Miss me???

Well, I'm back to my normal 30 degree cloudy weather in the Windy City. Cancun was a sweet trip! My trip boils down to 5 things: eating, volleyball, late night entertainment, more eating, and drinking. Here's some exciting news. I have a new nickname now: Jesus! That's the Spanish pronunciation (Hey-zeus). I was in a Mexican screaming contest, but that's another entry that'll I'll write about later.

Morning pool volleyball (11 am-12 pm) was fine. Just a relaxed game, with nothing at stake. But afternoon volleyball (3-4) was another story. If you didn't wait for the referee's whistle before you served, or if it was your fault the point rally ended, or if the ref felt like it, you had to take a shot of tequila in the pool. It wasn't Cuervo Gold or anything, but if you drank enough, you felt your head sliding away somewhere beneath the water. So the strategy was simple. Play well early, and get your opponent so drunk, you just coast from there. How much did I drink? Well I had my good and bad days. One day I didn't drink a single shot until 1 minute was left in the game. Another time I took 3 shots within 6 plays. I'd guess between 12 games over 5 days, I took about 25-30 shots. Sorry, but I lost count by Thursday.

I never though food at an all-inclusive resort could be so good. For dinner, there were 6 restaurants in the Adventura Spa Palace resort. They had a grill place, an asian, a vegetarian (no I didn't go there), a mexican, an italian, and a mediterranean. The Italian place (Ventanas) was amazing. Great salad bar with cold cuts and oils and vinegars in these beautiful clay jars. But it's kind of sad when you're getting better cold cuts in Mexico than in Chicago. They had display cases of meat in it, usually chicken, steak, and grouper. Next to that was a charcoal grill. You just tell the cook what you want, and they grill it fresh for you. For one dinner, I had 2 chicken breasts along with a pasta I made at the pasta station (tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, onions, spinach fettucine, and tomato sauce, which another guy cooked up for me). And the service for the most part was top of the line. The waiters are very attentive, and they made me want to raise my level of work a notch or 2. After seeing the way these guys worked, I know I can do even better than I am.

Breakfast will be remembered for 2 things: the omelette bar and the hot doughnuts. Now if you want to read about the omelette bar, go down and check it out yourself, because I'm writing about the doughnuts. Breakfast and lunch or served buffet style in 2 different restaurants. There's one station where they cook pancakes, french toast, and deep fry donuts. After you order a donut, the roll it in granulated sugar (that nice coarse sugar), and serve it. Then I added some cinnamon sugar to it and oh my holy God. It's a good thing I went to the gym 4 times because otherwise, I'd have gained 15 pounds.

My hair is braided and beaded. Yes, you read it correctly. Got about 30 or so braids and 60 beads in orange, blue, black, and white. Big surprise on the colors I chose, wouldn't you say? There was one 15-year old girl who stopped by and said how good I looked. I know she was 15, because I asked her. Her name was Natalie and... uh, anyway, I got a few good pictures of my head, and I'll aim to post one on here soon.

Well, it's Sunday. Giants-Eagles are on TV, so that's good. Mom's home, so we'll see how much time I get in front of the tube today. Fantasy football makes this hard. I'm playing against a team with Marvin Harrison who just torched me for 24 points. Hopefully, T.O. will score 3 times and the Eagle defense will shut down Big Blue. Yeah, I know it sounds a little hypocritical, but the Giants aren't winning this game and they aren't making the playoffs anyway. The Jets have Arizona and Houston before finishing against Pittsburgh, Seattle, the Patsies, and St. Louis. In other words they need to win these 2 and be 9-3 going into the final 4 games. Go 2-2 in those and they'll be 11-5 and that should be enough to get them in the playoffs. I just hope that dreadful loss to the Ravens doesn't knock them out. Well the new day has begun. I'll post a little later on. Much love to all.