tough act to follow

how can i post after my blogmate's tragic-comic tale of a funeral in new orleans? with the much-awaited blog-nouncement of our upcoming travels. starting on thursday, filterless.blogspot.com becomes an annoyingly self-congratulatory travel-blog about our time on the island of st. lucia. during the previous sucky work months - and you have been reading through many - we have been marking time until the best thing our jobs have afforded us so far, which is an opportunity to volunteer our services in the rural southern part of the island, in exchange for direct access to rum, sunshine, and coconut water that we hear comes in the coconut sold at roadside. it's supposedly an excellent hangover cure. which i could use right about now (another story). and what better way to kick off our travelblog? with a culturally sensitive tale about personal hygiene.

my blogmate and i had a heart-to-heart talk in which we decided that truly, the right thing to do before our departure was not to learn about the culture of the country, but to get bikini waxes. this was a new world for me, and my blogmate's only prior experience left her traumatized enough to consider first a physician's appointment requesting a valium prescription for the event. however, her leaving for the funeral in new orleans and my work schedule didn't allow that kind of time, so we opted for the more low-brow and quickly available option: crystal light and vodka.

for anyone who thinks it's a good idea to work 8 miles south of downtown on an overnight shift, then shower at work and hop in a cab downtown to meet your partner-in-crime in time to slug some 9:30 am cocktails, you might be right... except that my day instead involved not being able to find a cab at any of the three taxi stands near work, finally chasing one down and settling into a surprisingly smooth ride until the exit i needed off lake shore drive was blocked, resulting in much doubling back before dropping me off on the wrong street, finally bursting into the salon 15 minutes late. the calm and accommodating staff reassured me that i would still be able to find someone to inflict the desired pain and humility, and ushered me into a waiting room. frazzled, tired, anxious, and loaded down with bags of work books and clothes, i stepped through frosted glass doors... into a surreal world filled with women in cream terry robes and little slippers, hair in pink towels, all calmly sipping cucumber water and each raising one single perfectly shaped eyebrow at my dissheveled and rather disruptive entrance (i think they were trying to look disdainful but were too calm to pull it off) before going back to their magazines.

fear not- a lovely sixty-year-old woman with soothing accent came to fetch me for my appointment: but where was my blogmate? and WHERE was the vodka? this wasn't what i'd expected. the rest of the event details i will breeze over except to say that when you are lying half-dressed on a table while a russian woman stirs hot wax and tells you you're beautiful but that your eyebrows are a little crooked, you can be convinced to buy just about anything she suggests.

waxing over, sober, and sobered, i headed back to the waiting room to find my blogmate sitting with a half-full nalgene bottle. wordlessly, i stuck my hand out for the bottle and promptly downed a pint of breakfast booze before wishing her good morning.

st. lucia, here we come.