New York City. And the minute I’d boarded and settled in to my window seat, I leaned my head against the wall in hopes of getting a little more sleep before the work day began.

I drifted off for a while, as the seats next to me filled up and the car got more and more crowded, and I came to sometime after we’d stopped in Fairfield and were on the express route to Grand Central.

I was hot when I woke up. Like, really extremely hot. They’d jacked up the heat that morning, I suppose because of the unseasonably cold temperatures, and I’d been leaning against the vent as I slept. I took off the cardigan I was wearing, but that didn’t help. I kept getting hotter. Then my stomach didn’t feel quite right. Then my vision started to go a little blurry. I realized I was about to pass out or something.

You know what the worst place to be is if you feel like you’re going to pass out or something? The window seat of the three seater aisle on a crowded train that is on the express route to New York City and won’t be stopping anytime soon.

I knew I needed to lie down. I mean, it wasn’t as though I was going to die or anything, I was fully conscious, and not even panicking, I just needed to lie down. But, of course, I came to the awful realization that if I wanted to lie down, I was going to have to make at least a little bit of a scene, because those ladies sitting next to me? They were going to have to move.

I tried my best to get over it. I sat back, took some deep breaths and closed my eyes, but I just felt worse, so I resigned myself to the inevitable, and in my most polite voice, told the women that I “didn’t feel very well, sort of like I’m about to pass out, and I’m five months pregnant, and would you mind getting the conductor for me?”

Great, I thought, now everyone knows. No one made too much of a fuss though, thank God, as I put my head down and pulled my knees up towards my chest, as my seat companions, who’d graciously and quickly gotten up to make room for me, suggested.

Within seconds I felt 100 percent better. I guess I just needed to put my head down, like I’d thought, so my circulation could get back to normal. But I’d already set the wheels in motion, as I knew would happen when I realized I had to go public, and a few minutes later the conductor (Why had I asked for the conductor? It had seemed like the right thing, but what could he really do for me?) appeared in the aisle with a banana and a bottle of water.

I sincerely like most of the Metro North conductors I’ve met, but this one could not have been more unfriendly. He all but threw the items at me, told me to “eat that,” and away he went, almost as though he had seen it all before and I was just another pregnant woman causing problems on the train, and couldn’t I see he was busy? And how could I have let this happen?

I did what he said, though, peeled the banana and started to eat, because I figured it could only help, and I was taking my first bite I saw a very tall gentleman walking through the train car, calling out, “Where is the girl who is not feeling well?” and I had to raise my hand and say, “Oh, that’s me,” despite kind of wanting to jump out the window. Jumping out the window at that point seemed like the best option.

The man was very nice, though, I’ve got to admit, and asked if I’d like him to test my blood sugar levels, to see if maybe I was hypoglycemic, and I said sure, and was offering my index finger as I finished the rest of the banana, when I realized I had no idea who in the world this man was, and stopped him so I could ask, “Wait, are you a doctor?”

A registered nurse, he replied, and I happily gave him back my hand.

My blood sugar was fine, I was fine, and we all returned to our regular activities.

When I got to Grand Central I called my doctor’s office to ask them if I should be concerned, and the nurse told me that feeling faint while pregnant is actually fairly common, that I’d done the right thing by lying down and that she was nearly positive nothing was wrong, but since this was my first pregnancy and it had never happened to me before, maybe I should come in for a quick visit that afternoon and get checked out.

So I called my office and told them I’d be taking a sick day, I called J and asked him if he could pick me up in a couple hours, I got a scone, so no one could accuse me of not eating enough, and I got right back on the train heading back towards New Haven.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful and even pleasant. I slept almost the entire train ride home. J picked me up, got me some lunch and made sure I was ok, and I slept a little more before he took me to my appointment, where he patiently waited with me, sitting on a chair in the corner while I sat up on the examination table, for the doctor to show. We laughed, thinking up ridiculous baby names.

After a quick check - my blood pressure and the baby’s heart rate were both just fine - the doctor declared that “pregnant women are simply more prone to fainting.” I told her that yes, I’d heard that. We talked about the fact that I’ve been really good about eating enough, but probably didn’t get enough breakfast before leaving the house that morning, and how if I felt that way again, the best thing to do is lie down, like I did, although if it happens again on the train I’m probably going to opt for the jumping out the window routine.

I didn’t like what happened, not at all. Besides being a pretty stressful way to spend the morning, I don’t like feeling weak, and even though I’m well aware that “pregnant women are simply more prone to fainting,” I, personally, like to think I can somehow avoid it anyway. That maybe I’m somehow better and stronger than everyone else.

Which, of course, I’m not.

When annoying or bad things like this happen, I like to at least try and look for a positive, and there are a couple in this instance. I caught up on some sleep I probably badly needed, for one thing.

There were also a few wonderful moments of female unity in the midst of all the commotion that morning. One of the women sitting next to me reassuringly told me that she’d fainted on the train when she was pregnant so she understood, and the other, who had been sitting on the far end of our row and had gone to find the conductor for me, told me upon returning to her seat that some man she’d encountered in another car had the nerve to say that “They shouldn’t allow pregnant women on the train.”

She told me she looked right at him and asked “And how many babies have you had?” Then she smiled at me and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “If men had to have babies, the world would end.”

As those regular readers amongst you know. Wednesday I returned from a week long trip to Hawaii - a vacation planned because my friends Lisa and Eitan were getting married there - and a vacation long awaited because the rest of us, oh, somewhere around January, started talking about how AMAZING and GREAT and FUN and MEMORABLE it was going to be for the group of us (friends since high school) to spend a week HAWAII! An island chain with beautiful beaches and views and leis and Mai Tais!

And honestly, I could stop writing the blog post right here, because you know exactly what happened: We had an amazing, great, fun time. I’d be more creative in my choice of descriptive words, but that’s truly how it went down. Hawaii is this incredible place, as anyone who has been there knows. Not only are the people who live there very kind and welcoming, and not only is there a ton of fun stuff to do, but there are palm trees and views of the bright, blue ocean everywhere you look.

I mean, if you want me to go on and on about how great it was and all, I will, but suffice it to say that I had a fantastic vacation. And I can’t wait to go back to Hawaii someday.

Here are a few pictures that tell the story much better than I ever could.

A few of us girls spent our first few days of the vacation on the North Shore of Oahu, where we rented a house. And oh yeah, we also rented this:

That’s right, a totally sweet Mustang convertible. Have you ever tried to fit five people in a Mustang convertible? With all their luggage? Yeah. Maybe it wasn’t the most practical choice, but believe me, it was worth it, especially when I was able to take pictures like this from the backseat while we were cruising around town:

Our days on the North Shore were pretty chill, and mostly consisted of waking up, eating lots of pineapple, putting on lots of sunscreen and heading to the beach where we’d go swimming and snorkeling. We also hiked to and sat underneath a waterfall one afternoon.

And by the way, the beach looked like this:

I know. Poor us, right?

Our next stop was Kauai. That was where the wedding took place and where, would you believe it, we had even MORE fun.

That, for instance, is a picture of me and my friend Cate trying to surf. The two of us, along with our friend Jennifer, took a surfing lesson one morning and actually got up on the boards for entire seconds at a time! There are no pictures documenting us standing up on the boards, but believe me, we did it. And it felt incredible. What didn’t feel so incredible was when I wiped out right at the shoreline, with the board going in between my legs, falling frontwards, then backwards, then having the waves wash over me and my face in the sand. But whatever. You’ve got to sacrifice if you want to be a righteous surfer. Thankfully, there are no pictures of me falling down, either.

Another adventure was a hike we took on the Na Pali coast on the northern shore of Kauai. I could try and explain what a gorgeous place this was, but pictures should do the trick:

Those are a few of the things we did on our vacation, and that doesn’t even really begin to explain it. We lounged around the pool, we ate shaved ice and macadamia nut ice cream, we tried in vain to snap pictures of huge sea turtles stick their head up out of the waves, we talked and talked around the dinner table, we took tequila shots and crashed a birthday party, we sang and danced and tried to do the hula, we ate pig at a luau and shrimp from a shrimp truck, we read gossip magazines and, of course, we went to a wedding, the reason we all were there.

I met with stark reality the day after my friend Abby and I boarded the plane to come home, when, following an all-night flight from Honolulu to Newark, I was forced to wait an extra couple of hours for my one final flight home to Raleigh. I was tired, and unshowered, and totally not on a beautiful island anymore. I was, instead, in an airport in New Jersey.

While I waited there at the gate as they kept pushing my flight back another ten minutes over and over again, a little boy, barely two-years-old, came over to chat with me in nonsense, baby words and I smiled at his mother and said it was perfect, “about all I could handle after the nine-hour flight” I’d just had. “Nine hour flight?!” she said. “That’s so long! Where did you go?” And then I realized that whining was absolutely out of the question and I told her, “Well, I just came back from Hawaii where I spent a week with all my best friends. So I really can’t complain.”

Tomorrow I head to Hawaii for a week and needless to say, I probably won’t be writing while I’m gone. But I’ll come back with stories and pictures.

I’m very, very excited about my trip. None of us has ever been to Hawaii before and the past couple of weeks have been an all-out exclamation point fest between me and my friends over email (”HAWAII! I CAN’T WAIT!!!”). It would be one thing if we were just going for a vacation, but not only are we going to this beautiful place to hang out, lie in the sun, take a surfing lesson (oh yes, that’s right, a surfing lesson), snorkel, eat the local fare and take in all the gorgeous views, but we’re going there for the wedding of one of our best friends.

Lisa, the friend in question, always cries at weddings. I mean, this girl cries before the bride has even begun walking down the aisle sometimes, and it’s that personality - her great love of life and for her friends - that makes me think I might do the same during her ceremony (OR the amazing fact that we’re all in Hawaii, for Christ’s sake, might prevent me from crying, I don’t know). Her soon-to-be-husband Eitan is - in addition to being an all-around great guy - the one who helped get J into birds when he spotted an owl in the woods outside our house a few summers ago. This makes me love him and very rarely resent him. But love is the most prevalent emotion.

And I can’t wait to be there when they get married.

I spent some of this weekend and most of this morning preparing for my trip, including going to a department store and buying a suitcase appropriate for such a vacation. It’s been forever since J or I has checked bags, thus we don’t use real suitcases that much, which is good because the one we have is pretty old and doesn’t really zip up. And that’s important when your suitcase is going in the bottom of an airplane for many hours, that it zips up.

Buying a suitcase in an odd experience. I mean, it’s a very large thing and you can’t, like, put it in a shopping bag or anything. So after I picked out a nice blue one I had to wheel it out of the department store, through the mall and out to my car. Besides feeling like kind of a weirdo - a weirdo who brings her suitcase to the mall or something - there were some practical challenges, like getting the suitcase down an escalator. Thankfully a nice guy who was out shopping with his two sons watched me mess with the extendable handle for a few moments and then stepped in, said “I’ve got it,” and carried it down for me like a true expert. He laughed and told me I’d have to perfect my skills before I went on my trip. People like that are one of the reasons I’ll miss North Carolina when we leave.

I met another nice person on my way out, an older woman sitting on a bench outside the mall who looked at me with my new purchase said that I must be going on vacation. I told her I was - to Hawaii - and she got this great, happy look on her face and said, excitedly, “You’ll have such a good time!” I asked her if she’d been before, and she told me she had, to the Big Island, and that it was a wonderful place. I told her a little about my trip. She asked me if I was flying (sure, a slightly strange question, as how else would I get there, but she was a nice older lady, so what did I care?) and I told her I was. This is when she sighed and said, “It’s a long trip” (indeed, my friend Abby and I are flying nonstop from Newark). I said I knew that, but that I was traveling with one of my best friends, and me and my friends always manage to have a good time, no matter what, so I wasn’t worried.

And that’s the thing - these girls and I - we’ve had a lot of good times. These people have been my friends since we were in the throws of adolescence, since the adventure that is high school. I’m aging myself here, but the year we all went off to college was around the time email became a popular, user-friendly tool, and we’ve all been exchanging a group email since then, sometimes many times a day, checking in about everything from boyfriends to health to, well, getting extremely excited about a trip to Hawaii. You could throw us in jail for a night (I mean, let’s hope that doesn’t ever happen, but what I’m saying is you could) and I’m pretty sure we’d have a good time (on a side note, one time my friend Jennifer and I did get locked in a boiler room, no joke, and while it was a little scary waiting for someone to find us and open the door, we had as good a time as two people can who happen to be locked in a boiler room).

So, Hawaii? Yes, from the interminable plane trips to the beaches, I’m thinking this is going to be one great vacation. I’m sad J has to stay here and work, but this just means I’ll have to scout out places we’ll visit when we both go there together some day, since we love to get out and see the world. And also, I have this new suitcase, and we might as well put it to good use.

I went up to New York City this weekend, and stopped over at my parent’s house in D.C. Thursday night, and because my mother was out of town on business, my father and I decided to go get dinner at this cute, happening pizza place in Georgetown.

We were standing at the very crowded bar, drinking a glass of red wine together and started talking about how we both tend to be a little neurotic when it comes to our health, you know, thinking we’re dying, when in reality, we’ve got a muscle ache or something.

My dad decided to tell me a story about this one time he’d gone to have his yearly physical, and the doctor had detected a tiny bit of blood in his urine, but opting to be “delicate” in his recounting, he leaned in and told me, “there was blood, you know, in my wee-wee?” the only problem regarding this delicate recounting being that we’d gotten really into the conversation, into laughing at ourselves and he told me about his “wee-wee” in a sort of gruff, fake-whispered-but-actually-incredibly-loud voice, which, needless to say, attracted the attention of some of the bar customers, many of whom looked like they might be out on a first date. But what really reeled them in, stopped all their conversations was when my father told me, naturally, he’d assumed be was dying of some rare disease, and I asked him what had actually been wrong, and he, having lost all sense of decorum and realization of the fact that we were in a public - a really public - place, told me that, of course, it turned out he was fine, that the doctor - and this he shouted - leaning back, making fun of himself, glass of wine in one hand and a piece of bruschetta in the other, “It was MY PROSTATE. JUST A LITTLE ENLARGED! ‘NO BIG DEAL’ THE DOCTOR SAID. MY PROSTATE!”

This weekend J and I flew out to San Francisco to attend our friends’ wedding. I first met the couple getting married - Alex and Natalia - my freshman year at BU because we lived in the same dorm, Loretto Hall, which wasn’t, in fact, located on the university’s vast and sprawling campus, but instead about a 15-minute walk away at a small Catholic college. It was used as overflow housing. I met a lot of my good friends in the dorm. We grew close, I think, because we were isolated, fondly dubbing our home away from home, “The Loretto Ghetto.” Don’t get me wrong, it was a totally decent place to live, but I mean come on, it rhymes.

Needless to say, I was extremely excited about this weekend. For one thing, J had never been to San Francisco, one of my favorite cities. For another, we were going to get to hang out with old friends we hadn’t seen in a while.

Because the wedding took place a little south of the city we rented a car and didn’t waste any time upon arriving early Friday afternoon. With the help of a map I’d snagged at the airport we maneuvered our way into San Franscisco, got an incredible parking spot near the North Beach area and started walking. We saw some huge seagulls at Fisherman’s Wharf, did some people watching at Washington Square Park and then picked a little Italian place on Columbus Avenue that seemed popular with the locals for pizza and a beer.

Afterwards, because we were close by, I told J he had to drive us down Lombard Street, the crooked street. Despite the fact that he told me he wasn’t that into doing the really touristy stuff (I couldn’t get him sufficiently excited to go on a trolley ride) I think he had a pretty good time.

We ventured back into the city Saturday and after getting lost downtown for, well, let’s just say a while, we made it over to the Golden Gate Bridge and surrounding park, where we explored some more.

We had bloody marys and a late lunch with friends in Pacific Heights before driving up to Telegraph Hill for a quick glimpse of Coit Tower, and to see the adorable, tree-hidden apartments up there, and then of course J wanted to keep an eye our for those parrots we learned about in the documentary “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.”

Since we didn’t have too much time Sunday - our plane departed at 2 p.m. - someone had suggested we drive to the coast, and that’s exactly what we ended up doing, then taking Highway 1 back up near the city then heading, sadly, to the Oakland airport, to go home.

Were there some less than perfect moments? Sure. We accidentally drove the wrong way down a one way road one time (San Francisco is very confusing) and J, in his hurried motions to get us turned around somehow put the windshield wipers on at the fastest speed, and I didn’t mean to, I swear, but it was funny, and I started laughing and I don’t think he liked that too much. Another time, because of the crazy air travel restrictions and the fact that you can’t bring anything with you anymore, including saline solution for contact lenses, J bought what he thought was saline at a drug store downtown. When we got back in the car he decided to pull over and put his contacts (which he’d brought in the case) in since his glasses were giving him a headache, and it turned out what he’d bought was not saline solution, but instead emergency eye wash, you know, the kind with an eye wash cup, like if you’re in science class and squirt chemicals in your eye. But we decided it’d work anyway and so there we were in our rented Subaru Outback pulled over somewhere near Market Street, with J putting his contacts in with emergency eyewash which, let me tell you, doesn’t exactly work the same way as saline. He looked over at one point and told me, bleary-eyed, “I squirted it in my crotch.” I lost it. We couldn’t stop laughing.

And that’s the thing. There were some stressful moments, there always are when you’re on unfamiliar terrain and you just want to take it all in - the tourist attractions, people, food and lifestyle - yet you’re on budgeted time. But you make the best of it, and J and I made the absolute best of our trip to San Francisco, not to mention the important part, seeing the most adorable couple in the world get married. Sharing that with good friends.

So when the priest who was officiating the ceremony told us to point our right hands towards the newly married couple standing at the front of the room and send them our heartfelt wishes for the future, I couldn’t help thinking that I hoped they’d be as happy as we are. Because, seriously, I’m having so much fun.

It’s been a funny couple of months, and by funny, I mean a lot of things that might not normally be deemed “funny” have happened thus making our lives actually pretty hilarious.

A leak of fairly gargantuan proportions has sprung up underneath our toilet, so that when we do laundry water gushes out from where it meets the floor, soaking the bathroom and recently, the carpet outside the bathroom and now it’s kind of seeping into the bedroom. The plumbers have been out several times and can’t seem to quite figure it out. This particular problem results in a vicious cycle. We put towels down to stop the rush of water, but then can’t wash those towels because doing laundry causes the leak to occur. So a few days ago, when all the towels had been used up for leak-stopping purposes, J and I were drying ourselves off with washcloths after taking a shower.

There have been a few other things. My laptop’s wireless internet capabilities have mysteriously shut down, thus making the whole freelancer-who-does-her-work-from-coffee-shops-and-town-hall-meetings rather difficult. A series of exciting, but slightly time-consuming trips to plan - San Francisco this weekend, Chicago for Memorial Day and Hawaii in June - and then the big thing, the thing that’s really taken a toll, is the fact that we were in an accident several weekends ago and J’s car is totaled.

I realize that seems like kind of a major thing, something I’d mention, but honestly, it’s just been a wild ride lately, a wild, but sort of fun ride, and I don’t know, we could get annoyed except that it’s all sort of entertaining in a weird, challenging way. This is our life. We rarely eat dinner before 9 p.m. if that early. We go away on whirlwind trips. We can’t seem to get the hang of paying our bills on time. We live in a rented house that sometimes fosters snakes and mice and relatively large insects, but we’re having a lot of fun.

To make matters more interesting, this accident occurred in Richmond. We were headed up north to D.C. for a quick, one-night visit to see some friends and take care of a few things and, I think it’s probably too complex to really get into the details on the internet, but we got off the highway to stop at a gas station and got into an accident that was technically J’s fault, but totally wasn’t, you know what I mean.

Anyway, no one involved was hurt, so we got the car towed to a local body shop, which was an exciting event as Mina and Cecilia were with us and got to ride in the cab. We got a rental and kept driving. See, that’s what I mean. When a lot of semi-crazy things happen all the time it’s not even that big a deal when you get in a crash and ruin your car. It’s just another thing that happened along the way.

After the long, drawn-out process of talking to our insurance company a bunch of times and having them do whatever they do on their end they declared the car (a 2001 Saturn) a total loss, which meant we needed to get back down to Richmond to retrieve any items we’d left in there. And because I usually “work” at home (which sometimes involves copious blog-writing and printing out color maps of the San Francisco Bay area) I offered to drive up yesterday to do that.

Because I was driving over two hours to complete the simple task of picking up a few items we’d been too hurried to collect after the accident occurred, I decided to somehow try and make my trip at least a little enjoyable. J helped me put some new music and podcasts on my iPod. And after I’d visited the body shop, packed up our belongings and said a quiet goodbye to the car, I decided to do something I’ve never, ever done in all the millions of trips we’ve made up and down the highway between North Carolina and D.C. - I decided to drive into the city and take a break. A real break. Not a break at the Sheetz gas station, not a break at Taco Bell, not pulling off the highway out of necessity or boredom, but a foray into a real, thriving, urban atmosphere.

I followed the signs to Shockoe Slip, only because I had a vague inkling this was a cute part of Richmond, that maybe I’d been there once before and liked it. Luckily, I was right, so I found a place to park my car and embarked on a little adventure. I browsed in a charming bookstore. I stopped at a Japanese restaurant for lunch, ate at the sushi bar with the other solitary diners, and got completely absorbed in the local weekly paper I’d picked up. Afterwards I took a long walk and checked out a few historic-looking buildings we always see from the highway.

When I got back on the road I was refreshed and happy - I was happy and even relaxed during what I thought was going to be a completely draining and rushed road trip. On my way back down south I listened to whole albums on my iPod - The Shins, The Arcade Fire, The Twilight Singers - it was this calm oasis compared to what life’s been like lately.

When I was getting near home I pulled off at a rest stop. I was feeling a little sleepy as a result of the hot sun beating down through the windshield and decided to get a Diet Coke. I almost never drink soda - I think a remnant of my mother’s watchful eye when it came to soda and “sugar cereals” when we were children - and it’s hard to explain to someone who never drinks the stuff, but it is possible to crave a Diet Coke, crave the harsh bubbles and saccharin sweetness and mild caffeine boost that - and here’s the greatest part - doesn’t make you fat and Jesus, I wanted a Diet Coke.

The vending area at this particular rest stop included a myriad of vending machines and I put my money in the first one on the row, anxiously awaiting that first sip, but something went haywire and the machine returned my money and yielded no goods. Not wanting to deal with a less than perfect operating system, I tried the next machine, which took my money, kept my money, and produced no soda. This was troubling because I wasn’t sure if I had ample change left to try again. I searched my cavernous bag and even marched back to the car to check under the seats, and I was getting extremely nervous - would this row of incompetent vending machines ruin my otherwise wonderful day? - when I pulled out a crumpled dollar bill. I tried yet another machine and was granted a Diet Coke that was not only cold, but so cold that some of the soda had frozen. A partially frozen Diet Coke on a hot day when I needed it most - could life get any better? No. And so I drove onward back towards the chaos, enjoying those last few moments of solitude and quiet before arriving back at our busy, ridiculous little house, that probably, right now, could also classify as a swamp.

This weekend J and I traveled to Atlanta and when driving back yesterday decided to stop and pick up some snacks, use the restroom and stretch our legs. We picked a gas station off the highway, somewhere in South Carolina I think, somewhere relatively far away from any major metropolitan areas, and were pleased to find, upon entering, several guys who worked there chatting about this and that, and it just so happened that one of them didn’t, you know, seem to have that many teeth. The other, a young man, who by his own proclamation had held jobs all over the place (including Henderson, North Carolina) and therefore knew his stuff, who told his friends that a recent monster truck rally had attracted thousands. He then proceeded to make fun of those who’d attended, saying that those people tend to be rednecks, “I mean, if you go one of them things, you’re bound to be a redneck,” he said. While ringing up our stuff one of his buddies said something in response, and our friend, who didn’t hear him, looked over and asked “do what?” And I’m not even sure you guys who don’t live in the south know what I mean here, but he said “do what” like some southerners sometimes do to ask, “excuse me” or “come again” or what have you, and I just think that maybe people who use “do what” in this manner, just maybe should not be judges of who is, and who is not, a redneck.

This weekend J and I drove to Atlanta to see our friends and spend some quality time with one another in this car. That’s what I said to justify the semi-long drive (5 or 6 hours depending on traffic and whatnot) - that besides getting to catch up with good friends, we’d get to spend the entire car ride talking and just being together. We’d make a lot of pitstops and have a really great time.

The thing about car rides, however, I always seem to forget when planning these trips, is that, inevitably, all you do the whole time is check out the mile markers and complain that “it cannot possibly be that far away, it just can’t.” That, and eat way too many gummy bears. Having gummy bears in the car is just bad news for me, because I look at them, and think about how little are harmless they are, and the next thing you know I’ve had about 100 gummy bears and am slouched down in the seat complaining that my stomach hurts and vowing to never eat them again. I never learn, though.

Luckily, seeing our friends alone was, of course, worth the drive. That, and having Joe introduce us to this video on YouTube.

Lest you think I’m spending my non-working days watching funny videos, just know that earlier I made lasagna and then cleaned up the whole kitchen.

The Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project

You can see more pictures from our recent roadtrip here.

Over Memorial Day weekend a group of us decided to head down to Ocracoke Island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks and spend the weekend camping near the beach as we had last year. The island is a gorgeous and relaxing place and so the idea was a popular one. About 20 of us packed our cars with tents and sleeping bags, coolers full of food to grill and beer, our dogs and our favorite beach reading material, and were off Friday afternoon.

Most of us took the Swan Quarter ferry - a roughly three hour drive from Chapel Hill and then, once you’re on the boat, another 2 and a half hours. It was glorious. We emerged from our crowded vehicles and passed margaritas and beers around. Just before docking on the island we spotted a group of dolphins swimming beside us. The sky was slightly cloudy but we weren’t too worried.

After unpacking and pitching tents all around our campsite, about 14 of us decided to head into the small town and have dinner. We picked a seafood place and due to the large number of our party, had to wait a while. But we settled in with drinks and waited our turn. By the time we got to the table a lot of us were so hungry and tired that all we could think of was a big dinner and the long night of sleep ahead. But you see, that’s where we got ahead of ourselves. Thinking we were so worthy, so special, that we deserved anything other than complete and utter hell.

When we arrived back at the site, some three hours after departing, the skies had darkened considerably, the wind picked up, and as we were all dutifully marching back and forth to the muggy bathrooms to brush our teeth, the rain began to fall. J and I were borrowing a two-man tent from friends, and although it would be a tight fit for me, him, Mina and Cecilia, humans and dogs alike were so sleepy by this point that I was pretty sure it would be no problem. It wasn’t. Not at first. We snuggled in - Cecilia, after she came to realize that laying her heavy, hot body across the midsection of our sheets and covers (as we did not have sleeping bags, waterproof or otherwise) was not acceptable, went to lay at our feet and Mina curled up tightly in a corner, having heard the distant roar of thunder and getting a little worried.

As we settled in it was raining hard. I felt certain it would taper off as these warm-weather storms so often do, but contrary to my amateur meteorological guess, the rain actually got harder. The lightning and thunder increased, too, tenfold, and pretty soon we were in a full-force gale and I was wondering how in the name of God our tent was holding steady. But it was, and somehow - by some mixture of true fatigue and those margaritas on the boat ride over I fell asleep. That is, I fell asleep until I woke abruptly in the middle of the night to find J sitting up and inspecting his surroundings by the light of a single flashlight. When I asked him what the matter was he informed me “our tent is leaking,” and I laid back down, because I was pretty sure that for J, a more prepared and neurotic camper than I, “leaking” meant nothing more than some damp spots here and there. But that’s when I felt the distinctly unpleasant and unmistakable chill of sodden bedsheets; the water was coming through the ground and into my pajamas. Our tent had become lagoon-like, and I knew we couldn’t sleep there any longer.

J and I decided we’d have to sleep in the car, but to say it that way you might think we were getting along and working proactively in order to come to a solution. Perhaps I should put it more like: J and I decided, using harsh tones and cursing our fate, to sleep in the car, after basically accusing each other of being no help in the matter - which is funny, if you think about it, because really, what were we going to do? We put on our shoes and faced the very extreme elements to run over to J’s Saturn. In a moment of that poignant dog loyalty you’re always wishing your own dogs would showcase but they rarely do, Mina and Cecilia obediently followed suit and hopped into the back seat which was crowded with ropes and our clothes, backpacks and beach chairs. They proceeded to make themselves as comfortable as possible (not very) and fell asleep without a whine or questioning look, as if to say, “Look, people, this is what we’ve got to work with, so shut it, and make the best out of the situation.”

The situation, however, was dire. As the windows fogged we wondered how we’d crack them and be able to breathe freely, what with this yet-unnamed hurricane or tornado bellowing just outside. Our clothes were wet and we were cold, but it was hot and stuffy inside the car. I thought about our shower and bed at home and wondered just who we were, thinking it was an ok idea to sleep outside with just a thin layer of nylon to protect us. I could get my seat back a little, but J had to try and sleep sitting straight up since the bulk of our materials was stacked behind the driver’s side. It was 2 a.m. and the only semi-positive thing I could think to say was that in 3 hours it would be 5, and then we could get up and go for a walk.

Luckily, J and I both have a gift, a gift of extreme value in such a situation and that’s the gift of being able to fall asleep easily. At home it’s usually only minutes before we both begin reading in bed that we’ve tossed our books aside and are out for the night. So when I awoke about three hours later I felt proud that we’d somehow been able to make it, sort of, through the night. We even drifted off for a little longer until the sun was beginning to finally shine, and fellow campers were emerging.

I was primed to tell them all about our nightmarish evening. The evening we’d spent in a half-flooded tent and the cramped and humid car, dogs and all. “We had to sleep in the CAR,” I’d tell them, and we’d certainly have had the worst of it, they’d decide.

But when we got out and began to walk around, I found that our story was not the dramatic tragedy I’d thought it would be when compared with the others’ tales. First of all, Nate and Ginnie’s tent was rippling gently in the wind, sort of sideways, almost, a tarp dangling off the top like a wild beast, some bear or bobcat, had grabbed hold of it. Since they were both still inside, I wondered if maybe their night hadn’t been so peaceful, either. Others were greeting each other with wild-eyed stares, no “Good morning” or “How’d you sleep?” as a salutation, but instead, “Oh my GOD WHAT WAS THAT!?” followed by their recounting hours of sleep vs. non-sleep, the latter beating the former by a wide margin.

It seemed, in fact, that while J and I had been angrily running through the mud and wind to the safety of our family sedan, the others, unseen and unheard, were trembling in their own tents, sleepless, being rained on, too. And that, inconceivably, we may have slept better than them all. Except Max, who’d wisely not succumbed to fatigue after a long day, and had just kept drinking at the site long after we others, we who thought ourselves “smart,” had drunk big glasses of water and called it quits for the evening. Max, the only smart camper, who’d apparently slept a deep and dreamless sleep, who had the audacity to ask - upon waking up and greeting the rest of us, who, inevitably, at some point the night before, had thought about getting back on that ferry and going home or perhaps plunging our bodies into the icy waters of the Atlantic and letting nature take its course - “Did is rain last night?”