Disaster in paradise

Well, hopefully the worst has now happened on this trip - hopefully. There's a reason I've never had a penchant for jewelries that can't be firmly attached through a piece of flesh. I tend to lose them, like this afternoon when I was playing in the surf. After being thoroughly pummeled, I came up, looked at my left-hand ring finger, and realized my wedding band was no longer there. I don't know that I've ever felt so hopeless, knowing that the ring was literally within a twenty foot radius of where I stood in four feet deep water choked with sediment.

It is literally the most expensive thing I've ever lost, but it's not really the cost of it that bums me out. That ring represents three years of marriage, three years of sentiments, three years of memories. And now it's buried at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, probably never to be seen again. At least by me. I suppose I'm a little comforted to know that someday, someone may stumble upon it, and it may give that person joy. But for me, I'm stuck with the knowledge that I'm a fucking idiot for wearing a piece of jewelry that could so easily slip off into the turbulent sea.

In the big picture, I suppose it's better that I lost the ring than ms. wobs or l'il wobs, but I'm still bummed.

Other than that, the vacation has been pretty great so far. The weather's been a tad on the cool side to this point, but will be up in the 90s by mid-week. L'il wobs loves being in an ocean in which he can actually swim without suffering hypothermia. I've gotten quite adept at saying "no, gracias" to the dozens of vendors who attempt to sell me trinkets everyday.

The condo we are staying in is located directly across the street from the Blue Chair Beach Resort which, according to the Lonely Planet guide, is the epicenter of Puerto Vallarta's gay resort scene, which is super-cool, except that hearing "Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me" becomes less kitschy and more annoying around the sixth time you've heard it (and again, we're on day three, here).

Lots of nice folks around us, too. In the building next to us are a gang of college kids who only seem to stop drinking when the pass out (as we saw three of them at 6 PM yesterday on their balcony). Last night I made the acquaintance of one of our neighbors in our condo, a fascinating woman who is a senior civil servant at the EPA and who was a member of Al Gore's staff when he was VP. Her husband is a radical political cartoonist who's done artwork for several magazines (like The Progressive) and who is apparently behind a lot of the artwork for rallies and the like in the DC area (his nom de guerre is Fluggenock, for those who may know). I ended up chatting with the woman until late last night over margaritas.

As you can tell, I've figured out how to get 'net access - from the roof of our condo we can rip off the wifi signal of a neighboring hotel. And I've gotta say, blogging under a first quarter moon while the city glimmers around the bay and the rhythmic sounds of the surf (and of the karaoke drag show at the Blue Chair) fill ones ears is mighty, mighty nice.

It'd be far nicer if I didn't lose that fucking ring.