On the Moon of Baby

Life goes on, and life begins.

Having recovered somewhat from the intense feelings that led to my last post, I press on to the experience of new things.

This story begins on November the 11th, 2013. Actually it begins long before that with what the Spousal Unit calls nagging, and I call friendly reminders. A while back, we decided that a last hoorah was in order. Aside from not having taken a proper vacation in about five years and having become nearly lifeless, cheese-chasing automatons, we thought it would be nice to spend some time alone.


We needed to say goodbye to it being "just the two of us".

We decided on spending a week at a lovely spa resort in Puerto Morelos. The week would touch on five areas of life including: Physical, Cognitive, Social, Spiritual, and Nutritional. Each of these areas will change and grow in the near future.

As it happened, day 1 would prove to be highly stimulating cognitively. See, the Spousal Unit is a special creature. If one doesn't make the correct noises when approaching, it may become spooked and growl or bite. So, to get anywhere, you have to hold your mouth just right. Let me give you an example:

Spousal Unit Safe: "Dear, do you think we should plan for the trip by making a checklist prior to our departure weekend?"

Spousal Unit Unsafe: "Please make a list of everything we need to pack. We don't want to be unprepared."

Get it? One is all about his ideas, the other is not. The latter of the two may be unpredictably dangerous.

I have a "big picture" perspective in life, while the spousal unit has the more detailed "pin-point perspective". Both are beneficial. The Spousal Unit will often help me avoid being overly-concerned with that which has yet to happen or to have fun in the moment, while I help him draw connections and switch focus. Despite our symbiosis, on occasion, these opposing perspectives ever so gently bump one another like sub-atomic particles in the Hadron Collider.

After a handful of "friendly reminders" I have two options: get frustrated, or let it go and trust that everything will work itself out. Day 1 of our vacay didn't turn out to be one of those instances where it all worked out. We missed our flight.

OH LAWD! You would have thought someone was murdered. "Let's just forget the whole damn thing! This is fuckin' stupid and pointless", the Spousal Unit was heard to say while his face turned an ever brighter shade of nuclear fuschia.

When one of the people of Wal-Mart, masquerading as TSA agents, began raising her voice at the crowd to "MOVE TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE", I worried briefly that I would have to restrain the Spousal Unit from slapping her nicotine-stained, gold-toothed mouth so hard that the Aqua-net shell on her bleached-blonde, beehive bangs would shatter into shards and injure the surrounding crowd. Thankfully, I was eventually able to calm the beast and we caught the next flight out.

When we finally made it I was surprised to see just how jungley Puerto Morelos is. EVERYTHING was green and lush. During our stay we enjoyed a fantastic excursion that included a tour of four cenotes (sink-holes). When the shuttle arrived to take the group from the hotel we were a little taken aback when the tour-guide said that we should move further forward in the bus because we'd be going off-road shortly!

He was SO not joking. After what seemed like an hour of driving through jungle so thick we could scarcely see the sky, and thinking at least twice that we were being kidnapped and sold into slavery, we arrived. The cenotes were beautiful. We snorkeled, zip-lined, kayaked, and rappelled through and in underground pools and rivers of electric-blue waters.

The only problem I had with the whole experience was when it was my turn to rappel from a high-platform down into a rocky hole in the earth to the waters below. We were told that a staff member would be atop the platform holding our brake line to gently lower us in. When I surmounted the structure, I noted the nice Latino gentleman charged with my brake was about 5' tall and weighed something like a young girl. I'm 6'2.5 and 225lbs.  

I questioned him for assurance that he would be able to keep me from splattering on the rocks below. Of course he said, "No, senior, is ok. You go". I went alright - damn near down my legs. When I departed the platform I heard a large grunt behind me and felt the rope jolt as I dropped suddenly about two feet before he said, "Iiiee", and managed to stop the rope. You'll be happy to know that I made it safely into the cave, although it was tempting not to relieve myself once I was in the water.

By the second day, we'd relaxed into this magical aura of forgetfulness that allowed us to focus completely on one another, and the rest of the world to melt into nothingness. We ate beautiful foods, took long walks on the beach, napped in hammocks, went horseback riding through the jungle, shopped, played in the sand and even treated ourselves to a spa day.

On the final day of our babymoon, preparatory ritual, we adopted new names. We each had the little crafts-man make us a bracelet. One said "Daddy" and one said "Papa". We wrote our names in the sand and dedicated the rest of our life to one beautiful little-girl-to-be.

The entire experience was sublime and one we can recommend emphatically.