Under my umbrella, ella, ella

This has been a fabulous weekend. I took a road trip to visit a friend, KL, from nursing school, and I sort of can't believe it's been over three years since we slogged our way through those dark days. She's an Ivy-League Certified Nurse Midwife now and I'm a relief charge nurse in a high acuity-high traffic ER. Oh, how far we've come since the days of barely knowing how to take a blood pressure.

We went out to a beachy little bar and had delicious cocktails Friday afternoon, then went out for sushi which now ranks in my top three restaurants of all time. Saturday was even better - a farmer's market in a gorgeous town, stopping at a roadside BBQ staffed by grouchy old men for a breakfast of chicken and baked beans, and then on to the beach for hours of sun and snark and tanning and general good times.

And here's a fun story about the beach: It was a very windy day, which is nice for keeping the flop sweat to a minimum but not so nice for keeping your belongings next to you and free of sand. There was a couple in front of us who tried valiantly to set up their flimsy little dollar store umbrella in the face of the wind. KL and I watched with amusement as they struggled and bitched at each other and grew more and more flustered. It was funny until I realized that if their umbrella took off from the wind, it would definitely make a beeline trajectory straight for us. It's not a hypothetical matter either - last summer we had a transfer from a small coastal hospital after she was impaled in the leg by a wayward beach umbrella. "I'm going to be upset if I survived four years as an ER nurse only to die within a week of quitting from a chest injury directly related to these tools," I said.

Her response? "I'm a midwife. Unless that thing impales you in the vagina you're out of luck, so you better move out of its way pretty quick."

In all, a pretty swell day. The only downside: I wasn't liberal enough with my sunscreen application, and my ass cheeks are burned like San Francisco circa 1906.