Heroes and Villains

I am going to attempt to get this all in one post. It's been about three weeks since my last confession. The second week of September was spent in the Caribbean aboard the Freedom of the Seas. Along with two others of the same size, it is the largest cruise ship in the world. That's right, while everyone was dodging hurricanes and evacuating their homes, we were on vacation. In all fairness, we did have to miss our stop in Puerto Rico. Fortunately, there was plenty of things on the ship to keep us occupied. Of the two stops we did make, the first was St. Thomas. It is one of the US Virgin Islands. Callie spent the morning scuba diving. Tiffany, Jane, and I took a little tour of the island. We got some great photos from one of the highest peaks on the island. We stopped at a place that claims to have invented the banana daquiri. Now it was 9:30 in the morning, but there was no way we were leaving without trying one of those. We met up with Callie for lunch at a local burger place that was recommended to us. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Magens Bay Beach which was gorgeous.

Our second and final port of call was St. Maarten, which is part of the Dutch West Indies. This island is actually split into a French side and a Dutch side. Again we took a short tour which visited both sides of the island. They dropped us off downtown Phillipsburg where we were able to wander around in the shops on the way to the beach. We ate some seafood and took it easy the rest of the afternoon. I did manage to get a wicked sunburn on the back of my neck and shoulders. We had two days at sea before the end of the cruise. The last night on the ship was Tiffany's birthday. They brought her a special dessert at dinner. Despite the weather and itinerary changes, we all had a great time on this trip. Even though the trip was relaxing, we spent most of the next week recovering and learning to eat like normal people.

Over the weekend, we had some family in town. Emily was here with the twins, and Brad and Mindy came for a couple of days. Saturday night Granny took everyone to Perini's for dinner. The mosquitoes were bad, but the food was awesome. Monday night we had some people over to watch the season premiere of Heroes. Apparently there is a small group of people that do this every week. We invited ourselves into the group by letting them come to our house. It was fun to meet some new people. We ate pizza and discussed the show a little. We are really hoping that the show is going to be better than it was last year. At least it will tide us over until Lost comes back on.

Before I went to bed on Monday night, I noticed the back of my neck was itching. I had been outside quite a bit over the weekend, so I chalked it up to allergies or a bug bite. It was still there on Tuesday, so I started wondering. With the help of the internet and the opinions of some hard working people, I decided it might be something that needed attention. I was at the doctor's office for about 30 seconds before they determined that it was shingles. I have never heard of anyone my age getting shingles, but apparently it happens. Basically, anyone who has ever had the chicken pox is a candidate. The actual rash is only about the size of a quarter, but I can feel it all the way up my neck and across my left shoulder. There are several different things that can trigger an outbreak, but in my case we think it was the sunburn on my neck. Remember when I mentioned that a couple of paragraphs up? I got some drugs, and at this point the pain is more irritating than debilitating. The upside to this is that people rarely have shingles more than once in a lifetime. I like to think I'm getting it out of the way early.