From Layovers to Overlays

Thanks for the encouraging comments on the blog below, it's nice that everyone is so concerned with my health...and I'm not talking about my sunburn. :o|

Anyway, the trip to Mexico. I was going there for my good friends from college Sandy and Daniel's wedding. It was pretty much a blur as I flew down Friday morning at the crack of dawn (awoke at 4:00, flight at 7:00) through Chicago. So that day was pretty much a waste, except that I got there at around 2:30, which left plenty of day in Mexico time :o). As I taxied to the hotel in a cute little authentic neighborhood of Puerto Vallarta - I knew I could trust Daniel and Sandy to stay away from the mega-tourist areas, which I'm sure exist there - I happened to see Daniel joining the others for lunch. I tried to get his attention, but to no avail. The hotel was around the corner, so after getting dropped off and checking in and changing, I was on my way to the beach when I ran into another couple that was there for the wedding and found out they were all meeting for lunch, which is where I'd seen Daniel. We got there in time to get our first round of cervezas and food ordered with the rest of the group.

After lunch, evening plans got started. The night's event was going to be tequila tasting at a tequila bar, but apparently the place was shuttered, so they decided to do tequila tasting, homebrew style. We went to a grocery store and bought bottle after bottle of top-shelf tequila for the evening's festivities. After returning and lounging by the pool for a while, everyone went and changed and came down to the hotel bar for the ceremonies. Jason, a fellow SLO-grad, had gone deep sea fishing that day and the hotel had fillet'd his Mahi Mahi up with butter and garlic, which was a delicious appetizer. We started going through the bottles of tequila and the socializing became very open and enjoyable. The interesting thing about taking shots of good tequila is that no matter how much I seemed to drink (which wasn't thaaaat much, really), you wouldn't get out of control or crazy drunk. Just a nice, cruise control type, so that was interesting.

After we polished off the bottles, a group of us got cabs and headed downtown. Since I'd just arrived, I felt it was my duty to encourage everyone to go out yet again, even though they'd been going out every night for the past few nights. We ended up at a sleek, cool R&B club called Hilo that was on the main strip, overlooking the ocean and with a packed sound-system and crowd. I was digging on the place, but some of the older crowd weren't so keen on the number of people, so we headed down the street to Havana, a Cuban salsa club. Still weary of embarassing myself, I did the reggae shuffle (a self-invented combo of swing and salsa) a few times but wasn't too dramatic. I was more interested watching the Mexican pro's do their thing. Very impressive!

We only stayed up until about 1:30 that night before we returned for the evening. The next day was just mellow - I had breakfast with an aunt and uncle of the groom's at a restaurant ($8 a piece for a full breakfast, OJ, and bloody mary's) before returning to the hotel and getting into my sun-gear. I spent the rest of the day basically sitting on the beach, catching up with Daniel, Sandy, and some of the others that I knew, getting towed with five others on a giant banana in the ocean, and getting charred. I mean, it was like 85 degrees out and overcast, so I figured I didn't need any coverage, but that was a mistake. After about two hours, I decided to go buy some sunscreen (since I can't take it on the airplane) and luckily I was able to bum some quality BullFrog 36 SPF Gel off someone so I didn't have to throw down $1 for a new tube for myself. And I think that stuff saved my bacon from becoming crunchy....

At night, there was the main event. We had a sunset wedding on the beach, complete with a local ceremony performed by two native Mexican tribal members that included the blowing of a conch shell, lighting some sage herbs, and the beating of a drum. It was pretty neat and quick and the bride looked great in a simple, elegant dress.

Shortly after we ate dinner at the restaurant that overlooked the ocean that they had rented half of, the salsa band they'd hired started playing and the free salsa lessons started. Now, I'm no Don Juan or Desi Arnaz when it comes to the Latin dances, but I know a couple turns and moves in salsa and so I headed out to maybe learn something. I ended up dancing with someone instead and before I knew it, the lessons were over and I was having a ball on the dance floor with the ladies. I guess gringos who can salsa are few and far in between, so I got my pick of all the old ladies to dance with ;o) . I ended up ignoring my cadillac margarita for the rest of the night and salsa'd and cha-cha'd - the dance that I consider to be my "competitive advantage" (as you know, it's worked real well :o| ). I did this for a good four hours before I was completely exhausted and drenching wet! It was a blast, though, and no headache the next morning like the rest of the guys I was hanging out with earlier ;o).

The next day was pretty much composed of packing, eating, and trying to wake the guy up that I was taking a noon o'clock cab with to the airport. He had a rough night ;o). I got home sometime around midnight pretty well rested after sleeping a lot on the plane - which of course threw me totally off balance as far as my sleep schedule. What a crazy trip!

This week has been a week of doctors. First of all, I definitely got Montezuma's Revenge and haven't been able to shake it. It's come at a terrible time, I hope I can shake it in the next week before my surgery on 11/1. On Tuesday, I went to have two cavities filled (not happy about that) when I got a nice little surprise discussion with the receptionist prior to my treatment. She wanted to schedule my "insertion" while I was waiting. I laughed at her and told her don't worry, I haven't lost any teeth yet, figuring she got her patients mixed up. Then she tells me that I'm having an "Overlay" done on one of my teeth. Uhhhh...what the hell are you talking about. She explains that one of my teeth was so bad that they have to drill a big chunk out, take a mold, have a porcelain piece created, and insert it in the hole in ten days. At this point, I'm on the cusp of swearing because no one had ever mentioned this to me before. WTF? And, thanks to my great insurance, it was only going to cost me $400 to have done. At this point I'm freaking out. So I'll go into surgery recovering from this little procedure, that sounds fun. Ummm, yea, I think I should talk to the dentist about this.

Luckily, I had to sit and fume in the dentist chair for about ten minutes before she came in. By this point I had begun thinking and speaking rationally and just wanted to find out what was going on and understand why they never mentioned this when I was in for my regular vist. They insisted that they told me but "sometimes we use words that some patients don't understand". Dude, now we're talking major tooth operation and $500. Don't you think that maybe you should explain that? She obviously can see that I have never had such a thing, why would I know what an "overlay" is? She then explained that they filed this pre-claim with my insurance as a precaution in case it was bad enough to need this procedure since they woulnd't know until they started drilling me and if it wasn't bad they could just do a normal filing. This made more sense, but I still don't know why it took them so long to tell me this. Sometimes I wonder about this doctor...

In the end, it wasn't bad and I just got a double-dosage of novocain, two and a half episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm in the awesome DVD goggles that I get to wear (the main reason why I go there in the first place), and a normal filling. But now I'm wondering if they just gave me the filling to make me stop bitching and someday my tooth is going to need a root canal or something. Sometimes I wonder if all of this dental/orth crap I'm doing is worth it if my teeth are all rotten in the end anyway....

J. Riley, oh yea and I had to go back yesterday for the other filling. Sigh. I have to go to the bathroom again...