A shopping Trip!

Ok, so after talking about it for 6 months, we are finally going to take a trip to Puerto Rico to get some new clothes. Christmas in November! As much as I absolutely abhor (yes, hate) shopping, I can not wait to get some new things (can I get someone else to try them on though?). Almost everything I have is made for someone on a boat or ruined with rust, bleach or blood stains, or holey or faded. We'll get Michael, who inexplicably likes to shop (!!), some new stuff (including cheap work clothes from Super Walmart) and then he'll spend the rest of the day dragging me through the mall and making various threats to get me into the dressing rooms (my mother knowingly smiles at this and is thankful it is Mike having to do this and not her ). A bigger crisis, Mike just ran out of liquid smoke, which will mean a frantic search for that as well (I also see him trying to bring back some soy hot dogs - the grocery stores stopped carrying them here for some reason; I will be looking for smoked paprika).

In a couple of weeks, we'll head out on a Friday afternoon, and return on a Sunday afternoon. It's only 229 miles away (a little over an hour) and nonstop, so we'll be there in a flash. This will be one quick trip as we try to cram both fun and shopping (which is not fun) into basically 2 days, but we've done that island hopping via boat as well. We're hoping to run into my new acquaintance, Jose, who will be visiting his family at the same time.

Other than that, we got our new outdoor furniture in, so are enjoying sitting in our new chairs at night - it's still too hot during the day. The weather is finally cooling (a bit), but there's still not much wind, which is really strange for this time of year. Here's downstairs:


Here's what's off our master bedroom balcony (with the best view of the water & all that's out there).


These "zero gravity" chairs are so comfortable, Mike brought them downstairs to watch the games the other day.

We took Zura to the vet yesterday and had her tubes tied. When I went through this with my last female cat, Simba, she was down and out for 3 days. She didn't eat, didn't use the litterbox, didn't even groom herself. All she did was put out a pathetic half-meow every time you pet or talked to her. I thought she'd never come out of it and then all of a sudden it was like it never happened. Needless to say, I've been dreading this procedure since we got Zura, but she's actually doing much better than Simba did. That said, Zura was really, really out if it when we first got her home. Of course, she couldn't just drunkenly wobble into a corner and pass out, she had to wander around trying to jump on things she couldn't see properly, falling off of other surfaces. It was like having a toddler stumbling around. Mike felt badly because he was the one who dropped her off at the mean ol' vet's, so he's trying to make it up to her. She seems to have her senses back today, but is still not eating. Every once in a while, she goes to play with something Jack is playing with and then stops when she remembers it hurts. Of course, all Jack knows is she's fair game now (he was very good to her yesterday) and I've spent the whole morning prying him off of Zura's back. Yeah, well, it'll be his turn next. His little manly bits are starting to drop now, so they'll be snipped around January. We'll see how he likes it when she body slams him to the floor after that!

Other than that, we're still looking at a movie - we just need to wait until Zura is back to her old self and can beat Jack up when she needs to.