You don’t know the true meaning of togetherness until you’ve shared one bathroom among a family of four for the week.  Two adults, two tweens.  Two girls, two guys.  Two exhausted parents, two overexcited and volatile kids.  Just…yikes.  (Yes, I get that this is a particularly first world statement, but it opens today’s post so let’s run with it.)

Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled to be away on vacation after Christmas.  After the ups and downs of December I needed space to clear my head and renew my spirit.  Sure, there was an art to juggling the bathroom and shower schedule, but it was totally worth it.  The days were beautiful, I ate delicious food (and didn’t have to cook a single bit of it), and I read an entire book.  That’s right, you heard me – an. entire. book.  I can’t remember the last time I did that which, when you think about it, is pretty piss poor sad for a writer.

To be fair my days did involve a great deal of napping.  And eating.  And bird watching, because apparently in my (ahem) oldish age I’ve come to find that relaxing.

On a weird flip note, I also loved watching a handler releasing his beautiful falcons onto rooftops and into trees.  You’d think I’d be the first one booing this guy off grounds considering the falcons scared the other birds away, but I found them fascinating nonetheless.  Oddly enough, our smaller feathered friends had been very busy congregating nearby, a gathering that may or may not have had something to do with the granola that somehow got tossed behind our chairs.  (Don’t ask me – I was reading my book.  Mostly.)  Luckily my friends were back the next morning.

There were also plenty of iguanas, and by iguanas I mean huge ass descendants of the dinosaurs.  Just kidding.  I only saw one huge ass grandaddy iguana, a creature that looked like he wouldn’t break a sweat taking down any of the toddlers chasing him.  Side note:  Do iguanas sweat?  The rest of them ranged from two inch critters that were mildly startling when they popped up overhead to ones that measured a notable three feet long from nose to tail.  Nothing gets your attention quite like watching one of those fellas climbing the post behind your husband’s head.

Add in the koi and hummingbirds who visited the flowers behind me each day, plus those weird black and white birds with long pointy tails and wings like a pterodactyl…well, there were a lot of interesting things to see.  Considering all that, I guess I was pretty lucky to finish a book at all.