the long and winding road

As tired as I am, I only managed to sleep 4 hours this afternoon. I should have turned my phone completely off cause it kept buzzing at me and disturbing me. It's taken me nearly 2 hours to feel somewhat normal though I'm still really, really tired.

Sometimes when I am falling asleep I have these weird dreams. I don't even know if they're dreams cause I still feel like I'm partially awake. But it's just people having conversations. I don't think it's normally people I know, but the thing that is so bizarre to me is that in these dreams the people will be having conversations about things that I know nothing about. They'll be using words and my observing subconscious is just like, where did that come from? You don't know anything about that and have never even heard that word before. Because it's in such a weird stage of sleep it's hard for me to remember anything specific but I've had this thought on several occasions. How can our dreams involve things that our real life minds don't know anything about?

Back to yesterday... I woke up yesterday morning and called the bank first thing, as I've done every day this week, trying to see what remains to be done before I can get the check, go to Miami and get my car. Lo and behold all is complete so it's time to go. After much running around gathering insurance info, etc... (thanks to my dear friend Joe who has been kind enough to entrust me with his car), Tanya and I went to the airport. This guy I've been dealing with said that he would pick us up when we got to Miami which was great. I was worried about taxis and stuff. He still seemed to be a little surprised that we were really flying down to get his car. He picked us up and we hit it off right away. He told us about his wife, daughter, and son, about Miami, the car and then informed us that we couldn't leave Miami without going to South Beach. He was still turning other buyers away, all the while laughing that we would go to such lengths to get a car. I told him it's not that big of a deal. Which only tells me that I've already been working for the airline too long.

We got to the house and there my car was, sitting in the driveway in all its little Honda cuteness. I'll try to get some pictures up before too long. It's a black 99 4 dr Civic EX. It's got a leather interior which is in great condition, sunroof, manual transmission (yay!!), cd player, etc... It even has keyless entry which will be fantastic for someone who hasn't even had power locks for over a year, but they have to find the remote. His family was really nice and they have two adorable little dogs. The smaller one was a dog I could possibly see myself owning. I bought the car, then Tanya and I followed him and his wife over to South Beach where they insisted on treating us to dinner. We walked down Ocean Dr (I believe that was it) in front of all the restaurants and shops. I don't know about the rest of Miami but just that one street felt so alive. It reminded me of Madrid how everyone was always out at night, eating, drinking, playing music, spending time with family. We ate at a really great seafood place. They ordered shrimp and mussels for appetizers. I've had oysters and thought mussels would be like them (don't really care for oysters) but they were pretty good. Then we all had different kinds of fish. I had grouper with pear chutney over spinach. It seemed like it was lightly breaded, but whatever they did to it, it was very good. Then we had two different desserts that were really amazing as well. Not the best way to start a road trip but it was sooo good. They were a great couple to talk to. They had married really young but were still together after 26 years. Had a lot of cool stories to tell as well.

Because we got out of there so late we didn't get to stop in Ft. Lauderdale and see Simon, who I owe getting this car to. That just means I'll have to go back down there again soon. From what I saw it seems like a cool city, and now we have new friends down there.

The drive back was long. I was thinking about it today as I was lying in bed trying to sleep and I can only say that it was Jesus that made all this happen. When I was driving I didn't feel tired for hours and hours. I didn't feel anything. Just drove and drove. I don't even know what I thought about half the time. I made this cd last month and the whole point of it was songs that you like playing really loud, so I listened to that at least 3 times while Tanya somehow managed to sleep. I even had the air band going to Alice Cooper's Poison. You just can't help it when that song comes on.

We got home around 9 this morning. Tanya drove the last hour or so which involved coming up Hwy 16 through Griffin. She got pretty frustrated at some of the lights, and I'm sure gave some construction workers a good morning laugh at her stalling out, but I'm determined (and I believe she is too) that she'll learn how to drive a stick. Everyone should know how. They're so much fun also.

Well now it's time to get ready for work. Good times. Off to Ft. Walton Beach. Wonder if we'll get a fun captain tonight? J is off to Zurich and I'm gonna miss him. Or maybe I'm just jealous cause I can't go :-P. Who wants to go to Zurich when they can spend 6 hours at Ft. Walton Beach anyway?