The room/condo*

Pictures of the room. I just knew there was no way I could describe adequately the cacophany of colors and patterns that made up this decor. It looks kind of like it was decorated by Liberace Who, doesn't it?

Today was mostly about getting down there. I woke up early, and decided to get on up so I could get on the road. But by the time I finished breakfast, saw to the cats, etc, I couldn't leave before 9. I had the television on watching the CNN coverage of the election results while I was packing. So many wonderful things! I was so excited. It was truly moving to see Jesse Jackson with tears running down his face when the results were announced. Putin's response was a bit of a cold water splash on an otherwise warm and fuzzy news morning.

***

When I got to the beach, I couldn't find Mom. The condos we are staying at (she traded in her time share this year) have four huge towers and no one knew where she was. When I finally found her, she had been held hostage by Evil Barbie, the time share salesperson. They had duped her into coming to a "points discussion" about her time share and then started the pitch. Mom had been there for almost two hours, she later told me. The key, of course, is that Mom's time share is paid for, and they want more money from her. I got real with Evil Barbie, who went off to get her boss after I told her she had 15 minutes longer before we left. They said "we're paying her to be here". The pay involved was a "free" dinner for two at the Bonefish Grill. I told Mom I'd buy her dinner, and that was when EB left for reinforcements.

She came back with the supervisor, who proceeded to run through some kind of points conversion chart whereby she would buy more vacation time than she needed, and they would then rent her unit for her to pay part of the extra money, converting some of this to so many points, etc etc. Basically, I recognize a scam when I see it, and doubt a nobel prize winner in mathematics would have been able to follow all the twists and turns of convolution necessary to arrive at the conclusion that this would "save" her money "in the long run". After he ran through it, Mom said she wasn't interested. At that point, I just spoke up. I said "OK, you've presented, and she's told you she doesn't want this. Now go away." The supervisor informed me that she was free to leave at any time, and that the door was open, but that we were "in his office". I was like, alrighty then, we're out of here. Mom was rather shocked. She's never seen me in work mode before, and had never seen me get real with someone like that. It took her a few minutes to recover.

Then, on the way to the room, Mom told me that she had been there for almost two hours, and that Evil Barbie had told her she couldn't leave! It's a really good thing I didn't know that when I was there.

Then, we got up to the room. I was so upset for Mom. We always stay ocean front. They told her she couldn't have ocean front when she got there, because she wasn't a "premier member". We are across the street. Also, Mom doesn't like staying high up because you can't hear the water. We are on the top floor. I was so upset because I knew the room wasn't what Mom wanted. But she seemed OK with it, and it is a big room. The bathrooms are huge. It's a bit stinky, and looks like it was decorated by Liberache Who, but I guess the imporant thing is that we're together and at the beach. I really need this vacation.

Mom hadn't had any lunch either, so we went over to Barefoot Landing for a bite. We had Caesar salads and some excellent homemade chips. We strolled through a few of the shops, and then went back to the room so I could unpack and settle in a bit. Mom told me about what she and Rod had done earlier in the week, since she's been here since Sunday.

We decided to have dinner at Abuelo's, a great Mexican place I read about online and we ate at the last time we came down. I was really looking forward to that. The food was excellent, as I remembered, and the Sangria is some of the best I have ever tasted.

By the time we got back to the room after dinner, I was pretty bushed. It had been a long day for both of us. So we hit the hay.