shoot... i am never prepared for hnt

as usual, i forgot it was thursday, and don't have a nicely thought out hnt pic. these lovely ladies do, though!



this was hanging on the wall at the place we celebrated my sister's 21st bday. hee. seamen. hee. :-) two friends indeed....

here's the best i can do on short notice:



i love this picture, because it was from a fabulous trip to saint marten (that's sxm in airline-ese). i think it was my last caribbean trip before i left the airline. this is how caribbean trips worked at the airline:

• wake up early on saturday morning, trudge to the airport, get on a flight bound for someplace really warm and awesome.
• arrive usually around 3pm. go to hotel room, immediately change into bathing suit, and go to beach. [note: if the beach doesn't have a bar on it, then go to hotel pool, which does have a bar.]
• get really, really drunk. sitting in direct tropical sunlight helps this process along nicely.
• find dinner somewhere. in sxm this is very easy, seeing as the bar on the beach also has a grill, with seriously has some of the best burgers and hot dogs you will ever eat. the word "orgasmic" has been used on more than one occasion to describe these hot dogs.
• remember to keep drinking liberally while eating.
• at some point, return to hotel to get ready to go out for the night.
• if in sxm, return to the club located directly behind the bar you've been at all day, dance like a moron, and keep drinking.
• wake up the next morning wonderfully hung over, but force yourself to go out to the beach/pool and get more sun. consider some frozen daiquiri type drinks, depending on your state.
• leave at about 2pm and return to cold dreary dc.

it was a good life :-) so anyway, on this trip to sxm, we had progressed to the "dance like a moron" stage of the outline above. then we decided it was time to head on back to bed, so we were walking back along the strip of beach between the club and our hotel, when my friend erin lost a ring. it just flew off her finger, somewhere onto the beach, where it was currently pitch black. being the good, drunk friends we were, everyone dropped to their knees and started sweeping the sand with our fingers to try to find the ring. erin was helpfully taking pictures during this process so her flash could help light our way.

we never found the ring, unfortunately. after we gave up, though, i noticed my legs and forearms were covered in sand. (i know, fancy that, right?) what's a girl to do? duh, go wash off in the ocean!

now. i did mention it was the middle of the night, right? and that it was pitch black? and that i was really, really drunk? yeah. totally fell in. lucky i didn't get dragged out to sea, really. instead, just got knocked around by the waves a little, decided this was the BEST THING EVER, and went for a 3am swim. in all my clothes.

i love sxm. :-)