Monkey Attacks and Electrocution Central American Style

Our first day of inland Belize adventure took us tubing through caves at Caves Branch which was fun for the portion of the trip where my ass wasn't being dragged across rocks.

I conveniently didn't bring my camera for that ... but was able to score a pic from the internet. I wasn't able to score a picture that simulated BoyChild walking through some ants while humping an innertube through the forest. Haha. Good times.

On the second day, we began by visiting the Mayan ruins of Xunantunich. You can see GirlChild approaching in her kickin' sun gear. The kids raced to the top (and I do mean the VERY TOP) on tilty, un-hand-railed steps, some of which had been plastered back together after an earthquake.

(dialogue at Xunantunich)

Alice: Hold my hand.

Alice: Put your back against the wall.

Alice: Go down those steps on your butt.

Alice: Omigod I'm going to die.

We somehow left the ruins (not dead) for a leisurely canoe trip into Barton's Creek Cave. On the way to our canoe, we found a friendly spider monkey - who took a shine to GirlChild's headband. GirlChild lost.

.

Here you can see the friendly canoes. Bear in mind that we're about to enter a DARK cave. GirlChild has already screamed her way through dark caves on an inner tube so I'm concerned.

Luis comes back with what looks like a small car battery and thunks it into the watery bottom of the canoe, hands us a huge spot light and then says we'll need to attach it to the battery when we get into the cave.

Alice: Ummm..isn't that dangerous?! (Holy ACDelco, I'm going to be electrocuted!)

Luis: It's only 12 volts.

Alice: Omigod, I'm going to die. (I have no concept of what kind of impact a 'volt' has on a body.)

Luis get Babycakes, BoyChild and their own killer battery settled into another canoe and gives them the keys. Babycakes isn't really an outdoorsy type of guy so I was kinda curious as to how his canoe/spotlight handling would be. Turns out he and BoyChild survived.

At least Luis was in charge of the gals and I was pretty sure he could save us if GirlChild decided to drop the spotlight into the water.

In order to get into the cave, you have to sort of hump your canoe between the cave wall and a rock that sits right in your way. It's not really a fast process, I'm sitting in the front, and I notice a fist-sized spider on the cave wall about 5 inches from my personal space.

I'm silently freaking out because the last thing I want to do is alert GirlChild to the fact that this Godzilla Spider is hanging around and start her screaming before we even hit the cave.

I move my body right as far as I can. Luis yells something lame about tipping the canoe. And I finally manage to splash enough water around the spider so that he disappears.

Luis gets us over the rock and into the actual cave, we hook up the Battery-Of-Death and experience an absolutely gorgeous cave ... right up until GirlChild says, "Mom...there's a spider on your back."

And the first thing that comes to mind is the tunnel scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. And I wonder if it's that evil spider from the front of the cave. And now I don't care if I tip the canoe as I start flapping my arms randomly around my shoulders since I can't even really reach my back. At some point, GirlChild says the spider is gone. I can only guess that he fell into the water in the bottom of the canoe and eletrocuted himself.

South of the Border (the RIGHT way!) - Pt. 1

This is how you do South-of-the-Border the sad way.

Doing South-of-the-Border the RIGHT way involves a big dent in the bank account, but was ohhhhh so worth it. Let's get y'all back up to speed.

Freeing myself from the shackles of high school was nice and ended on a pretty cool note. I've housed a TV in my room for the whole year and it's only collected dust since math videos are either


a) lame

b) retarded

or

c) 25 years old.


Well, one of my favorite students and his circle of hooligans brought in Guitar Hero and hooked it up to that there TV. I don't know that anyone else has had such a fantastic last day. I demurred when they asked me to play. I mean really - they had every song on uber-expert-devil-hard. How would I have looked slogging through "Eye of the Tiger" on medium difficulty?


I packed up my crap and labelled all my desks in an effort to stop other teachers from swiping mine during the summer. Although I plan to do exactly that when the opportunity presents itself. No one wants to sit in my one desk abomination with the seat that tilts forward at a 45 degree angle.

Annndddd after packing up the classroom, I packed up 20 bottles of bug spray, a few bathing suits and some sunblock so we could head on down to the REAL south of the border.


Flying to Cancun was uneventful, and from there we hired a van to drive us to the town of Chetumal, just north of the Belizean border. I discovered that when poking around a town that speaks Spanish, I'm suddenly a master of Swahili. Even GirlChild knew more Spanish from Dora the Explorer - her favorite thing to say being "Ayudenme!".


We spent the night in Chetumal and visited their very excellent Museo de la Cultura Maya. Being the culturally sensitive Americans that we are, we took pictures of the kids picking the nose of a giant monolithic face. And had to read OVER and OVER again how Mayan men would pierce their wieners with stingray spines. (Wieners being our word, not theirs.)


We were picked up the next day and driven to our beautiful stay in inland Belize via these guys, who we'll highly recommend if you need to be carted around the area and I can't say enough good things about our stay at the Jungle Dome.

Here's a view from our porch. *sigh* I miss it already.


I'll end on this note. Hoping to fit in the GirlChild-Monkey-Attack and Spider-The-Size-Of-My-Fist story...next time!

Incense and Peppermint and Codeine

School ended in late June, we spent 11 glorious days in Belize and Mexico and came home so that BoyChild could fracture his foot on my watch.

My friend Gretta was distracting me with some intense homework grading scenarios while BoyChild was busy missing bars on the jungle gym. He screamed, I pulled some major muscle groups trying to heft his 85 lbs. into the car and we carted him to the ER. I'll try my best to replay that evening for you.
___________________

*arrive at the ER door and beg for wheelchair because I can't carry him any more*

GirlChild: *wail* "I wanna ride in a wheelchaiiirrrrr..." *high pitched keening*

Alice: "There are no other wheelchairs except the one for the incredibly obese."

GirlChild runs over to it but wheels in circles since she can only reach one wheel. Mean nurse tells her to stop and I think... "Do you want her wheeling in circles or screaming about wanting to be in a wheelchair?"

Babycakes arrives to pick up GirlChild right after GirlChild points out the patient with the hairy back.

I accompany BoyChild for x-rays. The techs play the game Can-Frick-Get-Behind-The-Barrier-Before-Frack-Hits-The-Button?. I predict cancer within five years for one or both.

We wait in the room, killing time by blowing up the medical gloves and playing Milk-The-Cow. Things get interesting once they give BoyChild Tylenol with Codeine for the pain.

*weep* *cry* *snicker* *laugh* *uncontrollable laughter*

BoyChild: "Penis"..."Penis wenis"...(laughs for 30 seconds)..."Penis wenis"... (laughs and almost fall off the bed)

Alice: "Every time you say that, you get one less pack of Pokemon cards."

BoyChild contemplates this for 15 seconds, stares me in the eye and yells out "Bob Evans!"

More hysterical laughter for 30 seconds followed by "Bob Evans!" This happened roughly 50 more times, each time funnier than the last.

*fart* (more laughter)

BoyChild: "Wait...it's coming." (three more farts and extended snickering)

BoyChild: "EXCUSE ME FOR ALL THE FARTS I HAVE EVER MADE!"

Nurse comes in to sit by him and asks him about the accident.

BoyChild: "I think it's here!"

Alice: "MOVE...he's gonna fart again!"

Nurse: "I'm outta here."

Discharged at 11:45 pm.

*gulp*

Time did permit during the break to work on the next Vanilla Ice production, but I felt my time was better spent honing my Rock Band drumming and guitar skillz. Watch out Tommy Lee! Or don't watch out as the case may be.


Turns out that if my 7 year old neighbor drums while GirlChild works the foot pedal and BoyChild sings while I guitar...we're not half bad. Or half-good.


This two week break held a lot of firsts for me that I'd like to share...


1) It's my first time that I housed a dead cat in my garage for 3 days. My poor old cat Mina decided to kick the bucket on the floor of my bedroom while I was reading a book. She sort of let out a little squeak and when I looked over, her tongue was hanging out of her mouth. We were sad.

We wrapped her in blankets and put her on the sofa in the garage. I guess I wanted Babycakes to have a final viewing or something.


The next day was pretty cold so we left her on the sofa. And thought about Pet Semetary.


The next day was even colder, but three days was my max since I'm already fearing that we have a cat ghost. A good friend of mine informed me of a great pact she has with her fam...if you think you're gonna die...you have to pull yourself out to the yard first. I second that emotion!


2) I snorted cayenne pepper up my nose.


I rarely cook. And by rarely, I mean that my kids made the comment the other day - "Hey! This dinner is hot!"


Anyhow...I made one of the few dishes I know how to make which involves lentils and rice and some Indian spices. I tossed in some cayenne pepper. My nose itched. I wiped my nose with the hand that contained cayenne pepper residue and snorted. It burns.


3) Redneck Headrests


Babycakes manufactured some redneck headrests so we had something to strap the DVD monitors to on the drive to Savannah. Yee Haw! Pictures of the styrofoam blocks with dowels when I can find the cable for the camera.

We successfully blended at our annual pitstop at South of the Border. I'm not sure if it was the headrests or that our minivan has lost all four hubcaps now and has a Snorlax sticker on the back windshield.


Happy New Year All!

SURVIVOR: ICE EDITION

Episodes coming (as time permits during the break)...

Dear Diary,

I can't believe it - after 15 consecutive video submissions, I was finally chosen to be on Survivor! I'm pretty sure it was getting "I 'heart' Jeff" tattooed on my left pec that did it. God, it burns. I hope the first challenge isn't swimming or the salt water will kill.

Yours,
V. Ice