Vacation- Day TWO

We woke up early on Friday morning. This day starts off well enough. We go breakfast at the hotel. We figure that between driving around and looking and then paying 9 bucks at another IHOP, It’s worth it just to eat here. They have a breakfast buffet and I eat my weight in eggs, sausage and French toast. It’s heavenly. And it keeps me full all day, until we eat again at like 3 pm.

And then we go to the zoo! It’s fun and gay and tra-la-la. I’m being silly. It’s actually really fun. We use my mom’s AAA card, and we get like $7 off each ticket. (I'm such a cheapie. Especially because we spent so much already and we'll definitely be spending more) We decide that we will look around everything on foot first and then get on the bus for the guided tour.

I don’t know it at the time, but this means I have just signed myself up for 6.5 hours of continuous walking. And there are multiple hills of various heights. It’s not fun for someone who’s a)Seven and a half months pregnant and b)hasn’t done more than 30 minutes of exercise since last summer.

And it will surprise you what's hurting me the most: It's my feet. The actual bottoms of my feet. The heel, the arch and the ball of the foot. I’ve always known that I have low arches, and I need to get shoes with arch support. Usually this means paying WAAY too much for them. But it’s all worth it when my feet don’t hurt. Well, these shoes were cheep, (free, as a gift) so I didn’t worry too much about them. I should’ve. Seriously, it was bad.

Wanna know the funny thing? They don't hurt while I'm walking, but when I stop and I'm standing there it's excruciating. I have to dance back and forth from one foot to the next trying to block out the pain. When I sit down, the pressure is of course released, but that can't happen all the time. The worst was standing in line to see the pandas. We stood in like about 15 minutes to see the most adorable pandas. Here's a picture.

I totally feel like that panda is my kin. Rolling back, relaxing, eating and propping things up on its belly; that's my kinda guy! I've been in that position for like the last 2 hours today, and I was that way whenever I was on the bed at my hotel.

Anyway, Marcelo is actually very good about my sitting down. He takes LOTS of pictures. So After I look at the animal, read things about it, I find a bench where I can sit and watch. Marcelo spends 5 to 15 minutes (all depending on the willingness of the animal to perform) trying to get a good shot of the animal’s face, or paws, or something.

He tries to talk to every animal and get them to do a little dance for him. The Lynx actually HISSED at him. It was freaking awesome. Except for the fact that we don't have any pictures of us with the animals. It's just the animals. And Marcelo just took pictures of the animals, not their names. So all those crazy animals? We don't know what they are. (Menos efficaz, Marcelino) Here are a few no-brainers:

Just so you know, that zebra is NOT trying to hump the other one. They are both males. and they were just like messing with each other. I think they were bored and they were trying to entertain themselves. They kept crashing in mid-air and biting each other. Seriously, it was awesome to see the fight.

So after we walked a million miles, we finally took that sky-tram. Here's the view:

So back to talking about my feet: I'm wondering how I’m going to make it tomorrow when we have to walk another 6-7 hours around Sea World. My only consolation is that Sea World has lots of SHOWS and one can sit down and watch the show for a half hour. That’s what my plan is, anyway. Oh, and I also bought some Dr. Scholls Gellin’ arch supporters. I think those will work nicely. I took them out for a spin when we went to dinner, and they seemed to be working well. But more on dinner later.

We finally get food at like 3 pm. It’s all really expensive and it looks yucky. I decide to get a barbecue pork sandwich, or something. It comes with fries. Marcelo says, “It comes with fries” I say “yeah? And.” He says, “do you really want to eat those?” and I say, “You know what? I don’t care what I eat at this point. Just buy me whatever YOU decide I should eat.” And then I go and sit down.

The reason I was so upset was because that wasn't the first time he commented on my food choices that day. The first one was at breakfast when I took a croissant for the road. He of course commented on the fact that I was eating bread. I told him to shut the hell up. I really did. I knew it would be some time before we ate again, and I wasn’t going to let a tasty croissant like that just pass me by. That kind of put him off guard for a while, but at least he shut up about food. Well, until the French fry remark.

He was like "Why do you have to get so mad?" I didn't even respond to that. He knows damn well why I was upset. But I just eat my sandwich AND ALL MY FRIES in silence. I think the exhaustion was taking a toll on my attitude, and that was a pretty bastard thing to say. But he doesn't bring up food again for the rest of the trip and I'm fine with that. He's got to learn that everytime he says something like that, he's going to get a wife slap to the head.

Ok, I just read over this whole blog, and it's NOT funny. I need to add some funniness. I don't know if I can. There is more drama to come in the day.

We actually are back on speaking terms after we get some food inside of us. We finish looking around the zoo and head home. While I'm driving home, I get a call from my mom. She said that plans have changed. See, the original plan was that she would be home and be able to watch our dog until we got home Sunday night. When we got home, she would drive away with my oldest brother to go to Arizona and spend the week there.

Well, now the plan was that instead of driving away Sunday night, my brother Nate would drive her down to Richfield on Saturday where they would meet my brother, ride 4 wheelers for the day, and then Nate would drive home while my mom would stay and drive with Jeff down to AZ.

So my first question was: what's going to happen to my dog? My mom said, "oh, when we go down to Richfield, they are going to leave her in Orem and leave her in the cage all day. We'll be leaving at like 10 am, and they should be back by 10 pm. Hopefully your dad will let them out the cage at sometime to go pee"

(excuse my language right now) WHAT THE HELL??!?!?!? What part of that plan sounds somewhat ok to you? Do you know anything about the breed of my dog? Or do you know anything about dogs in general? Why do you think it would be ok to leave a dog in a cage for 12 hours in a row? Andy why did you decide that would be ok to do to my dog? Maybe you can do that to your dog, but I can't, and I don't appreciate you making that decision for me.

So, that was my first complaint. I asked my mom what would happen the next day. She said, "oh, Nate will watch her." Here is the thing about my brother Nate: He thinks it's ok to hit his dog. Marcelo and I don't agree with that like of thinking. We have NEVER hit Raya, and you know what? She is a wonderful dog. She never pees in the house, she doesn't bite, and if I let her off the leash, I can keep her right by my side using my tone of voice and the words "Stay close."

Viszla dogs NEED love and attention. Raya is the BIGGEST cuddler. If you let her, she'll tuck her head in the crook of your neck and wrap her arms around you and give you a big hug. Marcelo will pick her up and carry her around the house like a baby and the whole time, she has her arms around your neck holding on. These dogs just want you to love them, and the fact that Nate and Denisse have no problems hitting their dog really upsets me. It lets me know that they will have no problems smacking their kids around either.

Point simple, I did NOT want Nathan watching my dog. My mom did not understand this, and I was in TEARS trying to explain it to her. She was just like "well, I don't know what you want to do." and I said, "I WANT YOU TO TAKE CARE OF HER LIKE YOU PROMISED!"

Marcelo was SO upset. He was like "we should just go home tomorrow (Saturday) and not go to Sea World. We should just go home and take care of her. When my mom heard him say this, she was like "so from now on you can never go on vacation again because you have a dog?" and I said, "No, from now on we'll just make sure that the person who watches our dog won't up and walk out if something comes up. If this happens again, I'll make sure the person who watches her will be more reliable"

I was REALLY pissed. Marcelo and I tried to think of other ways to have her be watched. His friend Juan Carlos said he could come over on Saturday and let her out to play several times. Then he would do the same thing on Sunday. Here is the problem with that: His wife is in her first trimester and puking her guts out every 30 minutes. And he can't drive. So what do you think will happen when he says, "we need to go let Raya out" and she says, "No, i can't take you, I don't feel well." Raya will INSTANTLY take a backseat to his wife. As well she should, but I didn't want to take that risk.

The other problem with that is that they wouldn't be here for her at night time. Night is when Raya needs the most attention. She's used to sleeping around during the day, but starting at like 8 pm, it's TOTALLY playtime. And sometimes that playtime lasts all the way to midnight. She sleeps by our bed, and if she can't see you at night when it's dark, she starts crying uncontrollably. I can't bare the thought of her crying all night.

So that's why Juan Carlos isn't a good option, and neither was my sister. You know, she wasn't going to hang around and babysit my dog. She has people to see, dates to go on and boys to kiss. (Jules is a lip whore)

So my next thought was Lisa. Lisa I KNEW would take Raya, and she would let her sleep in the house, probably next to the bed of one of her kids. (You have to watch Raya though, if she gets the chance, she'll climb into bed with someone and snuggle right next to anyone. Like I said, she's a snuggler). And sure enough, the moment I brought it up to Lisa, she was like "OF COURSE!!!" (THANKS LISA!!! YOU ARE WHAT MY FAMILY SHOULD ASPIRE TO BE)

The problem with Lisa is that her backyard isn't fenced. I don't worry about Raya running away, but if she gets really excited, (like I know she would with the opportunity to play with Milo, Lisa's dog) she doesn't listen very well. If Lisa were to take her, I would want to be there and teach Lisa the words and the tone of voice that I use to control Raya when she gets all excited. Honestly, I didn't want to do that over the phone, because I thought that Lisa would think I was crazy for talking about my do like she were a person.

Basically, I was really pissed at my mom. And hungry. During all the dog drama and trying to find out what is going to go on with Raya, and where she will stay, we once again decide that we are going back to Prospect Street in La Jolla to look for more seafood. We went to the south of the street, but we decide to head north this time to see what was up there. We heard there was a good place up there called the "Crab Catcher." That sounds promising, right?

Wrong. Again, we were greeting with plates of Mahi Mahi and Salmon for $50 each. We were SO pissed. And we had dog drama. We ended up finding an Italian place that had some fresh seafood items on the menu. How pathetic is that: in Southern Cali, right next to the beach and we go to an ITALIAN restaurant.

While there, we kept getting phone calls trying to work out the dog situation. It was not a good night. I'm super freaking emotional and crying all the time. Marcelo keeps threatening to go home tomorrow. I start crying again. I'm worried about Nathan hitting the dog, and worried about her staying in the cage all day long.

So what did we end up doing? Well, my mom took Raya with her down to Richfield so she could could play all day. And then Nate watched her that night and the next day. I really felt like I had no other option, but at least Raya didn't have to cry all night long alone I really haven't talked to Nathan about the dog situation, but truthfully, I don't trust him with a living thing. He and his wife just aren't compassionate enough for my liking. Sorry, that's hard for me to say, but that's how I feel.

Anyway, i wanted to give you an update on the pitted edema situation. If you read on my comments on that blog, my old roommate Amy commented on how she had the same situation. (I WOULD put a link to her blog, but Amy is one of THOSE people that only lets "invited" readers see her blog. Don't EVEN get me started on THOSE people. . . ) Anyway, she said that after she walked for a whole day, her feet were so horrible, but she propped them up and in the morning they were completely normal.

So I tried to do the same thing. After walking and walking and walking for hours, I came home and immediately put them up on top of 3 pillows. And guess what? IT DID WORK!! Thanks Amy!! Your advice was invaluable. I think that it was the combo of walking AND the propping. I don't think that just the propping up of my feet would do the same thing. I think you need to get the blood flowing before you prop them up. That's just my theory, but it totally worked. Thanks for your advice Amy. This temporarily lets you off the hook for being one of THOSE people. HAR HAR.

I think that this blog has been long enough, but I'm sad to say it's not funny. It's considerably moody, grumpy and whiney. I'm sorry. I'll try to make my blog tomorrow better. Maybe another fart story or too? Those always seem to go over so well.