Dustin' off the old blog

...to capture life as it whips by.

For those of you who are still with me - whaddup?

I know I promised a final installment of our trip to NYC back in March - and I actually thought about it again a couple of book clubs ago as I hosted a discussion of "the Virgin Cure" which took place in the Bowery district of New York ... but then life promptly got in the way and here we are almost 6 months later.

So the long and the short of it - we had a great last couple of days in NYC, where we ate at a resto that used to host a huge nightclub scene back in the 80s (saw pix of Andy Warhol and Tina Chow in the bathroom),

 which was just around the corner from where

the Blue Man Group now perform .... which itself was a hilarious experience and if you haven't yet seen for yourself, you should, as it's probably now available at a city near you...

Also explored a bit more of the Upper West Side ...

And that was January 2012.

February was pretty crazy workwise - with another couple of cross-atlantic trips for me ...  and life wise- with the kids' school and their schedules, which got rudely interrupted by the boy's concussion on a ski hill while snowboarding ... which promptly ended the indoor rep season for soccer.  I'll have to admit although it sucked somewhat for the boy and moved him even deeper into the underworld known as the land of Xbox addicts ... it alleviated things a little without the soccer runs on a thrice-weekly basis.

[As an aside - the concussion thing was a bit life-altering at the time.  I suppose this is the stuff of 12 year old boys.  If I had blogged about it at the time, the intensity surely would have surpassed this one sentence acknowledgement.  Little did I know that there was more to come for this 12 year old.  He didn't score an A+ on his report card for drama for nothing, after all. An update on this when we get into May]. 

For our late winter/spring break we decided it was my turn to determine holiday -ie a warm weather trip rather than the ski-based vacay.  Which turned out to be a great thing.

Bahamas.

  (I'm always holding a glass of something ... )

Jumping in the sun - what's not to jump about?

And the big bonus - the man did NOT get sick.  Not once.  A miracle for any hot vacation spot- for that is what he tends to do whenever we get on a plane for a destination somewhat Caribbean - get the GI (ie. gastrointestinal sort) blues. 

I think we've stumbled onto something.

The lovely thing about Nassau (other than the fantabulous fresh-fruit alcoholic-even-at-10:30-AM-in-the-morning-daiquiris) was that we could take public (*cough* rickety buses with doors hanging joyfully by the hinges) transit to and fro without a worry. We chose not to  do the usual all- inclusive, which tends to be become less and less economically attractive as our livers get older and it's no longer such a deal for "all you can drink" we are responsible parents, after all...although given the boy's growing hefty appetite it may be worth considering again as he hits the teen years).

Back to the bus.

Both kids, especially the G, were having a blast - not only was there no car seat on these buses, there was no seatbelt, and as above, sometimes barely a door.

You couldn't beat the Bahamian locals for their hospitality and overall pleasantness.  One morning I took the girlie grocery shopping and the local bus driver not only suggested which place to go to for the best stuff- but when I showed up back on the road to head back to the hotel, another bus driver stopped mid- route (I couldn't find the bus-stop and was struggling with grocery bags through the bushes and keeping a hand on the girlie) and actually FOUND us. We hopped on the bus and he dropped us at the hotel within minutes.  All for $2 USD.  I told the driver it's as if their buses are always looking for lost tourists.  He  gave a hearty laugh, complete with gold toothed grin and although he was wearing sunglasses, I could see the glint of a smile in his eyes as he agreed with me.

On the Sunday night, when the restaurant we wanted to check out was closed, the bus driver wouldn't drop us off until he found one that was open, and when there weren't any along the way, he took us to a lovely place along the beach which we knew was open.  So friendly, we felt well taken care of, truth be told. 

And we did the dolphin encounter thing.  Complete with Awkward family with the dolphin photo.

And that was March.

Now that we're in September,  I've still got so much more catching up to do.  I'll try to make it quick, as memories have a way of sifting through the sieves of my brain lately.